Welcome to good Game with Sarah Spain, where we just woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming we had to try to hit a cat Asterman fastball. It's Wednesday, January eighth, and today we continue our New Year, New Leagues series of shows, serving up everything you need to know about the new professional women's leagues, kicking off, tipping off, first pitching, and first serving their way into our hearts in twenty twenty five. Today's League Athletes Unlimited Softball AKAAUSLF.
A new professional women's softball league.
From the folks at Athletes Unlimited, this time playing in the traditional team softball format. Softball Legend and GM of the AUSL volts Cat Austerman joins the show to give us the stakes, stars, stories.
And stats that we need to be ready for first pitch.
It's all coming up right after this, All right sliceys, Welcome back to New Year, New Leagues.
Today AUSL.
Joining us to tell us everything we need to know about AUSL. She's an Olympic gold medalist and two time Olympic silver medallist, a collegiate, four time All American, and four time Big twelve Pitcher of the Year. She ended her career at the University of Texas with school pitching records and wins, strikeouts, era, no hitters, perfect games, whip innings, pitch shutout, strikeout ratio, and opponent's batting average, and still leads in all those categories. Still leads in most of
those categories for the Big Twelve as well. The first overall pick in the National Pro Fast Pitch League, she earned four NFP titles, was named Championship MVP three times, and was a six time professional All Star. She was the champion of Athletes Unlimited's inaugural softball season in twenty twenty and finished her professional career with Athletes Unlimited in twenty twenty one before joining the AU Advisory Board in
twenty twenty three. She's the only person to win USA Softball's National Player of the Year honors three times, and she's an advisor and GM in the new Athletes Unlimited Softball League.
It's Kat Austerman. What's up, Cat?
Hey so excited to join you.
I know we've been flirting with each other on social media for years, never actually meeting in person yet, but we finally get to actually talk, which is amazing.
One of these days I'm in Chicago enough. I don't know how we haven't crossed path.
We need to make it happen.
By the way, I reserve the right for any of that bio to be slightly off based on the fact that I could have spent years talking about your accomplishments and the fact that you still hold all those records all these years later. You just never know when someone pops up and breaks something. But I'm pretty confident about all of that. And it's just like so impressive reading about especially the people who become the names that we all know. There's a couple softball players that are just
the three or four that everybody knows. You have so many accomplishments, so many records. When you look back at your playing career, is there something that stands out that you're most proud of?
Well, you know, I think my college career, just because I went a little bit against the green At the time, the Pack was the premiere conference. You know, Arizona Ucla were winning titles going back and forth, and I was recruited by both those schools, but I really wanted to be different and tried to beat the big dogs, and so I stayed home at Texas and part of that
was being closer to my family. But I think my college career really I say all the time, if I had chosen somewhere else, I don't know if I would have catapulted successfully as quickly as I did. At Texas. I got thrown in the fire. There was only one returning picture. Everywhere else had a couple different returning pictures, and all Americans at that and you know, who knows. If I'd gone there, maybe I still would have been
a one or two or you never know. But I just saw a clear path at Texas for a chance for me to to take that role and it worked out. But really proud because I mean it was hard. Obviously, you spend four years and put blood, sweat and tears into a jersey. But it was really cool the first time we got to go the World Series, the first
World Series game. But then I think the really fun part was to see how fans turned out by the end of my career and just finishing Super Regionals there and beyond left field there's a street, but they allowed people to park on the curb, and come postseason we had people put it parking their boats there, big old buses with like you know, built out build outs on top,
so it was a party out in left field. Occasionally a fire truck from one of the fire stations nearby would park out there and all the firemen would sit up top until they got a.
Call and amazing.
So it was really cool just to see the evolution.
You know, you changed a program a while ago.
Yeah, yeah, it was really fun.
Yeah, that's really cool.
You also had some cool pop culture moments at opportunities. You were the first softball player on the cover of Sports Illustrated. You appeared in the ESPN Body Issue. Is there a particular opportunity or cool experience that stands out to you from those years when you were kind of everywhere?
