Emily Danks cares not for our national pastime

Let's all learn a little about Emily Danks, big bruiser for the Buckeyes, shall we? The Columbus Dispatch wrote a nice little article about her recently, focusing on how her two brothers are successful baseball players, and yet she decided to play volleyball.


This seems odd, according to the article, "given that Emily Danks was, as she says, 'out of the womb, onto the baseball bleachers.'"


Well that certainly paints a picture. I'll never look at Wrigley Field the same way.


But, turns out that Danks was quite the girly-girl growing up, opting more for sugar and spice than bat and glove.


"I've never held a bat in my life," [Danks] said.


Never? Ever? You're going to tell me that a kid can grow up in Round Rock, Texas, and never have to hold a baseball bat? Never faced street punks in a dark alley? Never faced a pinata?


Anyway, despite her success, and her dad's assertion that she is his most talented child (THAT family reunion should be a lot of fun...), dad says that Danks is still missing a killer instinct.

"I used to offer her $5 in high-school volleyball games if she could go put the ball on anybody's face," he recalled, "and she'd go, 'Dad, we're not out there to do that.' And I'd say, 'Yes, you are.'"

Mmm. Tough love. So tough, that dad invented his own game called "Demerit" -- in case the game itself wasn't psychologically scarring enough -- to get the family to compete against each other.


"It starts out, 'Oh, this is so fun!' And then it ends like 'You can't do that! You're cheating! Mom!'"


Mom cheats at "Demerit"?