by Mo'ne Davis
It was right around that time Scott lost his orange ball.
Game 3: Wednesday, August 20, 7:30 p.m.: Mid-Atlantic vs. Western Region: Las Vegas, Nevada
We had reached the finals of the winner’s bracket. The winner of the game would go on to the championship and the loser would play in the semifinals.
People lined up early in the morning to get tickets for our game against Las Vegas. It rained lightly during the day, but then the sun came out. It was a little humid but there was a nice breeze.
I was gonna be the starting pitcher, but they would pull me out after thirty-five pitches so they could save me for the finals in case we made it that far. Erik would pitch after I came out. If we won this game, we would move on to the US finals. If we lost, we would play an elimination game against Chicago. The winner of that game would meet the winner of our game in the finals.
We watched Nevada’s last game online on ESPN on Coach Alex’s computer. In my last two starts, I’d thrown fourteen strikeouts and hadn’t allowed any runs in the twelve innings I’d pitched. But Vegas would be my toughest test of the season since they were a team that was used to blowing people out. In their last eight games, they had scored seventy-nine runs and had given up just two runs per game to their opponents. The team’s top three hitters—Austin Kryszczuk, Brennan Holligan, and Brad Stone—were very tough, and Austin was probably the best hitter in the whole tournament.
Our game plan included not pitching Austin anything in the middle of the plate or away—or he could make me pay for it. But we felt pretty confident since all season long I’d given up no more than two hits per inning. We talked about the idea of sometimes intentionally walking their batters. And we wanted to make them earn anything they got. No matter what happened we were not gonna show any bad body language.
There were a little more than thirty-four thousand people on hand in the stadium—more people than live in all of Williamsport, and about nine thousand more people than were at the Phillies game that day. Vegas wanted to be the away team so they could hit first and get on the board quickly.
In the first inning I was a little nervous and my pitches kept sailing kind of high.
Their first batter got a leadoff single.
Austin was batting second. I threw him a curve. As soon as the ball left my hand, I knew that I’d made a mistake. It didn’t break hard enough—it just didn’t move. Austin ripped it to right center field and the ball went all the way to the wall. He got a triple and the leadoff batter scored.
In the bottom of the first, we had two runners on base and two outs. Then Jack ripped a fly ball to right field and their fielder had to dive and make a catch. Unbelievable!
A third strike was called on Jahli. What! It seemed like the strike zone was moving around an awful lot.
Top of the second, I got one kid out then gave up a two-run home run. They were up 3–0, and my pitch count was kind of high—fifty-five—so Coach Alex brought Erik in after two and one-third innings. I had walked one, given up six hits and three runs, and struck out six batters, including Austin, Brennan, and Brad. I didn’t even think that Austin could strike out. But then I struck him out. It was one of the first games in the World Series that he didn’t hit a home run. So I was really happy after that.
We got the bases loaded and two runners on in the fourth, and two runners on base in the fifth, but we couldn’t get them in to score. Austin was on the mound that day. On top of being a great hitter, he is a pretty good pitcher. He was sharp that day.
Erik kept them really close—we were down just 3–1 going into the sixth inning. But the wheels came off in the sixth inning.
Toward the end of the game, our pitchers weren’t throwing strikes, and we walked people. Their kids started hitting us. One kid got an RBI double, Austin got an RBI single, Brandon hit a two-run homer, and we had a passed ball—when the ball gets past the catcher and the runners advance. They got five runs in the top of the last inning. We didn’t score in the bottom of the sixth. But when I came up to bat, a lot of people cheered, which was nice.
They won: 8–1.
Because I gave up Vegas’s winning run, I was charged with the loss. I didn’t get any hits either. Vegas definitely became the team to beat. For a super quick second, I wondered if the Sports Illustrated cover had cursed our team or maybe just Scott’s lost ball.
Later we found out that almost five million people watched our game on ESPN, which made it the highest-rated Little League game ever.
