Thirty minutes before the game Lisa Pugh is already on the field, loosening up with a friendly game of catch, the ball making a loud whack in the mitt of her teammate. The other players sneak a glance. Pugh stretches her legs and arms, and when the umpire lets the players take the field she trots out to shortstop, arriving just in time to scoop up a practice grounder. It’s 9 AM on Sunday–an ungodly hour for many of the players–and the women’s softball league at Lincoln Park is about to start another round of games.
Pugh was born and raised in Cabrini-Green, one of a family of ten. “We lived in the projects, in a high-rise on Division,” she says. “One of my sisters was a good tumbler–she tumbled with Jesse White. But I was the only one who stuck at sports.”
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By the time she was ten Pugh was playing baseball with the neighborhood boys. “We grew up playing baseball–each building at Cabrini had its own team,” she says. “I don’t know why I loved playing ball so much. I just did. The boys would be playing strike ’em out against the wall, and I’d say, ‘Hey, let me play.’ I was always the only girl who played. They might give me a hard time every now and then, call me a tomboy or something. But it was nothing too bad. What they did is they used me to tease the other boys. I’d strike a kid out, and they’d say, ‘Ooo, you got struck out by a girl.’”
Sometime in the late 80s she started playing on other teams. “I was playing for a law-firm team in a Grant Park league,” she says. “I was a ringer. That’s where I met Liz [Menor]. She was also a ringer on that team. I think all the good players were ringers.”
The umpire, a tall man in shorts, is a good-natured ham. “Here we go, players,” he calls out. “Balls in–batter up!”
“Come on, ponytail,” a fan shouts. “Wait for your pitch.”
The ball rises on an even arc toward center field. The center fielder steps in, then realizes her mistake. The ball lands 20 feet behind her. Pugh races around the bases–a three-run homer.
