Abby Steffen, Sweetwater Valley’s First Female All-Star
- Updated: June 20, 2018
(Abigail Steffen, the first-ever female player selected to Bonita’s Sweetwater Valley Little League all-star team, stands next to a sign honoring her historic selection while sporting SVLL’s uniform. Sweetwater Valley’s all-stars finished third in the US at the 2015 Little League World Series in South Williamsport, PA. All photos and videos in this article are courtesy of the Steffen family.)
In Get Ready For SoCal’s Little League Baseball Tournament, this sportswriter wrote: “The three Chula Vista-area leagues mentioned earlier all compete in District 42, by far the most competitive district in California, and perhaps in the entire world, making that the most compelling local tournament to watch. Therefore, CSN will focus much attention on District 42, its teams, players, and tournament games.”
As promised, we will now focus on one of California District 42’s outstanding players. I had also written in that same article: “keep at least one eye open for Sweetwater Valley”. Well, I kept an eye open, and guess what I saw? I noticed one of the all-stars playing this year for Bonita’s Sweetwater Valley Little League is not like the other boys on that competitive team. That is because the player I saw is a girl. And she is no ordinary girl. She is a Little League sensation.
Her name is Abigail Steffen. She stands 5′-7″, towers over many boys her age, turned 13 in May, and throws one mean fastball.
(STEE-RIKE!!! Abigail Steffen pitches during Sweetwater Valley Little League’s 2018 season.)
Abby, as she chooses to be called, has made history by reportedly becoming Sweetwater Valley Little League’s first-ever female Major Division all-star since the international youth baseball organization started permitting girls to join back in 1974. Abby is a pioneer, as she never had another female all-star at SVLL to emulate. In fact, she has had very few female all-stars that have played anywhere during those past 45 seasons to emulate.
To say girls do not often compete in the tournaments leading to and including the Little League World Series is an understatement. In all of the years I have followed Little League, I only recall two girls that ever played in the World Series. There might have been more, but I do not remember them. And keep in mind that 16 teams from all over the globe compete in the LLWS each year.
In addition, each year 12 teams compete in San Bernardino which hosts the West and Northwest Region tournaments, and I similarly do not recall having seen a female player among any of those 12. To be honest, I cannot remember attending an all-star tournament game held anywhere in which a girl was on either roster. So yeah, Steffen’s accomplishment would seem to be a big deal to most readers.
However, there is one person that does not seem overly moved by the news’ historic nature, and that is Abby herself. During CaliSports News’ exclusive interview with Steffen conducted in the comfort of her family’s Chula Vista home, when asked how it feels making history as Sweetwater Valley’s first girl all-star, Abby told this reporter, “I don’t feel any different.” And when asked what it is like to be a girl in an all-boys league, she similarly answered, “it is just like competing against anyone else.”
However, even Abby admitted the following about being the only female: “It is a challenge, because coaches and parents expect more from me.”
Yep. Performing at the same level as the other players in her league may not satisfy some critics, from whom I am fully expecting to hear the following in response to this article: “Why is CSN giving all of its attention to that girl when there are boys in Little League that play just as well if not better than she does?”
You just know someone will register that complaint. Am I right?
Speaking of our interview, looking back at it, I wish someone had filmed us, because I think the scene was priceless. There we were, a female all-star wearing a Little League baseball uniform taking questions about her sport from a rabbi dressed from head-to-toe in a traditional Jewish outfit complete with a yarmalkah, long side curls, and a four-cornered shawl. I mean, not every sports reporter looks as if that they had just fallen straight out of Fiddler On The Roof.
Just as Steffen is a rare commodity in her sport, so is Rabbi Rabbs in his field of sports journalism. Perhaps that is why I chose Abby as the subject of my first Little League feature article, as I identify with misfits.
Getting back on point, Steffen’s selection to all-stars was a challenge that she overcame, as Abby earned her spot on that roster. Steffen finished this past season with a reported .396 batting average and an on-base percentage of .467. That means Abby reached at least first base in almost half of the times she batted. She also hits with power, and racked up an incredible .995 on-base plus slugging percentage, a statistic which measures ability to both reach first base and make extra-base hits.
To put her .995 into perspective, only four Major League Baseball players this season sport a higher OPS, and one of those guys is named Mike Trout who was twice named the American League Most Valuable Player. So yeah, .995 is impressive. Also, 73 percent of the times Steffen made contact with the ball, she drove it into the outfield. Here is Abby smacking a double this past season:
(The kid hits with power.)
