What They’re Saying About Mo’ne Davis

Hometown hero Mo’ne Davis was ESPN’s Sunday Conversation this week:

What else is being said about Davis this week:

Wall Street Journal: Through all the fuss, Davis has appeared business-like and composed. She throws with a compact, over-the-top motion, falling slightly to her left. It’s the unfussy motion of a pitcher there to get work done; Davis does not waste her pitches. (Her motion has been repeatedly compared to Philadelphia Phillies reliever Jonathan Papelbon; Journal baseball writer Dan Barbarisi spoke to New York Yankee pitchers the other day, and one also compared her mechanics to Atlanta’s Ervin Santana.) It’s essential to note that Davis’s complete game shutout versus South Nashville was her second in a row—she did the same to qualify her team for Williamsport.

CSNPhilly: Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has, too, and saw a comparison between closer Jonathan Papelbon and the Dragons’ star. “Pretty awesome. I was watching the other day and they did a show about the mechanics of the team, of [Davis], and they equated it to the mechanics of Papelbon, in maximizing her ability to [get behind the ball],” Amaro said Sunday in San Francisco. “It’s pretty amazing. The velocity is pretty amazing. When you get right down to it, a person throwing 70 mph at that age? I don’t think I could pick up a baseball and throw 70 mph right now.”

People Magazine: When it comes to her status as a trailblazer, “it does mean a lot to be the first American girl, but more girls should start joining boys’ teams,” Davis told the Philadelphia Daily News. “The attention should not just be on one girl; more girls should join boys’ teams so it is a tradition and it won’t be so special.”

Grantland: Well, she says she wants to play basketball for UConn and go on to the WNBA, but that doesn’t mean her baseball career has to end here. There are girls who play varsity high school baseball, and there’s some precedent for a girl playing in the Little League World Series and then going on to greater success in another sport. In 1994, Minnesota’s Krissy Wendell became the first girl to start at catcher for a Little League World Series team, and she went on to captain the U.S. national hockey team and win two Olympic medals. So even if you don’t see Mo’ne Davis in the 2019 MLB draft, you might see her in the 2020 Women’s Final Four.

Star-Ledger: Mo’ne Davis has a fan in Yankees manager Joe Girardi. “I know the other day I saw her throw a pretty darn good back-foot slider,” Girardi said Sunday. Girardi even joked that he’d like to pencil the righty into his starting rotation. “She could pitch Tuesday, right?” he said with a smile.

And apparently: Everybody’s been spelling her name wrong:

Bleacher Report: I ask if they came to Williamsport to talk with her. “I didn’t know I was going to be on. I was playing Ping-Pong and Zion [Spearman, her teammate, sitting in the dugout with us] spotted it. It said: ‘Sports Science with Mo’Ne Davis’ … even though they spelled my name wrong” (the ‘N’ is not capitalized).