Well, I will tell you the Body Issue. I know they aired like an overview of the I think ten years they had done it, and they say that someone cried on the very first shoot. That was me. I thought it was the coolest thing until we got ready to go and then all of a sudden, like I just panicked. But it's it was cool to be part of and be asked to be part of that. But I really think the twenty fourteen being on the cover
of Sports Illustrated was the coolest experience. One I was young, but two they told us, you know, we beat out Michael Phelps I think for that cover, and for all of us at that point, it was like that was
the biggest thing. But just to have our team honored in that way, because you know, you do you you always wonder, you know, who's going to be on that cover and who's going to be on the Wheaties box and all of that, and so that that part pop culture and I think most of us still have that, uh that cover frame somewhere, and it's just it was one of the best experiences for our team.
That's really cool for those that aren't super familiar with softball. Can you set the stage for what the post college softball landscape has kind of looked like for the last twenty years or so?
Oh so, it's been really up and down. The NPF was going for a while. It had been in operation for I want to say, probably eight or ten years before I shouldn't say ten, probably eight before I played there. There were other entities of it, but every time it just kind of got rebranded. So I was drafted into the NPF straight out of college. I did not play my first year, but then ended up joining the year
after I graduated. Played ten years there and that continued on really until about two years ago, and then MPF folded and now the WPF has taken its place. But at the same time, right around COVID is when Athletes Unlimited kind of jumped in and had this different idea for professional sports. And I will admit without COVID, I probably wouldn't have played it because the first time someone
explains it to you, you're like, oh, what's that. But then we all got into that environment and absolutely loved it. And so Athletes Unlimited has been going for the last five years. And then at the same time there have been various different other professional opportunities. A couple of teams on the East Coast have partnered up and they run a league during the summer. You know, there's a there's
an independent team out of Oklahoma City that runs. It's just been very inconsistent, and you know, even when the WPF or the NPF, excuse me, ran there were teams that were treated truly professional, and then there were teams that, you know, one team's getting wined and dying at a steakhouse and the others eating McDonald's or ones, you know, on a great flight and the other is on the cheapest flight, which is making them on a red eye, or they're getting in barely in time to change and
run to the field. You know, there were just so many discrepancies of how people were being treated in the professional environment, and so it kind of it was chaos for a little while. You know, there were I was in the NPF where I think at one point we had eight to six to four to five, like the teams just and the team I was on ended up relocating from Rockford to Tennessee, to Florida back to Tennessee and then they got renamed, renamed and rebranded and bought
out in it up in Pennsylvania somewhere. So it was just, you know, we've had people try, and you know, the NPF was there and a lot of us from the national team played in it for a good chunk of time, but just being able to get it to actually go has been a challenge.
I mentioned that you were and still are one of the top names in softball major name recognition. How have you tried to parlay that unique popularity and people knowing you to help the sport of softball over the years, and what do you think is the biggest barrier to the sport being able to at the pro level try to reach the same support, ratings and attendance of the massive success of the women's College World Series.