Those numbers are what Abby put up while playing in Little League Majors. She also played this past season in LL Intermediate. Yes, Abby double-dipped, playing on two teams simultaneously. The kid worked hard this past Spring, and recorded even better numbers in Intermediate, despite facing older pitchers. Abby finished with a whopping .440 batting avg., .517 OBP, and wait for it, wait for it, an unbelievable .997 OPS.
Steffen performed so well this past season that she was actually selected to two all-star teams: the one for Majors and the one for Intermediate. How is that possible? Oh boy is the answer complicated. The short answer is that Intermediate is for 13-year-olds, while Majors is supposed to max at age 12. But due to the grandfather rule clause as described in Get Ready For SoCal’s Little League Baseball Tournament, Steffen is permitted to play in Majors all-stars despite having turned 13, and is permitted to play in Intermediate all-stars despite having started the regular season at 12.
But wait, it gets even more confusing, because Steffen has already played in Intermediate all-stars last year when she started that season at age 11. How about that? She played Intermediate all-stars before playing Majors all-stars. How that even happens is even more confusing than trying to explain on-base slugging percentage. But wait. There is more. During last year’s Intermediate all-stars, Abby hit off the charts, reportedly racking up an insane batting average north of .800, with an even more impressive on-base average.
(Ward Lannom, manager of Sweetwater Valley Little League’s Majors all-star team, staked that sign into the ground in front of the Steffen home as SVLL’s way of officially proclaiming it had selected one young Abigail Steffen. Lannom planted that sign at 1:16 a.m. on June 1, wasting very little time on the first day Little League rules permit announcing rosters for all-stars. Yes, Sweetwater Valley’s managers drove around Bonita, the home of SVLL, and its neighboring Chula Vista, putting up signs and delivering invitations in the middle of the night. Attached to the sign were two envelopes, shown at the top of the photo, each containing an official invite welcoming Abby to an all-stars team, with one invite for Intermediate and the other for Majors.)
As the two all-star teams’ schedules for practice and games often conflict with each other, Sweetwater Valley instructed Steffen to only accept one of its two invitations. So, the young baseball standout chose Majors, and declined Intermediate’s offer. She explained why:
“It was a tough decision, but this is my last year I can ever play Majors”, so she took advantage of the opportunity. In the following footage filmed in the early morning on June 1, we watch Abby first learning the news that she was selected to both all-star teams. She can be seen showing almost no emotion whatsoever. The kid has ice water running through her veins. Amazing.
I would have expected a 13-year-old to jump up and down, and to celebrate very loudly in excitement. But that is not calm, collected, and focused Abby. For her, there is work to be done, and batters to strike out. She is all business.
According to her mother, Laura Steffen, Abby “literally puts in probably 30 hours per week between practices and games. She is crazy dedicated, and she loves it! She is always the first player onto the field and the last off, and that is all by her own choice. Trust me.”
Abby plays organized baseball all year-round on multiple teams. Laura told CSN that during the school year, Abby spends three hours after school almost each and every day at the baseball fields trying to improve her skills. According to Abby, that type of time commitment is typical of competitive young baseball players living in her area. If anyone wonders why Chula Vista and Bonita have become so dominant in Little League, I believe we now have our answer.
Sweetwater Valley’s first girl all-star is a good pitcher, too. In fact, on the mound, Steffen again demonstrated that ice water running through her young veins. During one playoff game two years ago, she wasted no time in the final inning, striking out the last batter with three quick strikes. Here is the replay of that final out, when Abby was age 11:
How does she pitch like that?
“Practice. I have to practice constantly,” said Steffen, who throws a fastball, curve, and slider, all taught to her at age 9-10 by her uncle.
Abby hopes to showcase her pitching arm for the all-star team, but that decision is in the hands of Sweetwater Valley Manager Ward Lannom. On that same day that I interviewed Steffen, I attended Sweetwater Valley’s very first 2018 all-stars’ team practice, and after which, Lannom sat down inside the SVLL park with your favorite rabbi/sportswriter.
Lannom had skippered Sweetwater Valley’s powerhouse 2015 team that won the West Region, and then had gone on to the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, PA, where Lannom’s squad finished third in the US. Three years later, SVLL is making headlines once again, this time by choosing a female player, one for whom that manager expressed only praise.
