Being a girl hasn’t gotten in the way of 15-year-old Lexi Fenske when it comes to playing baseball.
Fenske is a rookie pitcher for the Parkland Expos Midget AAA baseball team. When the team is on the field, Fenske stands out - not only for being a fierce pitcher, but also because she’s the only female on the team. She’s also the only female in the entire Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League.
“I started playing competitive baseball when I was four or five,” Fenske said. “I played all the way up and I’ve always played on guys’ teams.” She said she’s always played triple-A, but this is her first year in the Midget age group.
Fenske said at this point, she’s just used to it. The toughest challenge she’s faced over the years as a female playing on male-dominant teams was this year when she came to the Expos.
“All the way up, I’ve always played in Melville. So I’ve always gone to school with the guys,” Fenske explained. Since the Expos are a team mixed of Yorkton, Melville and Parkland-area athletes, there were some unfamiliar faces playing with her.
“But at the same time, once you get to know them, they’re great guys and great people,” she said about her Expo teammates.
Those teammates don’t hesitate to stick up for Fenske whenever opposing teams have something to say.
Fenske said she gets those reactions all the time when she steps up to the mound.
“You hear little things from the other dugout like ‘there’s a girl pitching.’ But once you start throwing, and maybe even strike a couple out, then they’re like ‘oh, she can throw.’”
But the Expos always come to her defense.
“They don’t let them get away with anything,” she said.
Expos’ head coach Mark Jacobs said he had absolutely no hesitation in adding Fenske to his roster.
“Anyone that can pitch and is capable, which she definitely is, there’s no second thought. If she’s capable, I don’t care if it’s a boy, girl, whatever,” said Jacobs.
“[Lexi] contacted us saying she wanted to have a go at tryouts, and we said sure. We knew she was a pitcher coming in, so we thought if she shows us something then we’re going to take her because we need pitchers at this level,” he said.
Jacobs added that Fenske is an asset to the team because she seems to be able to pitch every day if they need her to. When the team plays four games in two days, they need that depth on the bench.
Fenske said her strength as a pitcher is her hand.
“I’m pretty good at throwing it where it needs to be. And I can change up the speeds pretty well,” she said.
With the addition of the Pink Panthers, an all-girl rookie baseball team, to Yorkton Minor Baseball last year, the future is bright for more female baseball players just like Fenske.
She said if teams like that had been around when she was younger, she would have enjoyed getting to play all-girl. But for her, the only other option was all-girl softball.
“The only reason I didn’t go to girls softball was because I didn’t want to give up pitching,” said Fenske.
“If I was younger and growing up with a girls baseball team around, I would have played on that team and it would have been cool to play all-girl right off the bat,” she added.