Yeah. Well, you know, I jumped into coaching right out of college. So I college coached for twelve years and tried to, you know, wherever I was obviously influenced girls to have it to think about the opportunity of playing professionally, and you know, quick full circle story. I actually got to retire the same year as one of my pitchers that I coached at Texas State because she played two years professionally. And when I had scot her and said, hey,
have you ever thought about playing professional? When I thought she had the tools to do it, she was like, are you crazy? No, I'm here for four years to get out. So, you know, uh, it was fun to be in that. And then when once I stepped down from college coaching and I was actually you know, honored to be part of athletes and womened first year just
seeing what John and Jonathan do. I when I retired, I told him I want to do anything and everything, you know, I can to help you guys make this go, and ended up being on the advisory board and just trying to keep people knowing what's going on and whether it's just sharing on social media, doing appearances, going up there once a season to you know, pre game draft, pre draft shows, whatever it is, trying to jump in and continue to help put the professional, you know, game
in everyone's eyes. And you know, we have to be able to get brand recognition. And I think honestly, with Athletes a Limited dropping the AUSL when we are, they already have the brand recognition from us playing in COVID. I mean we benefited that literally nothing else was on during COVID. I mean I laugh. People were like, oh, you were on the ticker. I was like, that's how
slow sports was. It's on the ticker that I resigned my job as a college coach, and a couple of weeks later, like on the ticker that I signed with Athletes Unlimited. I'm like, we don't have anything going on, so I'll take my moment. But you know, it was the blessing for us, especially in softball that we got so many fans during that first season, and so it's it's the brand recognition, and I think it's better because athletes and women that has a following now and now
we can say, hey, we have these teams. Yeah, and let's push that because that is what it is. It's it's when you start brand new and people don't know who you are. That's the hardest part. And I've learned that now my husband and I opened the business and it's like, man, you think social media is just going to like we're blast everything out for you, and it
doesn't happen that way. And so I think having the brand recognition really actually might help this entity be able to connect with those college fans because college softball is huge. I mean, I still go to games at Texas. I've been welcomed up in Norman. As much as that sounds sacrilegious, I said, I wanted to see the stadium and the fans were like, come on up, we'd love to have you.
And yeah, you know, they just they they love the history of it, they love what's coming of it, and they we just have to get them to love their athletes post college as well. And you know that's, like you said, that's been the trick. But I think the brand recognition of Athletes Unlimited already established is going to help that.
Yeah, so you mentioned the previous and still will be running. AU softball has individual and team points earned per game, and then in the end, one individual player wins it all. That was you the inaugural champion of Athletes Unlimited Softball
back in twenty twenty. What did you take from your experience that you mentioned made you want to join as an advisor and also that you brought to your role once you got there and said, this is what stood out to me from playing, this is what was great, this is what needs to be worked.
One part of it was John and Jonathan. John Patrick co Hof was more of the point person that we saw a lot in season one, and I remember he was coming into town and he had just text and was like, hey, you know, I know you've been in pro softful for a long time. I love to say I'm in chat and he just wanted my perspective on where it was. You know, how was season one going,
what could be better? And obviously during COVID there were so many restrictions, it was hard to say what was better because we we had our own we had our own bubble there too, and so but I just remember him wanting to have conversation and I was like, Okay, they're in this for the long haul and they truly want the product their athlete to be happy and to
have what they need. And then the people they hire from content team to you know, are the people who are managing our equipment, our draft, you know, everyone that helps produce the draft and all of that. It's just everyone was really truly invested and it wasn't just a job.
There were times where I think people wanted to get into sport and they found a job in the in pro softball, but it was just a job in the stepping stone, and they found people who truly were invested in women's sports, and that was it stood out because NAM want to be around people that are invested in you, in what you're doing, and not just there to you know, check the box of you know, I got this this and this done today.
And so AU has always felt to me like they really listened to a lot of what people say they want out of professional women's sports and they give it, whether that's maternal care to athlete opinions and voices being heard on everything from uniforms to everything else. So it feels like they're doing it right, and it's just about continuing to get the word out about that. So we
just talked about the previous AU softball format. Twenty twenty five is going to see a new Athlete's Unlimited Softball league, more traditional kind, starting as a touring property featuring games in six to eight different cities, and then becoming a city based league beginning in twenty twenty six. We're going to take a little break here and when we come back, we're going to get a full AUSL one oh one from Cat Asterman.
It's coming up next to.
We're back talking with Kat Osterman, and I mentioned the transition from the old individual league to the new more traditional league. Why the change, and I think you mentioned they're both going to exist moving forward.
