A League of HER own

Chelsea Baker

E:60 Blog Entry

Monday, July 12^th

A League of HER own

Chelsea Baker is a thirteen year old female little league pitcher. She’s as dominant as any little league pitcher in the country.

In the last four years Chelsea has NOT LOST an official sanctioned little league game.

Zero.

Undefeated.

Perfect.

Oh yeah, and she pitched TWO perfect games in the last two years, one of them was in an all-star game…all against BOYS.

Can you remember when you played little league and there was that one pitcher that threw harder than everyone? You grabbed a batting helmet, walked to the batter’s box and saw the hype in your area. I remember the first time I faced Corey Meyers. He was the best little league pitcher in my area along with former Villanova pitcher Casey Geib. I vividly recall not seeing the pitch, but hearing the sizzle of the ball go by. I trembled, stood there waiting for the next pitch. I shook, took strike two, strike three. I sat down and dreaded going back up to face Meyers. Call me a wimp, but I was more afraid of getting hit than swinging the bat and hitting the ball. Luckily, I was on Geib’s team, Harmony and Sons. I don’t really remember facing him, but if I did, I guarantee I struck out.

(If you are wondering the scouting report on my little league career it wasn’t stellar. I made one year of all-stars as a replacement player. You might as well call me a little league scab. I hit a few home runs that year, and probably broke the record for most errors at third base.)

The point of my story is that Chelsea Baker is that pitcher, except she is in a league far better than my little league in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. She is playing against boys that look like full grown men in Plant City, Florida, a state where baseball players seem to be born and bred.

Chelsea’s story is unique in that she is a girl completely superior to her boy counterparts in little league baseball. She isn’t just a good player; she dominates…and throws a knuckleball!

Our E:60 cameras filmed Chelsea for four days in June, and I personally witnessed her pitch against 16 batters. She walked one. Three players grounded out, (one into a double play), and she struck out twelve boys. As I sat in the stands an opponent’s mother explained the situation, “they were all intimidated before they ever got in the batter’s box.” It was seriously like watching a late 1980s Mike Tyson fight. One young spectator had built her up, saying to our E:60 cameras, “She throws a 65 mile per hour knuckle ball.” He was close…she throws her knuckle in the low fifties, but her knuckle ball is legit. We also filmed in Hinsdale, Massachusetts at former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette’s Sports Academy.  I witnessed the best knuckleball I have ever seen live in my life. She struck a boy out after throwing two fastballs right past him and completed the K with a knuckle curve that would buckle the knees on any hitter.

Duquette told me after watching her pitch, “Chelsea has a good delivery, and I saw that she throws down hill. I also say that she has good life on her fast ball and she’s a good competitor.”

The story has its parallels with a successful movie from 1992. A League of Their Own starring Tom Hanks, Madonna and Geena Davis among others. It was a movie about the all American girls professional baseball league in the 1940s. Geena Davis played the best player on the team, her fictional character’s name was Dottie Hinson. My initial thought for a narrator was Hanks…two-time Oscar winner.  I thought about it, even made a call to Hanks agent, but after further review, it was obvious who the perfect fit was for voicing this E:60 story…Geena Davis.  She is classy, successful and has the perfect female voice to narrate Chelsea’s tale.

Today, Geena recorded her voice in a production facility in California and narrated Chelsea’s story. The story should be a special one because of Geena’s involvement and we are all grateful to have her be a part of the E:60 summer premiere.

Geena arrived at the production facility in California around 4:30 eastern today. She was cordial and voiced our story as a true professional. We sent her the script in the morning for her to review prior to the tracking session. She read the script with eloquence.  I directed her by speakerphone and she was very receptive. She respected me in her style and approach. It didn’t take long for Geena to get the voice down for our story and after just a few minutes, she nailed it.

Obviously, actors and actresses are very talented, and Geena was similar to another actor I directed years ago, the star of 24 Kiefer Sutherland. Our ESPN Super Bowl coverage needed a voice to open the show and Kiefer, who was a complete class act, voiced our open. He read it dramatic, slow, fast and punchy. He gave us options. Kiefer liked to read the script three times through, then get feedback from myself and a production assistant who produced the tease, Mike Hughes.

After our voice over session, Geena and I spoke for a few minutes. She told me that she is completely impressed with Chelsea and “couldn’t believe a young girl could throw a knuckleball.”

Chelsea Baker’s story is compelling. I am glad Rod and Missy Mason and the entire family chose E:60 to tell her journey.  The story airs July 20^th in the E:60 summer season premiere and includes some unreal super slow motion shots. Check it out.

Ben Houser is a Senior Producer for ESPN’s E:60.

Lake it Easy

Submitted by Ben Houser
May 10, 2010

When I first saw the tattoo on Nate Winters’ left shoulder, I thought it read “Lake it Easy.” It was unique, and had the date “8-05-08” underneath it.

“Cool Tattoo,” I said to Nate as he was riding in to his dock on his jet ski at his Winter Park, Florida home.



“Thanks,” he responded. “On my 17th birthday, my friend and I got tattoos of our favorite sayings on our arms, his saying, ‘How are you doing?’ and mine being, ‘Take it Easy.’ I just got ‘Take it Easy’ because I’m an easy going guy. It’s just something that I like to live by and I got the date under my leg,” Nate continued. “I don’t know, now people kind of see mine as, oh, that’s cool, that’s something meaningful. They see Adam’s tattoo and think ‘you are an idiot’. Why did you get a tattoo of “How are you doing?” on your arm?”



