WPSL: Women's softball clinic to be held at Yankee Stadium

Olympic Gold Medallist and current Women's Professional Softball League (WPSL) All-Star, Julie Smith, will hold a youth softball and life-skills clinic for under-privileged girls ages 7-17, Monday, August 20 at 10 a.m. in Yankee Stadium.

Joining Smith will be five of her WPSL teammates, who will offer softball instruction, motivational talks and life lessons.

The New York clinic is one of many organized by teamsmith, inc., Smith's non-profit organization, and is sponsored by adidas, Cablevision, the Verizon Foundation and the WPSL, as well as other contributing companies.

"We are thrilled and a bit humbled by the opportunity to bring the sport of softball to Yankee Stadium," Smith said. "We're also motivated by the opportunity to get our message across to these girls that it's okay to dream big. And, we're eternally grateful to George Steinbrenner and the Yankees organization for allowing us to use The Stadium, as well as to our sponsors for making this all possible."

The girls, from Inner City Games, Casita Maria, NYC Board of Education and other local youth groups, will begin their day at 10 a.m., with four hours of softball instruction and motivational talks. After breaking for lunch at 2:00 p.m., they will be treated to a tour of The Stadium's Monument Park, Dugout and Locker Room. The day will end with a special talk by Yankees Vice President and Assistant General Manager, Kim Ng.

Smith will be joined by fellow WPSL All-Stars Monica Armendarez, Patti Benedict, Julie Crandall, Marty Laudato and Kim Maher. Currently, the players are participating in the 2001 WPSL Tour of Fastpitch Champions, traveling and playing exhibitions in 10 cities that have been targeted as potential host cities for the WPSL's re-launch in 2002.

Julie Smith earned WPSL Defensive Player of the Year honors playing for the Ohio Pride in 2000 and ranked second in the league in steals (7) and hits (28), third in batting average (.289) and fifth in on-base percentage (.330) and runs scored (10). Smith was a member of the 1996 USA Women's Softball Team that claimed the inaugural Olympic gold medal.

Kim Maher, also a 1996 Olympic Gold Medallist, collected 20 hits, seven runs scored and 10 RBIs in 30 games as a rookie pro player in 2000.

Patti Benedict earned the 2000 WPSL MVP Award after leading the Florida Wahoos to the league Championship. She ranked first in the league in batting average (.330), hits (35) and doubles (6) in 2000, and is currently leading the WPSL All-Stars in hits (15) and batting average (.333).

Julie Crandall, a member of the champion Florida Wahoos, hit the game-winning single in the first game of the championship series in 2000.

Monica Armendarez, the league's most prolific homerun hitter, has hit 23 long balls.

Marty Laudato is right behind Armendarez with 20 career homeruns. Laudato is also the career league RBI record holder with 91.