Badass Woman Of The Week: Mo'ne Davis

With a 70-mile-an-hour fastball, Little League female baseball player Mo’ne Davis (who, yes, “throws like a girl”) shot up to the big leagues and became a role model for young kids around the globe. The 14 year old Philadelphia, Pennsylvania native has landed many “firsts” in the Little League World Series history. She was the first girl to pitch a winning game, the first pitcher to pitch a shutout, and the first African American girl to play. She is also the first Little League baseball player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. But it's not just her athletics and achievements that make Davis a remarkable girl. She has proved to be a true idol for young girls- one that is not only talented, but compassionate, wise and spirited.

Since playing in the Little League World Series in 2014, Davis has accumulated many awards, achievements and acknowledgments. 

• Was named one of ESPNW's Impact 25
• Awarded Sports Illustrated Kids' "Sports Kid Of the Year" for 2014
• Was named one of "The 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014" by Time magazine. 
• Was featured in Marie Claire magazine's "The 8 Greatest Moments for Women in Sports”
• Appeared on "The Tonight Show"
• Got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch of game 4 of the MLB World Series at AT&T Park in San Francisco in 2014
• Was featured in Harper's Bazaar "Women Who Dare"
• Starred in the NBA All Star Celebrity Game.  
• Was featured in Teen Vogue 
• Donated her jersey to the Baseball Hall of Fame-accompanied by teammates from the Anderson Monarchs and Mamie Johnson, one of the three women to play in Negro league baseball.

Davis even had a 16-minute documentary made about her- directed by Spike Lee and titled “I Throw Like a Girl”.

Speaking of compassionate, wise and spirited-

In March of this year, Bloomsburg University first baseman Joey Casselberry was removed from the team after tweeting "Disney is making a movie about Mo'ne Davis? WHAT A JOKE. That slut got rocked by Nevada."

Evident by her compassion and wisdom, Davis reached out to the president of Bloomsburg University and asked him to reinstate the baseball player, telling ESPN "Everyone makes mistakes…everyone deserves a second chance…it hurt on my part, but he hurt even more. If it was me, I would want to take that back. I know how hard he's worked. Why not give him a second chance?"

Davis and her baseball team, the Anderson Monarchs, are now touring several locations significant to the Civil Rights movement in honor of Jackie Robinson, the Negro Leagues, and the Civil Rights Movement. They will visit 19 cities, including Memphis, Atlanta, Little Rock, Ark., and New York City. The team will be visiting Birmingham on Wednesday June 24th before heading to Montgomery and Selma to visit the cities’ renowned Civil Rights monuments and museums. While in Birmingham, the Monarchs will visit the 16th St. Baptist Church, where four black girls were murdered in a 1963 Klu Klux Klan bombing—three of the four girls were the same age as the members of the team are now.

“I do feel really bad, because they could have changed the world,” Davis told the New York Times, “And for them to lose their lives at such a young age? You never know what they could have done.”

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Labels: Women