Yeah, so fans and athletes both were kind of asking for the traditional league. Originally AU had put AUX, which was an extra like three week shortened season as a tune up for the actual championship season, and instead we're going to implement the traditional season during that time extended a little bit. But both fans, you know, a lot of fans and like, as we said, there's a history of college softball fans that have watched, those that did tune in there, a lot of them didn't like kind
of I call it the fantasy model. They didn't like that points model, and they've been asking for a team model. And then I think athletes too. Sometimes when you get in the points model, if you get down towards the bottom, you're not given opportunities to get yourself out of that spot. You just end up being you know, the bench person for a couple of weeks or maybe get one or two at bats, and it doesn't really allow you to
move up. And so now with the traditional model, it gives athletes a chance to be able to play every week and work themselves through slumps and things like that. But yeah, so they went ahead and listened to two fans and athletes and we're going to do the six week traditional model, and we're all really excited about it.
So let's do AUSL one oh one here. Yet, you've told us how we arrived at this, Let's start with what it's going to look like with teams. How many of them are there and who are they?
Yeah, so we have four teams. I am in charge of the Volts and my head coach is Kelly Creutchman, who's also a decorated Olympian and professional. We have the Talents, whose GM is actually the Goats of All Goats, Lisa Fernandez. Their head coach is Howard Dobson, who's a longtime college coach and just recently got out of a college game, but has also been in the USA Softball Arena as a coach. We have The Blaze, which is GM'd by Danis Sorenson, one of the smartest people in our game.
She played at Stanford, a little bit older than I am. And her head coach is Alissa Gohler, who is a former professional player as well. And then, last but not least, the Bandits are recreated and Stacy Nuveman, who was their head coach their last few years in the NPF, is going to head coach that and her GM is Jenny Dalton Hill, another big name from actually before even like
the four team stuff. She played at Arizona. So those four teams are going to kick off the inaugural year, and the hope is that we add two more in here too.
There is something for everyone with these names and logos. The Blaze is super bright, kind of like nineties pop. The talents have this incredible crest that looks like a peregrine falcon sort of formed into a crush shape.
The Bandits.
Of course, I'm a little bit biased being a Chicago gallon having on to see the Chicago Bandits on many occasions. The way they incorporate the colors of the Chicago flag and the star kind.
Of ties to that. But the Volts have the best colors.
In my opinion, I am really into that sort of tennis ball green and with the purple.
I think it's going to pop.
So people can find their merch, they can find the team, the players, the logos that they're drawn to. You mentioned the gms and coaches leading the teams. So much experience, so much history there in softball. What about some of the players. I know there's still a lot of signings yet to happen, but who are some of the players we'll be watching in this new league.
Yeah, anyone you've seen in a US Championship season unless they retired, are eligible, And a lot of contracts were extended to majority of the returning players. Right now, we have Bubba Nichols, who.
Greatest name in sports in my opinion, Bubba Nichols. It's so good.
Yes, she got married and I think she might have put her married name on her jersey and we were like, dude, you have to just stick with bubb the Nichols. Yes, it is what it is. Carly Hoover, who was an amazing picture at LSU, is actually coming back Stateside to play professionally. She's been playing over in Japan where she's
dominated for a few years. And then we have you know, not signed yet but have been part of au You know, you have amand Lorenz who's the most recent champion, Rachel Garcia, all of those that we're trying to we're waiting to see when they sign, and we'll hopefully be part of the first allocation draft.
Do you have any idea if any of the players who recently retired might be changing their minds to come back now that there's this new AUSL to join.
I did see Haley mcclinney recently and she was like, if you can promise me this tier, I might I might retire for a couple of years. So I do know there are some that, like we were all wishing for this model to come, and some of them, I don't know, give them a year, they might unresign.
Yeah, they might catch sight of what's going on over there and decide they want back in something you did. Of course, you had a couple retirements and returns. So as a GM, when you're looking at these players that you want to add to this new league, what's your role in signing them and scouting them?