Game 4: Thursday, August 21: Mid-Atlantic vs. Great Lakes Region: Chicago Jackie Robinson West
On the morning of our game against Chicago, Philadelphia Phillie Ryan Howard came to the rec room and played Ping-Pong and video games with us.
There was a super, super amount of hype going into this all-elimination game—whoever lost would be out. Plus, a lot of people thought it was a big deal that the two city teams were meeting up. And maybe it was, since we were proving that kids who live in the city like baseball and, when we have good programs to play in, we can be great.
The Taney Dragons threw Erik that day, which was really smart, because when Texas played Chicago, their lefty pitcher did pretty well against the Chicago batting lineup. Eric is a lefty and throws a mean curve that can dive into the dirt.
“But before the game started, there was a rain delay,” says Zion. “Mo’ne, Eli, and Tai went to sleep in the dugout.”
In the first inning, Zion hit a double off the center-field wall. Then Jared got on base. Then Jack got a single, and drove Zion and Jared in. So we started out up 2–0, which is an okay start for us, but not great.
Then Great Lakes came back and scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning.
In the second inning, Coach Alex pulled Erik out of the game but Great Lakes scored two more runs anyhow. We didn’t get on the board again until the fourth inning, when Zion hit a two-run single. That made it 6–4.
We got another run in the fifth, when Kai hit a homer.
Except for Zion, who was a perfect two for two, our bats were pretty silent. I didn’t get any hits.
We gave up three unearned runs by errors.
We lost: 6–5.
That was it for us in the tournament.
“Some people think, ‘Aww, they didn’t win.’ But it was amazing just to get there,” says Coach Steve. “We had just one bad game.”
That night, we tried to go out to eat, but TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, and Denny’s were all packed. Only fast-food restaurants were left, so we decided to go to Taco Bell.
“You guys are from the Little League World Series, right?” the guy behind the counter said to us.
“Yeah . . .”
“Good luck,” he told us. “I hope you win it all.”
“We’re out, sir,” we told him. “We just lost.”
But even though I was disappointed, I thought about how my mom started out working at Taco Bell when she was a teenager and struggling to make it in life, and here I was back at Taco Bell on one of the most exciting days of my life.
After we ate, we went back to the dorm area.
Scott, Jahli, Zion, and I went to the rec room. We started throwing squishy balls with Drew from the West team. All of a sudden, there were, like, fifty balls, and we all started throwing them at each other. Then people started turning out the lights. The TV was off, but all the video games were lighting up, so it looked pretty cool. Then Pierce and Ed from the Chicago team walked in, and Ed got hit in the head by a ball.
After that, Zion and I went over to the Chicago team’s dorm. There were a lot of kids there—Chicago kids, the Australian kids, some West kids. Everyone was playing catch with another squishy ball. Even though we had lost a big game, it was so much fun hanging out with kids from all these other teams.
Sunday, August 24: Little League World Series US Championship: West vs. Great Lakes
On Sunday night, in the finals—after the Asia-Pacific team beat the team from Japan in the international finals—
Jackie Robinson West beat Nevada and won the Little League US World Series Championship. We were really excited for our friends. It was a big win for them. Vegas has the best hitters in the country. Earlier in the week, Nevada had even beaten Chicago, 10–1. We were disappointed for the Vegas kids, since they were also our friends. But they got to come in second, which is a very big deal.
That’s just how baseball goes.
So at the end of the Series, the Jackie Robinson kids had a 5–2 record, Vegas was 3–2, and Pearland and Mid-Atlantic both were at 2–2, but we had beaten Pearland in our head-to-head matchup.
We came in third out of seven thousand teams.
We felt pretty good about that.
The next day South Korea beat Chicago to win the entire World Series.
CHAPTER 15
MO-MENTUM
WE LEFT WILLIAMSPORT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, MONDAY, August 25. We were exhausted, and my teammates were asleep, or talking on the phones with their moms and dads, telling them where we were so their parents could meet the bus when it got back to Philly.