It was just a couple weeks ago that I learned about Nate’s story when a colleague, Matt Mccormick, read a story on him and passed it along through our E:60 management staff. Upon reading Nate’s story, it was a no brainer for E:60.



I flew to Orlando on Friday April 23rd and was ready to see the local celebrity pitch. Around 4 pm, Nate pulled into the baseball field parking lot in his SUV.



“You must be Ben,” he said to me through the window. I had spoken with his father, Dr. Tom Winters on multiple occasions before I arrived in Florida with E:60 cameras.



It was the beginning of multiple meetings between the two of us that has blossomed into a deep respect and friendship. Over the next couple weeks, myself and our cameras would follow Nate to school, wake him up at sunrise, and take him back to the helipad at the hospital where his life was saved.



Nate stepped out of the car, jersey in hand, focused on the game that night against Lake Howell.

I asked him if we could film him putting on his pitching leg and Nate agreed. It is an interesting process. I have never seen someone pick up a leg, take one leg off and put another leg on. This has become Nate Winters’ routine. He holds up his walking leg and explains the difference of why he has two legs with distinct purposes.



“This leg right here is a hydraulic leg and I can throw on it but it will give out on me and that’s what I was using for awhile and it gave out on me like two or three times,” said Nate. “I ended up hurting my ankle and I couldn’t throw. The leg I have right here is called an XT-9 and it’s made for wakeboarding and skiing and sports like that. It has a built in spring so when I bend it doesn’t give out it, actually like pushes back on me and throws me up the other way which is great for pitching.”

The pitching leg, as he calls it, has been crucial to his success. Nate threw in the seventy mile per hour range before a tragic boating accident cut off his left leg and much of his right ankle and achilles in August of 2008. If you can believe it, now he can throw a fastball in the eighties..



It’s now three hours to game time. Nate gets ready and heads out to stretch and work out his arms. I have planned comprehensive coverage of Nate’s second varsity start since his accident. His miraculous return to the mound a few weeks earlier was a success, but Nate didn’t get the victory. He was still looking for win number one on one leg.

I have a JIB camera, a large camera you see at major sporting events that can pan over a crowd that is placed down the 3rd baseline right next to the dugout. I have another photographer, Phil Iglesias, one of the best in the business, shooting all super slow motion material of Nate on the mound. I also have a third camera shooting the entire game in 24 frames, the standard for ESPN features. I didn’t know if I would get another opportunity to document Nate pitching. This was the final regular season game for Winter Park High School. It turns out they would lose their first playoff game. It was a wise decision to capture the game with multiple cameras and I was supported by E:60 management. This is the only game we film of Nate in HD.



The crowd is very large, around five hundred spectators. Virtually the entire audience is there for the same reason as me, to see Nate Winters pitch. Multiple local athletes, including former New York Yankees pitcher, Dennis Rasmussen, who won 91 major league games, is in attendance.



“It’s why all of us were here,” said Rasmussen. “We all knew he was going to be pitching tonight and why all of you are here and all of the support he’s gotten. To see Nate before the accident he had outstanding ability and was looked at by many colleges and was kind of on their radar. Now, all of sudden to have that accident and to set him back, but knowing his determination he was not going to be denied he was going to get back, get back on the mound and here he is and that’s incredibly inspiring for all of us.”



I thought that our E:60 cameras would make the seventeen year old junior nervous. Well, I was almost correct. It was his Winter Park teammates who were nervous. They committed three errors in the first few innings of the game. Before I knew it, Nate and his Winter Park team were down 4-0.



“I was just like how is this happening, like you’ve got to pick it up. Then all of my team mates were like, come on man, you’ve got to pick it up, you’ve got it, you’ve got it,” Nate told me after the game.



His team rallied, and exploded with eleven runs the rest of the way. In the 6th inning, when Nate was pitching to his final batter of the game, (Head Coach Bob King, made us aware he had one more batter). I spoke to the umpire at home plate. I wanted to make sure he was alright with us moving our JIB in a different better position to capture Nate walking off the field. The umpire obliged and allowed us to put our camera down the third baseline.



Nate got his final batter to ground out to second base. Head coach Bob King jogged out to the mound.



“Everybody congratulated him, and then when he walked off,” said King. “I still have a vision of him tipping his cap once again, and everybody out of the dugout meeting him to a standing ovation and I just think – Nate’s back.”



As Nate is walking off the field, he says he was concentrating on walking so he wouldn’t fall. “That would be embarrassing!” Nate didn’t fall, and all three of our cameras shot him as he walked into the dugout.



Nate got the win. He talked to us after the game saying, “My first win with one leg, it’s a pretty big accomplishment to me.” I have had the pleasure of witnessing in person Adrian Peterson’s 296 yard rushing game and Mets outfielder Endy Chavez’s epic catch in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. Nate Winters’ moment is in the same class and in some ways more powerful.

On one of our cameras Nate can be heard saying, “I want to go take my leg off.”



It’s not a typical phrase you hear after a pitcher leaves the game, but then again Nate Winters isn’t your typical pitcher.

He is much more.



Ben Houser is a Senior Producer for E:60. Matt McCormick edited the video feature that will air on Tuesday night at 7 eastern on ESPN’s E:60.