It wasn’t all bad
■■ Sixty years ago, Gwen Goldman wrote to the Yankees asking to be a bat girl, but was told that handling bats was a boys-only job and “a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout.” Current general manager Brian Cashman learned about the rejection from Goldman’s daughter and invited Goldman, 70, to fulfill her childhood dream. “It took my breath away,” she said. The retired social worker threw a ceremonial first pitch, posed with the umpires, and got a round of applause from the crowd after the third inning.
■■ Zaila Avant-garde last week became the first African-American winner in the 96-year history of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The 14-year-old from Harvey, La., correctly spelled “murraya,” a type of citrus tree, then jumped in the air as confetti fell. “To actually win the whole thing was like a dream come true,” she said. Zaila—whose father gave her the last name Avantgarde to honor jazz great John Coltrane—began competing in spelling contests just two years ago. She’s also a standout basketball player, with three Guinness World Records for dribbling and juggling multiple balls. Zaila hopes to play basketball at Harvard before becoming a NASA scientist or an NBA coach.
■■ A father and son were deepsea fishing off the North Carolina coast when they were nearly hit by a rogue boat—only to realize there was nobody on board. Andrew Sherman and his son Jack then used GPS data from the unmanned boat to frantically search for the missing captain. They feared the worst when they found a pair of boat shoes drifting in the water, but they soon found Sascha Scheller, who had been treading water for nearly three hours. After he recovered, “he came in and we hugged, and it was like ‘thank you for saving my life,’”Andrew said.