When we reached the city limits, a bunch of police motorcycles and cars started escorting us. Then the bus pulled up to LOVE Park, at the end of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which runs between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and City Hall, where there’s this great red sculpture, LOVE.
When we stopped, the mayor came onto the bus with a Taney hat and T-shirt on and congratulated us, and told us that they were holding a celebration for us. The plaza was pretty packed with people of all ages and races.
When we got off the bus, the police made way for us through the crowd. Everyone was cheering—I even saw two sophomores from my school. That was our first experience back home with “Taney-mania.”
After the ceremony was over, I took my braids out, dropped my stuff off at home, and went to get my hair pressed—we were taking another bus to New York later on because we had been invited to be on the Today show!
Around dinnertime, we rode the bus to New York with our families. We pulled into Times Square at about nine o’clock that night, which was pretty cool, because we got to see all the lights. If you haven’t seen the lights in Times Square before, go on the internet so you can see them. Then we checked into our hotel and went to dinner. For dessert, I had a brownie smoothie with fudge and vanilla—it was delicious!
When we went back to the hotel, everybody’s parents were telling us to go to bed, because we had to get up at four a.m. and it would still be dark outside. So I unpacked my stuff and took my shower. But when people tell me that I have to fall asleep early, I try to make myself go to sleep, but I just can’t. So I watched the VMAs—Beyoncé’s performance was on. Eventually, I fell asleep.
At the Today show, we stood outside waving to the cameras for a while. A lot of people knew who we were, and they were cheering for our team.
Then we got to meet Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. Tamron Hall took a selfie with me and I acted silly and stuck out my tongue. But everything happened so fast, I don’t remember what they asked us.
After we left the Today show, we went straight to Good Morning America. Then we went to the NBA Store to look at jerseys and things. When we came back home to Philly, I just went to sleep.
When we went back to Marian Anderson, our friends and other people were congratulating us. Also, a lot of people I didn’t know were saying, “Congratulations, good job!”
People started telling me that I was an inspiration to girls.
“I saw these two boys playing catch, and one of them said, ‘I want to be Mo’ne,’” says Squirt. “Then the other one said, ‘No, I want to be Mo’ne!’”
That Wednesday, the city held a big parade for us. We rode through downtown on a float. A lot of people came out of their jobs to cheer for us and take pictures, and we saw a lot of people that we knew.
“There were, like, a lot of people there, and I saw her on the float,” says Nahla. “And when she came off the float, her mom let me come in the gate, and I said hi to her. But the mayor was like, ‘No, no, back away from the gate. No autographs.’ And I’m like, ‘I know her, she’s my best friend!’”
All of my teammates were on the float. Erik was jumping around, doing his dance—playing the air bongos.
We drove around City Hall, then went all the way down Broad Street to FDR Park, down by the stadium, just like the Philadelphia Phillies had when they won the World Series when I was seven. Then the mayor promised to renovate five new baseball fields. We’d shown the world that city kids really do love to play baseball, and that we can be really good. A lot of parents were telling the mayor that they wanted their kids to play.
After that, all of the Taney Dragons were invited to a Phillies game to throw out the first pitch against the Washington Nationals. At first, I was kind of nervous, but after a little while that went away. All twelve Taney Dragons stood near the mound in a line, and twelve Phillies lined up at home plate, and the Dragons all threw our balls at the same time.
I threw the ball to Jonathan Papelbon, the player Sport Science said I am a lot like. He signed a baseball and gave it to me, and told me that I had a lot of talent and to use it. I also got to meet Chase Utley for the first time, which was a big deal since he is my favorite player.
We got Phillies jerseys and our pictures taken with the players.
“She was sending us all these pictures,” says Nahla. “‘I’m with Chase Utley. OMG, OMG, OMG!’”
“That was her lifelong dream,” says Abby.
