Learning to Throw Like a Girl

In this week’s issue, Ben McGrath writes about the New York/New Jersey Comets, one of the metro area’s newest professional sports teams. The Comets are one of four teams in National Pro Fastpitch, a women’s professional softball league, and while their début season hasn’t always been marked by success on the field, the players bring a real sense of purpose to their daily rituals on the diamond. Brittany McKinney, a Comets catcher, notes, “We’re role models for the younger girls who want to go pro; doing what we do on the field is just so much bigger than ourselves.”