April 25, 2007
Boston Herald:
"This girl shows she can play: Aussie makes college team"

This article is reprinted with permission of the Boston Herald. It ran on April 25, 2007.
Learn more about the Boston Herald by clicking here.
By Maureen Mullen
Original article link

Freddy Fitzgerald is used to being a little different from fellow students. That Fitzgerald is also the only female on the Daniel Webster College baseball team is fast becoming a minor detail.

“I’m very fortunate that my teammates are so supportive,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m just one of the guys really.”

Fitzgerald, a 22-year-old freshman from Australia, is the first female collegiate baseball player in New England history, and just the fifth on NCAA records nationally, said Ken Belbin, Daniel Webster’s sports information director.

Fitzgerald, whose given name is Christal but goes by the nickname Freddy, began playing ball at 15, and left her home in Sydney to come to the United States in 2005 and play in the North American Women’s Baseball League, then based in Lynn, now in Nashua, N.H.

Jim Cardello, one of the league’s coaches, also was the head coach at Daniel Webster.

“She told me she wanted to stay and go to college in the states,” Cardello said. “Half-jokingly I said, ‘Well, why don’t you stay and go to Daniel Webster and come out for the team?’ And she half-jokingly said, ‘Do you think I can play?’ We started looking into it together, applied to the school, got accepted, and then it took off from there.

“From a coaching standpoint you look at a player and say, ‘OK, what are their instincts?’ And then you look at their ability level and how it all fits onto a team. Her baseball instincts are as good as any player I’ve ever coached, and I’ve been coaching at the college level for about 12 years.”

The initial reactions from her teammates were, as could be expected, mixed. But, after seeing her play, they became unified.

“It’s always been very clear on our team if you perform well you’re going to get a chance to play,” said Eagles captain Casey Allan. “I don’t think she’s played just because she’s a female. She’s played because she’s deserving.”

A pitcher-second baseman, Fitzgerald has been used sparingly, appearing in 16 of the team’s 29 games with five starts. In four mound appearances, with one start, she is 0-1 with a 9.35 ERA. At the plate, she is hitting .188, with four RBI, five walks, four strikeouts and one hit by pitch.

One significant HBP.

In a spring tournament in Florida against Curry, Daniel Webster was on the wrong end of a blowout.

“She got up against one of their better pitchers,” Cardello said. “The first pitch was a ball. The second pitch she took a really nice swing and fouled it off. Then all of a sudden, the catcher went out to the pitcher and the next pitch hit her squarely in the back. There was no doubt. That pitch didn’t slip. But she went down to first base, took her lead.

“The next batter hit a ground ball to second base. She slid in and took out the shortstop to break up a double play, so much so that the shortstop had a couple of words for her. It was kind of a respect thing. She took him out pretty good, and then our team thought it was great.”

That was when Fitzgerald knew she was part of the team.

“I went hard at the shortstop and the guys respected that because I stuck up for myself,” she said. “But other than that, the guys have always been like, ‘Hey, that’s Freddy and she’s part of our team.’ ”