“She is deserving of making this team. Abby is a five-tool player,” Lannom said, crediting her abilities to throw, field, run, hit for power, and hit for batting average. To put that accolade into perspective, in the movie Moneyball, a New York Mets talent scout was portrayed as having said it is very rare to find a player that has all five tools. To quote that film:
“Most of the youngsters that we (the Mets) have an interest in have one or two tools, and we’re hoping to develop an extra one. Your son has five. We’re looking at a guy that’s a potential superstar for us in New York.”
Again, Trout would serve as an example of a five-tool player. When asked if with her outstanding skillset, Steffen would have been selected to his 2015 roster, Lannom without hesitation emphatically answered: “Yes! I really do.”
That speaks volumes, because his 2015 lineup was stacked with amazing talent. “Her baseball IQ is way up there,” Lannom said. Abby is a good, versatile “utility player. I can put her in the outfield, at first base, and she can pitch.”
Even Trout does not pitch. However, his teammate on the Los Angeles Angels, Shohei Ohtani, serves as a great example of a player that can both hit and pitch well. At press time, Ohtani has belted six home runs this season while boasting a 4-1 record on the mound. The Angels’ pitcher/slugger is a refreshing throwback to the days of the legendary Babe Ruth who remains MLB’s all-time leader in on-base plus slugging percentage with a career 1.164, while also having recorded the American League’s lowest earned runs average in 1916 with a 1.75 on the hill. For those reasons and others, Ruth is Steffen’s favorite baseball player.
So, the question becomes, will Steffen’s manager grant the younger version of an Ohtani, or of her hero Ruth, her wish of pitching for Sweetwater Valley’s all-star team?
“We’re going to look at that. Her velocity is way up, and her curve is fantastic. But, it is too soon” to determine if Abby will earn a spot in SVLL’s starting pitching rotation, Lannom said. “Time will tell.”
The manager emphasized that Steffen will be treated equally to the rest of the players on SVLL’s team. Lannom said he will need to make one adjustment, though. “It’s different addressing the team. I can’t say ‘boys’.”
Speaking of boys, what is it like to be a boy with Abby as a teammate? CSN posed that question to Kasey Regala, who played this season on the same Intermediate team as did Steffen. Regala answered by saying she is a good teammate and that he does not pay much attention to gender.
Lannom is not the only Sweetwater Valley coach or manager to marvel at Abby’s abilities, as Kasey’s father, Rodney Regala, coached Steffen when she was ages 8-9. He shared the following about her:
“Abby has changed dramatically as a player from when she played on the same team as my son, but the one thing that has not changed is her willingness to learn and be coached. Unlike many of her male teammates, she does not make the same mistakes over and over again. Abby listens and makes the adjustments and has shown the improvements in her play from not only this season but also from the 3-4 years that we spent in the same dugout. She is a joy to work with and root for.”
Prior to Regala coaching Steffen, she had already played baseball for a couple of years, as Abby had entered the sport when she was six years old. Here is a photo taken of her at that time:
Once that very young Abby was introduced to baseball, she was hooked for life. While other girls her age veered towards softball, Steffen never had any interest in following their lead. Even at that early age, when she competed in the CAPS (Coach Assisted Pitching) division which uses pitching machines, Abby impressed her first baseball coach, Todd Anderson. He who would go on to coach Steffen in Minors, Majors, Intermediate, and in Intermediate all-stars. Anderson shared the following with CaliSports News:
“Abby is the kind of baseball player that you want on your team, and the kind that you don’t look forward to facing. She is talented, fearless, gracious, humble, tough and stubborn. She has a confidence about her that is quiet but strong. She is harder on herself than any coach could ever be and works harder than anyone else. Not because she is a girl, but because she is a competitor. She joined my travel baseball team this last season, and made an instant impact on everyone. For our Kings baseball club, she would have earned a Gold Glove Award for her play at first base, and probably a Silver Slugger Award for offensive prowess.”
Whereas Abby pursued a male-dominated sport, her older sister Paige Steffen who herself is an athlete has taken a more traditional female route. The 14-year-old plays on a girls’ team representing Lakeside’s East County Volleyball Academy, just completed a season playing on the girls’ volleyball team at Chula Vista’s Eastlake Middle School, and plans to try out for the girls’ team at CV’s Eastlake High School during her upcoming freshman year. Yet, Paige applauds her younger sister’s decision.
