Little League baseball pioneer encourages other girls to 'do what you love'

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, PA – When Victoria Brucker came here to play in the 1989 Little League World Series, she had to stay at a hotel with her parents. There weren’t dorm rooms for girls, she says.

“I had to drive in every morning before the boys even got up,” she says, “and then, I stayed until really late at night. The media was all over the place. Back then you don't think about it. You thought you should have done better, but, you know, looking at it back now, it was like, ‘Gosh, no wonder.’ ”

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Brucker, now Victoria Ruelas, became the second girl to play, and the first to get a hit and to pitch here in 1989 with Eastview Little League of San Pedro, California. She had never been on a plane before and, like most of her team, had never left California.

She remembers flying out late, after beating Hawaii in regional play, and getting in early the next morning.

“We were pretty much up that whole day,” she tells USA TODAY Sports, “and had practice that day and had to play the following day. You look back at it now, like, ‘Gosh, how did we even do that? We won that first game but then it had to have caught up to us.”

Before Carsynn Meyer and Kinley Rasmus shined at this year’s Little League World Series as the 25th and 26th girls to play in the event, Ruelas helped lead her team to the semifinals against Trumbull, Connecticut. The tournament, which now has 20 teams, was single-elimination and had eight teams (four U.S., four international).

San Pedro lost to Trumbull in what was known as the “semifinals,” though it was essentially the de facto American championship. Meyer, of (Henderson) Nevada, was set to become the first American girl to play in the championship game on Sunday, Aug. 30, as her team faces Curaçao.

“Make sure you put out a shoutout to Carsynn and tell her, ‘Great job because that's the farthest any girl's gone, of course.’ Now it's official,” Ruelas says. “That’s awesome. We wish we could move back and replay it. I remember being just so tired.”

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Ruelas was speaking to us via phone from Hawaii, where she now works as a high school science teacher and lives with her husband, Manuel. They met in high school and have raised three kids as his military career has taken them to a variety of places.

She has taken the game with her. She played on the U.S. women’s national team when it wasn’t sanctioned by USA baseball and was drafted to play professional softball.

At 49, she tries to play twice a year in women’s tournaments, which she says are held in Florida and the Washington, D.C., area.

“Most of the teams nowadays are younger,” she says. “Us older ones have to find each other. Try to scrap together some teams, but if we want to have fun and go out and do the stuff we like to do, that's what we gotta do.”

At tryouts for the new Women’s Professional Baseball League, she played catch with 2014 Little League World Series darling Mo’ne Davis.

“Just small talk,” Ruelas says, laughing. “I mean, she’s my daughter's age. Probably not as much in common besides the playing baseball things.”

During the Little League World Series, Davis had 14 strikeouts and allowed three earned runs in 8⅓ innings. Ruelas pitched in the consolation game against Venezuela.

“They were so good,” she says. “They kicked our butt. I think I gave up like four runs or something like that and then I was taken out. That was the first time I ever got hit by a pitch and then the opposite team comes up to shake your hand. I thought that was kind of funny and different.”

She had the one hit, but in the previous Western regionals leading up to Williamsport, she recalls hitting four home runs. She had played softball at 8 but switched to baseball at 9.

“I was always taller and stronger, I guess, than the other girls so it wasn't challenging for me,” she says. “I said when we were passing the (baseball) field, ‘Can I play there?’ My mom grew up in the time where women had to break through the glass ceiling, and she instilled to me that you could do whatever you wanted to do.

“And so when I asked her, she said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ ”

Ruelas said she played softball at 13 but played baseball for another two seasons on the bigger field. She only stuck with softball because it was a way to pay for college. She played for San Jose State for three years.

She has followed the success of Meyer and Rasmus from Facebook. She views their baseball futures as an open book.

“I still play, so I encourage ’em to play,” she says. “If you love the game, do what you love to do. If you have to do something else, fine, but don't forget about your true passion. If it's your true passion, do what you want. At least don't drop it completely. Go back and have fun, too. There's always some women's tournaments out there where they could join a team like myself.

“I mean if they love softball, that's different, but if they want to play baseball they shouldn't have to be pushed to softball.”

She recalls having twins on one Little League team and another girl on another, but that was it. The next two years, she says, she was the only one there. Meyer told USA TODAY Sports that most of the time, she has been the only girl in Little League.

Ruelas felt she had the choice of what to play, and she thinks we need to find out how many girls want to as well. That way, we give more of them a chance to get to the Little League World Series.

“I know that there's a lot of girls who said, ‘I gotta play softball,’ after just maybe nine and 10 years old,” she says. “And it's kind of sad.

“It's just crazy how it's just still only 26 now. And every time it's like starting all over. ‘Oh, there's another girl.’ At 11 and 12, at least at that age we're competitive. We're in the same boat, you know? The boys haven't developed and gotten super strong yet, and so there should be more girls.”

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He played baseball in high school, rowed in college and spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents to a college and high school baseball player. His Coach Steve column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Little League baseball pioneer encourages other girls to 'do what you love'

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