By Staff
Pitcher Katie Brownell, 11, is the only girl in her upstate New York Little League.
An All-Star since age 9, she's one of the best baseball players, boy or girl, in Oakfield, Elba and Pembroke, the farm towns between Buffalo and Rochester.
May 14 Katie not only pitched a perfect game, she struck out everybody. She yielded no more than two balls to any batter.
In her third season, she also hit .714 through her Dodgers' first three games.
Her pitching mowed down Yankees in an 11-0 shutout before a stunned crowd of 100 parents and friends in Oakfield, a community of 3,200 with one traffic light in the heart of town.
Katie's achievement first came to light Wednesday in a local newspaper article.
By afternoon, when she came home from sixth-grade classes, the calls her mom, Denise Bischoff, was fielding were coming from New York City newspapers and the "Today" show.
To keep it in perspective, it is Little League, where players are at widely varying stages of physical development.
At 5-foot-8, Katie towers over all of her male teammates.
But enjoy it as a rare achievement, nonetheless.
The common definition of a perfect game is retiring every batter, whether they strike out or hit a ball that results in an out.
Striking out every batter is just icing on the cake.