When it comes to challenges, Horwitz keeps ball in play

Being the underdog is nothing new. Lindsay Horwitz is used to it.

Most girls who play baseball have to be.

Horwitz, who graduated from Warren High School in May, beat the odds a few years ago when she earned a spot in the pitching rotation for the freshman baseball team at the school.

She was the only girl on that team. The year before, she had won a spot on an eighth-grade boys travel team.

"It was kind of cool to strike out guys," Horwitz said. "I probably got in their heads a little bit, being a girl out there pitching. Plus, I have a lot of pitches, so that threw them off a little bit, too."

Horwitz is hoping to upset the apple cart again next weekend when she participates in a regional tryout for the U.S. Women's National Baseball Team at Madison Meadow Park in Lombard.

It's her second tryout for the team, and again she's playing the underdog role.

Two years ago, Horwitz was a long shot, having just discovered the very existence of a women's national baseball team that competes in international tournaments, including the biennial World Cup.

After not making the cut for the 2008 World Cup team, Horwitz is hoping to earn a spot on the 2010 team headed to Venezuela in August.

This time she's older, more savvy and better prepared for the tryouts. Still, she says it's an uphill climb.

The challenge this year is to unseat an incumbent.

Horwitz, who also plays second base and is trying out at that position, will be up against the second baseman who started on the 2006 and 2008 World Cup teams, Malaika Underwood of California.

"I wish her the best of luck. I really do," Horwitz said. "But I want to beat her so bad. I'm really ready to compete against her. It killed me not to make the team last time (in 2008). I had worked so hard and I had gotten so close."

If Horwitz makes the cut next weekend in Lombard, she'll go to a weeklong tryout in North Carolina at the beginning of August. From that pool, 18 players will be selected for the national team, which will compete in Venezuela Aug. 10-22.

"How important is this to me? At this point, it's at the very top," Horwitz said. "It would be nice to see all my hard work over the years pay off with a spot on this team. I've been playing baseball since I was 4, showing that girls can play baseball just like guys."

Horwitz started off like many boys - and girls - playing T-ball. She then continued into Little League.

A few years later, when most girls started making the switch to softball, Horwitz stayed in baseball.

"I had coaches telling my dad (Gary), 'She needs to switch over (to softball), she needs to switch over.' But I didn't want to. I enjoyed baseball and I felt like if I could compete with the boys, why should I switch over?"

Horwitz continued to play with the boys until about three years ago, when she discovered the Chicago Pioneers, a newly formed all-girls baseball team. The Pioneers feature players from all over the country and travel from coast to coast playing in baseball tournaments.

Sometimes, the Pioneers face off against boys teams.

"We actually started off playing in an all-boys travel league," Horwitz said. "Now we play against a lot of girls teams because there are more of them. The Pioneers has been great because it helps young girls know that they can play baseball and that it's OK to play baseball."

Horwitz, knowing her options for baseball would be limited at the collegiate level, eventually joined the softball team at Warren. Not surprisingly, she did so well that she will play for the softball team at Heidelberg University in Ohio next spring.

"At one point in my life I was like, 'I will never play softball,' just because I loved baseball so much," Horwitz said. "But I really like softball, too, and I'm glad I'm going to keep playing in college."

But make no mistake. Horwitz isn't giving up baseball.

"I think it will be fun to play both," she said.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com