Columnist Steve Carp: Looking for a league of their own

Steve Carp

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 | 11:32 a.m.

AS YOU GROW UP, you dream of what the future's going to be like.

Many youngsters dream of being pro athletes. They fantasize being Michael Jordan, hitting that game-winning shot. Or Jerry Rice, catching that last-second touchdown. And now, some dream of being Tiger Woods, hitting a golf ball a zillion yards and earning a zillion dollars.

Chris Wellendorf was that youngster. Except she had to wait until she was 31 to live out her childhood fantasy of playing baseball.

Wellendorf, an outfielder whose baseball experience consists of a few rounds in the batting cages, decided to pursue her dream last weekend in California, where a six-team women's professional baseball league is being organized.

Ladies League Baseball will have franchises in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco, San Jose, Phoenix and a yet-to-be-determined location in California. The idea of being paid $1,000 a month plus per diem and expenses when she would have played for free compelled Wellendorf to drive from Las Vegas and take her shot.

"I'm at an age where it's now or never," said Wellendorf, who works in the SUN's computer systems department. "I'd always dreamed about playing baseball. I love the game.

"When I was out there on the field, you could see the sparkle in everyone's eyes," she said. "It was the same. Everyone's so excited."

Approximately 75 players attended the tryout. For someone who managed to cram in a couple of days of shagging flies, fielding grounders and hitting live pitching from a friend, Wellendorf believes she presented herself well.

"I got 10 pitches to hit and I hit five into the outfield," said Wellendorf, who has played fast-pitch softball. "Hitting a baseball's a matter of timing. It's just something you have to adjust to. But fielding, I didn't have any trouble. A baseball carries further so you have to compensate for that, but I was able to make the catches and hit the cutoff man with the throws.

"I think I've got a good shot. I don't think I could've played any better, especially with only two days to prepare."

When Wellendorf was an 8-year-old growing up in Canada, girls weren't allowed to play Little League. When her family moved to the United States it took time to get settled, and her baseball career took a back seat.

She has been an active slow-pitch softball player for 13 years. But it wasn't until she came across a wire service story about Ladies League Baseball and the open tryouts that her flame was rekindled.

"I owed it to myself to go and try out," she said. "You hate to say you had a chance (to play) and you never took advantage of it."

So Wellendorf took her shot. Now, she awaits her fate. She's expecting to hear something by the end of the week. If she survived the cut, she has a tough decision to make.

But that's one decision she won't mind wrestling with. At least Wellendorf's dream may become reality. She and her fellow ballplayers would have "A League of Their Own."