All Articles by Brooke de Lench

As a young girl growing up with three sisters and a dad who was a good enough baseball pitcher to be invited to join the White Sox farm system (just before leaving to fight in the Pacific in WWII), I will never forget the long summer nights of playing baseball in our backyard with all the neighborhood kids. My dad was a favorite with the neighborhood boys.

Yesterday I wrote about the controversy surrounding the use of metal bats and the debate over whether they are safe, particularly in youth baseball.

It now appears that bans against the use of metal bats at the high school level in California are gaining momentum. 

At this time every year we at MomsTeam get a flood of emails asking the same question: "Why don't they ban metal bats?"

This has been a contentious issue and one which I have been following for years. I have always been on the fence, although leaning in the direction of some common-sense regulation of metal bats to limit the speed at which balls come off the bat.

Ironically, it is a new metal baseball bat commercial that raises safety concerns and has me re-thinking my stance.

"I can do it," she said. "I'm qualified. I played the game. I know the kids. I love the kids."

Those were the words Natalie Randolph spoke as she was introduced as Coolidge High School football coach this weekend in Washington, D.C.

While not the first female to coach high school level football, Randolph deserves to be congratulated for tossing her name in the hat this past January when the school was looking for a football coach.

I am in a bit of a rut this week. Call it for what it is: Olympic withdrawal.  Last week I spent a glorious week in Vancouver as a spectator at the Winter Olympics. The week before I left for the games I watched as much of the coverage as I could every night. I was very fortunate to be able to have tickets to some of my favorite events but one event will stick out as truly remarkable-it was the Women's Ice Hockey Gold Medal Game.