L’il Sister Dodging Balls on the Softball Field Now

     Pam Kamena was in a recreational dodgeball league in Westchester when she decided to hang up her sneakers last February and join the Culver City Senior Softball League as its newest member.

     “I had begun to think it was time to move on from dodgeball because they were a lot younger – 40-year-old guys and young girls – and I felt out of place there,” Pam told me.

     Then she broke her foot during a game – she’d already broken a finger (who knew dodgeball was so dangerous?) – with her team in the finals. This came just as the Culver City softball season began and it decisively broke her ties to dodgeball.

     Pam impressed Culver City softball managers during evaluations with her strong throwing arm and athleticism. Hitting the ball consistently was going to be the challenge. She ended her first season with a .255 BA and a respectable .377 on base percentage.

     “I learned I don’t have a good frustration tolerance,” said the 64-year-old mental health specialist. “Learning something newish takes time and it’s hard to sit with that discomfort for a while.”

     She’s had plenty of mentors on that journey.

     “So many people have been helpful. Prentiss (Byrd) has been putting in the effort, and Jim (Clark). Steve Shertzer and Jim Devico from our Gold team, Ward (Brown). “That’s what I found to be nice; everybody has been so helpful in providing tips and recommendations and spending time to help me with the batting.”

     Her first mentor was an older brother who was into sports and needed someone to play with.

     “So I grew up playing catch and used as extra person when they had friends for whatever sport they were playing. That’s where I got most of my sports education from.”

     She recalls going dumpster diving with her brother to find baseball cards.

     “We used to go to the dumpster after they threw out the old Hostess cupcakes with the baseball cards on the back of the boxes.”

     “We would write letters to the LA Kings with questions for the radio broadcasters, and if they read your questions you got free tickets. We did that a few times. He was into sports, and I was the baby sister.”

     The last time she played baseball before this season was in in college at Cal State-Northridge, where she was getting a sociology degree.

     “I played fast-pitch hardball in college on Saturday and we went to the pub afterward. It was professors vs students.”

     If you’re getting the idea that an otherwise reticent and restrained player has an adventurous streak, you’re not wrong.

     She’s done bungee jumping, parachuting out of planes, hang gliding, rappelling, “and other things that are not really in my character. I’m a bit of an introvert. So, it challenged me to go do something outside the box.”

     Married to husband Phil for 31 years, and the doting mother of two ragdoll cats, Pam’s been working from home for the past 20 years (currently for Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield), long before the pandemic made that mainstream.

     That challenged her introversion.

     “It takes away that social aspect, so you don’t develop the relationships you get in the office and that was why I wanted to get out and be around people. My car is a 2018 and it only has 5,000 miles on it! That was a big part of joining dodgeball and softball.”

     She plans on retiring in January “and then I actually can get out and practice.”

     “I’ve been really trying hard to work on batting. Trying to get the coil down, get the loading and hip part down, instead of hitting everything with my upper body.”

     Little sister will have plenty of brothers on the field to help with that.