“I’m proud of her. She’s brave to do this. I didn’t have the guts to do it,” Paige told CSN.
Baseball is not the only sport that Abby has pursued. Believe it or not, the young teenager has already earned a black belt in Tang Soo Do, a martial art Abby’s father, Chris Steffen, encouraged both she and Paige to learn. Chris told CSN that he looks forward to seeing what his athletic daughters will “continue to achieve,” and that “Abby’s accomplishments in Little League continue to amaze me.” He continued:
“I am a proud father of two amazing kids and do what I can to see every play,” he said. However, because Chris’ daughters often play at the same time miles apart from each other, seeing every play is more than a challenge. “Trying to be in two places at the same time is often impossible.”
Abby has already discovered that frustration for herself on her own while playing for more than one Little League team simultaneously. But, according to Anderson, Abby is extremely tough and can handle frustration and adversity.
“I remember seeing her toughness back in Minor A. We were playing in a playoff game against the Grasshoppers, and she was pitching. She took a hard come backer to the chest. We came to check to see if she was okay, and she was refusing to leave the game. I finally coerced her to the dugout. Two minutes later, she stands up and walks over to me, and says that she was ready to go back in and finish pitching. When I told her that I had to pull her from pitching because of the injury, she was so mad. She insisted on getting back into the game, which she did,” Anderson said.
A similar incident happened this week, and CSN has it on film. During Sweetwater Valley’s practice Monday, June 18, Steffen took a similar come backer, this time to her head. The league’s first-ever female all-star got knocked down in obvious pain, and was reportedly on the ground for approximately one minute before taking a seat on the team bench. There, the tough 13-year-old remained for about 20 minutes before returning to practice. Here is the clip:
(Warning: The following footage is graphic.)
To put that into perspective, Rabbi Rabbs has a friend who pitched on a college baseball team for the past few years, and he told me that if he were to ever take a line drive to the head, that would be his final pitch for the rest of his life. He would quit on the spot.
Hopefully, that will never happen to Abby who plans to continue playing competitive baseball as long as possible, and has even set a goal for herself of playing first base for San Diego State University’s team. That is one lofty goal as there are even fewer females playing college baseball than there are doing so in Little League. Two years ago, there was only one.
Personally, this Little League blogger/rabbi hopes Steffen fulfills her dream of playing for the Aztecs, as doing so would serve as a tremendous inspiration for a generation of Southern California girls. She has already become a source of inspiration within her local community even if the modest 13-year-old sensation does not realize it, according to Anderson.
“I’ve always encouraged more girls to play baseball, and whenever I meet a younger girl who wants to play, I always bring her over and introduce her to Abby, and I tell her, ‘you’re looking at one of the top baseball players at Sweetwater Valley, not the best girl baseball player, but the best period.’ I tell them that she got to this level on two things, determination and hard work. I know of at least one more young player that is following in her footsteps and who made the Minors TOC [Tournament Of Champions] this year,” Anderson said. The coach continued:
“There is so much that I can say about Abby. I’ve had the privilege of coaching her. This year, Abby finally got the recognition that she deserved and that so many people kept from her. It must be so sweet for Abby to finally achieve what she has been working so hard for all these years, and to do it on her final opportunity in Majors. I want to tip my hat to the manager and coach who took this all-star team, and who see the talent and the potential in this young baseball player that I have watched grow for the last five years. Congratulations Abby,” he said.
(That video was filmed on June 10, 2018, at Eastlake Little League Juniors Field, the same day Abigail Steffen spoke with CaliSports News. That day marked Abby’s final Little League game appearance prior to the upcoming District 42 all-stars tournament that starts June 30. More on that in upcoming CSN articles. Stay tuned !!)
SoCal baseball needs more Abigail Steffens. Go Abby !! Let’s Go SoCal !!
Follow Abby at @Abbysteffenbaseball on Instagram, or on her YouTube channel: Abby Steffen.
Related Posts
One Comment
About Rabbi Rabbs
Michelle Hein
June 20, 2018 at 4:05 pm
I was this amazing young lady’s nanny, she has always been determined in her ventures.
I’m more than proud of her!
Watch out! She is destined for greatness! Love ya,girl!
GO ABBY!!!!