So I'm gonna work with Kelly obviously on creating a roster that we feel like is going to be talented but at the same time passionate, energetic. So it's about, you know, the culture, and I think the plus side I have is that I've played with a lot of these athletes, so I know who they are on and
off the field. I know you know their character and how they how they play the game, and if they're going to match the other pieces that we put into place before, you know, in rounds, before we draft certain people, and then after that, it's about making sure that everything is running smoothly. I'm gonna, you know, I have to
I shouldn't say have to. I will be in market for most of it doing double duty because I also coach an eighteen new team, so I'll be going back and forth in a lot of softball during that time, but you know, be in market, make sure the travel is taken care of, make sure that you know, we know what hotel we're going to, where where food's coming from, like all those things with the places that we're traveling
to and so and then eventually once season's over. I think the cool part that they want us to offer is, you know, a player development plan. So when you have rookies that maybe didn't play, could be on the bubble if they get a contract, here's what we need to see from you in the off season. You know, we need to see you improve in these areas, and we're going to give them resources to be able to do
those player development plans. And that's something that we've never had in our sport because it's always just go figure out how to be a professional athlete on your own. And so being able to put together player development plans. It does fall on my shoulders to release players if we think, you know, we need to move on from them. And so that might be the tough part, especially if they're people I've played with. But I'm I'm known to be a very honest communicator. So while it might be
a little bit tough, on my heart strings. I think I'll be able to do it, but really excited just because we get to add some pieces, you know, especially for the player development overall. That is huge for our sport. And as you said, you know, AU has always done childcare and maternity leave and all of that really well,
and so the childcare policy is huge. An athlete can have their child travel with them and AU pays for it, or they get a stipend and that can go to whoever's helping watch them back home.
Awesome.
Yeah, so it's about coordinating that too, you know, making sure that families are taken care of and all of that as we travel. And it's not just only on the field stuff.
You mentioned that someone said maybe I'll come back for the right tier. Does that mean that you are the one deciding player pay or who is deciding salaries and things like that.
No, there was a committee that got together that tiered the current players based on what they've done in Athletes unlimited and so that can change though. You know obviously each year you have to perform to keep your tier, and you can drop and other people can increase, and then how that's going to go as we expand in more years is not quite sure, but for right now, Yeah,
there was a committee that tiered those athletes. But as a GM, when a year ends, we can we can put our two cents in on like, hey, this player performed really well or I think this player needs to be bumped up for consideration.
Where are the games going to be played? You mentioned being in market.
So there's like six to eight cities. The only two that are solidified right now are Chicago and Wichita. But I can say they have actually looked like coast to coast. So there's a lot of a lot of places being considered that we have never really ever been before, even in other professional entities with the national team. So we could be in markets that will be the first time they see, you know, elite level softball.
That's awesome.
When do you anticipate us learning about the locations?
I would believe that you should probably know what cities sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Cool.
Are those locations being used to test the best spots for permanent markets starting next season?
Yes, so, as I said, wich Ta in Chicago, it's probably not a it's like not a secret. Obviously, the bandits with Chicago colors. But for yeah, season two, a lot of these markets are going to be you know, tested to see. Some of them already have made bids and they believe that they're going to be strong enough to do it, but it is it's to see who comes out, you know, how is it hosted, is there enough stuff? If the team's how's there for athletes to
you know, have all the resources they need. So yeah, it's it's a test market. But at the same time, I think too some of them might be solidified. I don't know. But also where can we expand to? So we're going to eight cities? Is this where we could eventually have all eight teams?
Cool?
Yeah?
What are the league dates? When does it start and end?
Athletes report at the end of May. I believe our first series will be the first week or weekend of June, and then the goal is to wrap up Our championship series will be the top two teams best too out of three and that'll end at the last week of July.
So that's the season format, regular season matches. Between all the games, the top two teams will end up in the championship.
Yes, cool.
Are there any new or different rules to look out? For outside of the normal rules of softball orre we playing it straight.
No, we're gonna play it straight. There's nothing too funky. I think in the past MPF and other pro entities haven't had a run role. They've like, let everyone play it out. But I think we might we might bring the run role into effect for professional softball. That was a conversation we were having, and I think a lot of us were just with pitching and whatnot, trying to advocate for that.
Is the run rule the nice newer way of saying slaughter role? I guess, so, yeah, we think we stopped saying that.
That seems right. That seems like a good choice to stop saying that.
When I was growing up, if a team was getting beat, the breaks off of it was called slaughter rule.
