Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.It's possible that nobody has been booed more at the College World Series than Kathleen Brown.
Heck, her own mom even booed her.
But that didn't stop Brown — who calls herself “the world's oldest ball girl” — from returning to the CWS this year. She attended games simply as a fan since her days of shagging foul balls off the giant net behind home plate at Rosenblatt Stadium are over.
“I did it for nine years,” she said. “It was a lot of fun, but I also know all good things usually come to an end.”
There is no net at the new TD Ameritrade Park, so the time-honored tradition of cheering or booing (usually booing) the ball girls who tried to catch those foul balls will simply fade away. Brown, who recently turned 26, calls it the end of an era.
“The Series is all about tradition,” she said. “I know I've had a lot of fun doing it over the years, though there was some stress involved.”
Brown first worked as one of the CWS ball girls in 2002, at the request of longtime Rosenblatt groundskeeper Jesse Cuevas. She was a member of the Omaha Gross High School softball team at the time, and later played at Peru State.
“Jesse told me I could do it if I wanted,” she said. “My parents had been CWS season-ticket holders for as long as I could remember, so I knew what I was getting into.”
Brown was one of four ball girls who alternated during games. Their post was behind home plate, and any foul ball that landed behind them on the large net — the one that began at field level and was attached to the press box — was expected to be caught.
At least that's what the fans thought.
When the girl made a grab, she received warm applause. But missing that foul ball brought down a cascade of boos, which Brown said some girls found difficult to handle.
“One girl dropped a ball, got booed and then started crying,” she said. “She wouldn't do it again and asked to perform other duties.”
Brown said she took those boos in stride, even though some were coming from her own family members.
“It was all good-natured, so we'd usually join in,” said Kathleen's mother, Margie. “We've had CWS tickets for 20 years, and I knew that was part of the tradition.”
Kathleen said that on occasions, she could even hear her mom booing. “The fans sitting around her gave her a hard time about that,” she said. “She'd just tell them it was her own daughter, and they'd laugh about it.”
As the years passed, Brown honed her skills. She said her two main goals were to hustle after each ball and do everything possible to catch those fouls.
“Even though I knew the fans didn't mean any harm, I still didn't want to hear the boos,” she said. “As a longtime softball player, I took it as a challenge to try and grab each one.”
She even tried to catch one behind her back one night, which didn't end well.
“I dropped it,” she said. “That was the last time I did that.”
Following her graduation from Peru State, Brown parlayed her love of softball into a head-coaching position at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, Va. But she still returned to the CWS last year for one more turn as a ball girl.
“I couldn't miss the last time around at Rosenblatt,” she said. “It was something I just had to do.”
Kathleen, whose parents Rick and Margie still live in Omaha, drove from Virginia to Nebraska for her final year of duty. She said after the 2010 CWS, she took some dirt back east to put on her own school's diamond for luck.
“We were just one win away from the Juco World Series this year,” she said. “I'm hoping that Rosenblatt magic helps us get there next season.”
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402-444-1350, mike.patterson@owh.com
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