Softball On SI

Why the Most Famous Little League Pitcher of Her Generation Walked Away From Softball

Mo'ne Davis played two seasons of softball at Hampton before deciding to return to baseball.
Maren Angus-Coombs|
Mo'ne Davis was a Little League World Series star and recently revealed why she walked away from playing college softball.
Mo'ne Davis was a Little League World Series star and recently revealed why she walked away from playing college softball. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

When Mo'ne Davis committed to play softball at Hampton University in Virginia, it sent shockwaves throughout the baseball and softball communities. The former Little League World Series baseball star was officially playing Division I college softball.

However, the softball experiment didn't last long.

Davis arrived at HU in the middle of a global pandemic. She started the first 19 games of her freshman year before COVID-19 brought the season to abrupt stop.

The middle infielder played one more season on the softball field before she realized her heart wasn't in it.

In an interview with Emma Baccellieri of Sports Illustrated, Davis revealed that she did not truly love playing softball. It wasn't for her, and with each game she played, it became more apparent.

On Thursday, Davis became the 10th-overall pick of the inaugural Women's Pro Baseball League draft. She was selected in the first round by Los Angeles.

The opportunity ahead put her two mediocre seasons at Hampton in the rearview. She was a career .244 hitter across 68 games with 47 hits, 33 runs scored, and 24 runs batted in. She struck out 37 times and earned 22 free passes.

Davis walked away from softball after two years and didn't want to take her COVID season. She earned her undergraduate degree and then moved on to Columbia for a master's in sport management.

Davis no longer has to be a middle infielder with bases 60 feet apart. She is free to return to the mound, where she feels like she belongs.

Getting back on the baseball field wasn't necessarily an easy thing for Davis to do.

After being away from the baseball field for six years, Davis didn't know how to start. She had thrown out ceremonial first pitches, appeared in Cooperstown, and interned with the Los Angeles Dodgers video production team, but she hadn't played, let alone pitched.

Thank goodness for Little League.

Davis' former coach, Steve Bandura, who is still the program director for the Anderson Monarchs youth sports teams, has always been one of her biggest supporters and helping her make the decision to play baseball again was easy for him.

“She has a lot of options and a lot of talents,” Bandura told Baccellieri. “She just wasn’t sure which direction she wanted to go in.”

Once Davis agreed to meet her old coach where her journey began, it was like she had never left.

“It was typical Mo’ne,” Bandura added. “The first five pitches I threw her were all line drives.”

Davis was one of 600 women to try out for the newly former league and she was officially listed as a centerfielder but she also threw a bullpen.

The future of the league isn't guaranteed but one thing is for certain, Davis has returned home.

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Maren Angus-Coombs
MAREN ANGUS-COOMBS

Maren Angus-Coombs was born in Los Angeles and raised in Nashville, Tenn. She is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and has been a sports writer since 2008. She has been covering college softball since 2016 for various outlets including Softball America, ESPNW and Hurrdat Sports. She is currently the managing editor of Softball On SI and also serves as an analyst for Nebraska softball games on Nebraska Public Media and B1G+.

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