If you ended it early.
Run rule is nicer For folks newer to softball, What are some ways to watch and be a more educated viewer of the game watching the on just balls and strikes or runs and outs.
What are things we can look for?
Well, I think one thing that with all of our productions is athletes a limited does it themselves and they do a great job of storytelling for each athlete, so as you watch, you'll get to know more about the individual athletes or a group of them if they came
from the same school. But at the same time watching I think I obviously was a pitcher, so my eyes are always in the circle, but just watching how a pitcher uses their pitches in her repertoire and seeing later in the game how they're doing something different than they
were early in the game. It's always fun to sit down with athletes and go through hitters of an elite pitcher and be like, Okay, this is what she was doing early in the game, but they know that, you know, in the first three innings this was her go to
and now she's changed that. But at the same time, we have some amazing hitters that you can totally get a feel of what they're looking for and how they're gaining momentum in there at bat when you watch just what pitches take, who they're facing for you know the second or third time, and that becomes really fun. And I think I would say as much as that everyone
wants to pick a team. On that team, pick a hitter that you watch for one game and just watch how she approaches every of that because you can learn so much from all of these athletes.
If we've got overachievers as listeners that really want to they're not big on top of or haven't really looked into it much. Do you have a resource that you maybe give young players just starting out to start to understand what to look for, what's the most important as a player.
That might also work for someone who just wants to watch.
You know, we honestly don't have like a lot of softball one oh one like go here to learn it. I would say the biggest thing is go to YouTube and type in a player or a team, or go just follow your local college team. Go watch a game and write down your questions and then watch it on TV. Or like I said, athletes in the Limit have all their past games for the championship series on YouTube. Go watch and see, you know, do your questions get answered or what else? Do you what else sticks out to you?
I think that's a big thing. We always tell young athletes, like, go watch the game and then come to us with questions.
Cool, so that.
Way they're seeing it in real time and then you get to tell them, Okay, they did this because of X, Y and Z, and that's the best way to learn, I feel like, but I still feel like we're so young that we don't have that one that's off well, one on one resource to point everyone too.
Well, it sounds like your next job, Kat, that's your plate. Where can folks get tickets if they want to go to a game, you.
Can get them online AU pro sports dot com. All of their sports are covered there, but aus L has its own little tab now and once sites are announced and tickets are available, it will be there.
And how can folks watch on TV and streaming?
ESPN is going to cover thirty games that goes with our AUSL series as well as the Championship series, which is the points based system, and then aside from that, they usually if ESPN's not covering something between CBS, Sports Valleys and other networks, it will be either streamed or also aired, so it will be covered, you will be able to see it. And we're excited to be launching.
So from now on, AUSL will be the traditional format and AU Sopball Championship Series will be the point.
That it's going to be called All Star Cups, So AUSL and then the All Star Cups, okay, perfect. The premise is in the future, if we have eight teams, the top sixty performers will get invited to All Star Cup.
Nice cool, that makes sense.
Okay, last couple here. Setting up a league is about more than just getting players on the field, So tell us about the behind the scenes. This is a little bit easier for this because Athletes Unlimited has been in practice for a number of years with different sports. But what does it look like in terms of support staff, doctors, physical therapists, hr, things like that, reporting if there's player issues or you know, issues within the coaches or league.
Correct, So we will have athletic trainers. We are trying, I know, trying to make sure there's access to chiroproductors, pets. If not traveling with us in market wherever we travel to, housing is going to be taken care of. And if they would like to have a housing back at Chicago where we start off with our training, they can get a stipend and find an airbnb or a rental property or whatever if they would like to do that, and keep stuff there so they're not carrying everything with them
for the five or six weeks. As I mentioned, the childcare and Materneyle is great. The biggest thing that AUSL has done that no NPR or no Professional Opportunity has ever had is they have you around insurance. So that was added to the docket this year, which is just huge. A professional athlete, I had had a couple of short term insurance policies to cover when I was in between jobs and whatnot, so that's huge. Support staff isn't going
to be an issue. We're still hiring a lot, but everything athlete and the women covers everything, and as since they're all under one umbrella, everybody can kind of mix and match or share if something happens. And then as part of the advisory board, we are still working on some of the policies and stuff, but it's going to be top notch and professionally run. Cool.