Around Labor Day, I got to go to the WNBA playoffs in Minnesota. I got to sit on the Minnesota bench and I met Lindsay Whalen, Simone Edwards, and Maya Moore. I met Brittney Griner in the Phoenix locker room. That was super exciting. I was surprised to know that so many people knew who I was, and Brittney Griner was really nice to me. A lot of reporters were interested in me. The assistant coach from Minnesota said, “I haven’t seen this many cameras since we won the championship. Get out of her face and let her talk to us!”
It was pretty cool to get to talk to everybody, and somebody took a selfie with me. When I was watching the game, I realized that a lot of point guards don’t use their left hand. So I decided that I should keep using my left hand just to get better.
The next morning, I flew to Los Angeles to be on The Queen Latifah Show. Queen Latifah was one of the first successful female rappers, and she was a power forward on her high school basketball team. She is very nice, and I could tell that she was from the East Coast.
From there, a car took us to Dodger Stadium, where I was going to meet Clayton Kershaw and throw out the first pitch at the Dodgers’ game against the Washington Nationals.
I really like Los Angeles—it’s a really modern city, and a lot different from Philly, which is very old. But it took us forever to get to the stadium because the highway was packed—they say the highways are always packed there. We got off and took some side streets, but they were packed, too. When we got there, they gave me a blue-and-white Dodgers cap and a jersey to put on top of my pink-and-white-striped shirt. I also had on jeans and black-and-pink sneakers.
Then, I got to meet two of the Dodgers’ superstars: Yasiel Puig, an All-Star outfielder, and Adrian Gonzalez, who is an All Star and winner of the Gold Glove award for the league’s best fielder. Yasiel is from Cuba, and he asked me for my autograph. Then I got in a fake argument with Matt Kemp about who should get to throw out the first pitch for the game, Queen Latifah or me.
I threw out the first pitch from in front of the pitcher’s mound, but I wasn’t nervous at all.
During the game, I got to sit in Magic Johnson’s seat. He wasn’t there, but I did get to talk on the phone with him, and that was pretty cool, since he’s one of the Dodgers’ owners.
That night we took a red-eye home. When we got off the plane, my mom drove me straight to school, since I had missed the first day. When the head of the middle school, Miss Sakovics, brought me out into the hall, everyone just came over to hug me.
/> A few moments later Nahla walked by with her head down.
“Hi, Nahla,” I said.
“I thought it was just a random person,” says Nahla. “Then I turned around to see who it was. I couldn’t believe it was her because she had just texted me that she wasn’t coming back till the next week. I put my hand over my mouth and was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’”
Actually, she looked like she had just seen Jesus.
“I ran down the hallway yelling, ‘Mo’ne’s back! Mo’ne’s back!’” she says.
I was happy to see my friends and go back to being regular Mo’ne. Even though they were congratulating me, at the same time my friends were treating me normal. Someone told me that Dr. Sands had held an assembly and told everyone just to act cool and let things be as normal as possible.
After school, I went to soccer practice in my street clothes, and the team took a soccer selfie with a caption that said, Mo’ne joins the soccer team.
That Friday, Scott and I went to a WNBA luncheon in New York. We took the train to the city, and got to sit at the same table as the commissioner and meet Skylar Diggins, Becky Hammon, and Swin Cash.
Afterward, we went to the MLB Fan Cave and got vials of dirt from Dodger Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, and the stadiums of the Giants, the Angels, the Twins, the Pirates, and the Nationals. I keep mine in my baseball bag.
While we were there, we met Jackie Robinson’s daughter, Miss Sharon. And Spike Lee turned out to be there, so we met him, too.
A few days later, on September 8, Scott and I were on The Tonight Show. When we were sitting in the greenroom—the room that they put you in before they bring you onto the stage—I met the Roots, the hip-hop group from South Philly that is the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
One of the Roots kept calling everyone “nephew.”
I was sitting on a sofa, and Jimmy Fallon walked in. But he walked right by me, straight over to Scott, and said, “Oh, Mo’ne, you cut your hair!”