Slugger takes swing in Little League World Series
12-year-old valued chance to compete in national finals of home run derby, but is eager to return home
Her 15 minutes of fame may last a few more years, but at least this part of it is coming to a close.
After competing in Tuesday’s national finals of the T-Mobile Little League Softball Home Run Derby, Santa Fe’s own Jaslene “Jas” Ramirez said she’s looking forward to getting home and attending school Thursday morning.
“I mean, yeah, it’s been fun because all this has put kind of a title on my name, but I just want to get home,” Ramirez said. “I’ve been missing school, and doing all this has actually been kind of hard.”
A 12-year-old seventh grader at St. Michael’s, Ramirez was one of eight finalists in Tuesday’s competition that will be aired nationally Sunday on ESPN immediately prior to the Little League World Series championship game.
Spoiler alert: The title did not come home to Santa Fe — not that it matters.
In just two months, Ramirez went from softball slugger on her own club team to West Regional champion and bona fide local celebrity. She won Santa Fe Little League’s home run derby, launching enough to qualify for the regional competition in Seattle. In between, she was honored by the City Council and named an All-Star. Within hours of winning the derby in Seattle, her family was inundated with media requests hoping to tell the story of a girl who talks to her bat and hits dingers with the regularity of a Ruth or a Bonds.
“That whole experience was a little intense and I should have expected it to be, but I didn’t,” Ramirez said.
She batted seventh in Tuesday’s competition that featured girls from as far away as New York and Virginia and as close as Texas and Arizona. She didn’t go deep in her lone appearance, which was streamed live onto Facebook by her coach, Maria Cedillo.
Although a majority of the pitches were high in the strike zone, Ramirez never said a word.
“The whole time here was incredible,” she said. “I just wish I would have done better.”
There was a New Mexico presence in the stands. Aside from her immediate family, Ramirez had Cedillo fly into Pennsylvania on Monday, film Tuesday’s event and hop back on a plane to Santa Fe as soon as it was over.
“This trip was less stressful but, you know, I always get kind of nervous,” said Bianca Ramirez, Jas’s mom.
The Ramirezes were flown to Pennsylvania over the weekend, giving Jas and her younger brother a chance to take in a few LLWS games and slide down the famed grass hill outside Lamade Stadium. Other than that, it was plenty of time at the hotel pool and marveling what they saw around them.
“It’s so green here, everywhere you look it’s green,” Ramirez said.
She also did a few homework assignments, pounding out a social studies thing here, a math page there.
She won’t be coming home empty handed, either. The folks at T-Mobile gifted all the finalists — which included the eight hitters in the baseball competition, one of whom was Albuquerque’s Maddox Gonzales — equipment bags filled with gear like new shoes and a bat.
As nice as the new stick was, anyone who knows Jas Ramirez knows she’s a one-bat kind of player. She used her familiar DeMarini lumber to win in Santa Fe and again a few weeks later in Seattle. Each time she approaches the box she holds the bat a few inches from her face to share a private word or two of affirmation.
“Sometimes it works with me, today it didn’t,” she said. “But that’s OK. I had fun but, yeah, I’m ready to get back to my team and see my friends.”
Ramirez successfully tried out for volleyball at St. Michael’s, making the eighth grade team. She also plans to run cross-country for the Lady Horsemen this fall, then play hoops over the winter. Along the way, she’ll continue playing softball as often as she can. That includes a stint with Cedillo’s club team, Northern Force, for a Labor Day tournament in two weeks.
Regardless of where sports takes her, she will set foot on New Mexico soil Wednesday night knowing she’ll always have a cheering section behind her.
“As nervous as I was sitting in the dugout knowing I was the smallest kid in there, it helped knowing I had all the support of my whole state,” she said. “That made me feel better.”