Okay, So we're closing with this my not yet trademarked but should be trademarked approach to teaching folks about a new sport, or talking to a newbie as I take them to their first sporting event, or even just sort of how I crafted how I wanted to talk about stories of women's sports on this show can be summed up by the four US's Stars, stakes, stats and stories. So I want to close with the speed round for the AUSL.
Stars. You mentioned a couple, but who should we watch for?
I mentioned Bubba Nichols and Carl Hoover. I think the other one is Daja Moulliepolas. She was a previous champ. She's coming back to AU after taking a year of doing some other things, so it'll be excited to see her back in the fold.
Okay, we're going to add their accounts to the show notes so people can follow them and keep up with keep up with the league. Okay, Stakes, how important is it going to be for say, one regular season game a winner or a loss to the team's likelihood of making it to the championship. What are the stakes of each game we're watching?
Well, this year we have a limited short schedule, so there's only twenty four games, so every game is going to count. Every game is going to matter, even at the very beginning, which I think a lot of times is where you know, especially in men's sports, when they play so many you kind of can get some more up rowing.
Stats.
What's a great stat line in a single game for a batter or for a pitcher for people to look for for a hitter.
I think, well, it depends, but usually a two for three, two for four something where you know, but if they go one for three with a sackfly move the runner, that can also be successful. But I think a lot of times watch the hard hits. If they're barreling football,
they're getting ready to get hot and go on a streak. Pitchers, I'm a little bit selfish in that realm, so I like to look at strikeouts, but really it's how few free passes they give, walks and hit by pitches and then can they scatter their hits as opposed to allowing them to be back to back?
Okay, and stories give us a story or two to follow. It could be a player coming back from injury, a player that breaks boundaries or represents an underrepresented group. It could be a coach or a GM with a really cool story. What's something we should be excited about as we get looking forward to the season.
Well, I think too. One, we just had a rookie, Sidney McKinney. I think she was a rookie. She might have been in her second year, but she's from Wichita. So anytime the AUSL is going to go back to Wichita. If she's on one of those two teams. It's I think it's going to be fun to see how Wichita shows out for her and how she performs there because when aux was there she did really well. And then two, I think the biggest get for AUSL has been Lisa Fernandez.
You know, but go she's been around the game. She'll describe herself as a lifer, and to have her involved right now in this new, vibrant kind of environment is huge because of all of her experience in everything. I mean, she's been part of, you know, trying to get a
national team going to being in the Olympics. Multiple different pro avenues have existed in her time, and so it's really cool to have her and see how her influence is going to now continue to impact this young generation of professional athletes.
I love it. Well, that's it, folks.
You know everything you need to know that you can know so far about the AUSL.
Thanks to the great Kat Austerman. Kat, thanks for.
The time, Thank you so much.
Welcome back, slices.
We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too. So here's our good game play of the day. Follow AUSL on social and follow some of the players Cat mentioned, like Bubba Nichols and Deja Mulipola. One of the best ways to learn about a new league, get to know the players and storylines, and keep up with the games is to have them right in your social timeline, so hit that
follow button. Also check out photographer slash videographer Jade Hewitt on Instagram for dope visuals and fantastic reporter Savannah Collins for updates, interviews, and behind the scenes content. Links to accounts in our show notes, And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review like this paying homage to the Chicago Bandits with a new Incarnation rating ten out of ten
inventive reinventions review. The Chicago Bandits were a staple of the National Pro Fast Pitch League from twenty five to twenty nineteen, so reimagining them with a new logo and colors in this AUSL league just feels right, especially when the new logo rocks the light blue, white and red of the Chicago Flag Bandits Forever. Now it's your turn, subscribe, rate and review.
Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Good game, Cat, good game AUSL.
You trying to play a professional sport after taking a red eye flight. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan
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