When we say ‘Sports Illustrated’ to you, your mind might instantaneously conjure images of Kate Upton wearing string bikinis, posing against a scorching hot sun from a beautiful beach. However, the magazine has redefined itself by featuring a 13-year-old girl on its front cover. And she’s not idly posing about in a swimsuit – that would be so many levels of gross – she’s actually throwing a game-winning pitch out, because Mo’Ne Davis is a teen baseball sensation.
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The photo of the Philadelphia girl throwing a 70mph ball, which won the Little League World Series game for her team, Mid-Atlantic, is there to illustrate – get it? – just how much she’s captivated America’s hearts. Accompanied with the headline ‘Mo’Ne – Remember Her Name (As If We Could Ever Forget)’, she is just one of two girls in the Little League, reports MailOnline. In the 40 years since Little League – which is big business in the US, with networks paying $60m for filming rights until 2022 – started there have only been 16 previous female players to make it to the Little League’s World Series (it’s not played across the world, that’s just America being bolshy, FYI).
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The attention Mo’Ne’s garnered isn’t just because she’s a girl, though. ‘Mo'ne is just a special talent,’ said Debra Brady, her coach at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy.
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‘She’s a phenomenal pitcher, but I think her best sport is basketball. In a year or so, she will be doing the same unbelievable things in basketball. The first couple of games I coached her, she was head and shoulders above any kid I’ve ever coached at that age level.’
Brings a very new meaning to the phrase ‘playing like a girl’, doesn’t it?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.