![]() Who's the best NCAA softball shortstop of the past decade?.I am pretty outgoing everywhere else, but softball is like my home and I feel like that's where you see my full personality." Editor's Picks I think that's because they're like my sisters and I'm comfortable with them. "I'm pretty crazy all the time with my teammates. "I'm just so grateful that our coaching staff lets us give our personality while we're on the field," Bates said. ![]() ![]() She lives with a few teammates and likes when even more stop by for breakfast. The middle of three siblings - her older brother, Jimmy, is in his first year as a graduate assistant for the Huskies - she likes being among people. She is comfortable in a crowd, to be sure. She's a performer." Sis Bates has parted ways with "Carmella," but the Washington junior continues to make sensational plays at shortstop. She's very talented, but I think the big thing is she brings so much energy to that infield. I mean, she just absolutely - it's quite obvious she has fun. "The thing I love about her is her enjoyment of playing the game. "Pretty special young lady," Arizona coach Mike Candrea said. A poker face is out of the question entirely. Whether it's a midweek game of little consequence or the Women's College World Series, Bates is more likely to dissolve into laughter at the end of a play than pump a fist. For lack of a more sophisticated measurement, it's the laughter that separates Bates. They bounce up and down between pitches, call out encouragement and perhaps even shimmy to music played between innings. What is unmistakable about Bates is that she is exactly the person you expect would name a glove. ET, is a combination of childlike joy and virtuoso attention to detail. One of the sport's most appealing players, who leads Washington into Oregon this weekend in a series that opens Saturday on ESPN at 4 p.m. It's a shame because there is no better way to understand the player than through her glove. It is a shame that Carmella can't write a memoir and share stories of Bates winning Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year honors a season ago as a sophomore, playing for the national team last summer and generally creating more breathtaking highlights than any infielder in a generation. "Sis takes care of her glove to that level." You look at them and their glove is never out of shape. "I've been lucky enough to watch the Japanese team play for the last two years. "The true ballers, if you will, they have those relationships with their equipment," Washington coach Heather Tarr said. But it's also partly because Bates, who even as a kid would gently place her glove down at the end of innings instead of flinging it away, is just a little bit different.Īrthur has Excalibur. The care is partly to keep the mitt ready in an emergency, lest something happen to her new glove that is still awaiting a name. Though Carmella is no longer subject to encounters with the infield dirt, Bates still dotes on the glove, oils it daily and boasts like a proud parent that it is "looking beautiful as ever." Life is cushy these days for Carmella, the name Bates bestowed on a mitt otherwise known as the Wilson model A2000 that she used through her first two seasons with the Huskies. The best-known glove in softball resides in semi-retirement in Sis Bates' locker at the University of Washington.
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