PHILADELPHIA — Mo’ne Davis chugs up a flight of stairs and into a full-court gym, where her interruption of an indoor soccer game is welcomed.
Davis’ surroundings at the Marian Anderson Recreation Center in South Philly are so familiar that she has the “A” logo tattooed on the inside of her left wrist. This is where she was first discovered, at 7 years old, throwing a tight 30-yard football spiral from the outfield grass. And to where she made the three-block walk from her aunt’s home after school, with enough cash for a slice of pizza at Lazaro’s. And where she trained as a member of the Anderson Monarchs before becoming an instant phenom when she was barely a teenager in 2014, as the first girl to pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series.
But on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Davis is swarmed by a dozen 9- and 10-year-old girls. This program did not exist while Davis was growing up as the only girl on Monarchs teams and now does in part because of her. Steve Bandura, the Monarchs’ founder and Davis’ longtime coach and mentor, got the all-girls team off the ground during the COVID-19 pandemic. These days, Davis pops by while on breaks from Hampton University in Virginia, where she plays second base for the softball team and just completed her junior year.
