A month ago, Mackenzie Brown was your typical 12-year-old girl, a pretty young lady with bright smile that is being corrected with braces. The Bayonne resident is a multi-talented seventh grade student who gets straight A’s on her report card and plays competitive basketball and baseball, even though the latter is with and against boys.
But that was last month.
Now, young Mackenzie is the toast of the town. She has been featured on all the local television stations, appearing also on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Fox-5 Live. Highlights of her story have been found on ESPN, CNN and MSNBC.
“Someone saw highlights of her on television in Italy,” said Mackenzie’s mother, Maureen Brown. “They saw that it was a girl from Bayonne and that drew their attention in Italy.”
Put her name into a search on YouTube and there are several different options to watch. It’s all happened in a span of a few weeks.
Last Saturday, Mackenzie received the thrill of a lifetime when she threw out the first pitch before the New York Mets played the Washington Nationals. Before the game, Mackenzie met a lot of the Met players.
How does this all happen?
It was her play in the Bayonne Little League that got Mackenzie Brown the international acclaim.
Retired 18 batters
A week ago Tuesday night, while playing for her team Unico, Brown fired a perfect game. That’s right, she faced 18 batters and retired all 18, striking out 12 of them. It was the first time ever that a girl pitched a perfect game in Little League baseball history.
“It was about the fourth inning when I realized what was happening,” Mackenzie Brown said. “It was in my mind already, then someone said something. I only started to get a little nervous in the last inning.”
Always a courteous player, Brown didn’t celebrate wildly after the final out was recorded.
“I was going to shake the other team’s hands, and then my teammates went crazy,” Brown said. “It was a lot of fun.”
At the time, she figured that was it. It was just a one-shot deal, a game to remember for when she got older.
However, that wasn’t the case at all.
Someone from the Bayonne Little League contacted both Fox Channel 5 in New York and UPN Channel 9 in Secaucus and told the stations about Mackenzie’s incredible and historic feat.
“They said that they had news crews in the area and they would be right down to the field,” Mackenzie Brown said. “The next day, people started calling our house and it really got crazy. That’s when I realized I had done something really big.”
Got crazy
On Wednesday, when news of Brown’s perfection broke, every form of the news media came calling. ESPN got highlights of the perfect game and broadcast them as part of “SportsCenter.”
“I was watching ESPN and there I was,” Mackenzie Brown said. “It really was amazing.”
The other news stations, like Fox 5 Live and Good Morning America, sent limousines to bring Mackenzie to be interviewed.
“There certainly was a lot of attention,” Mackenzie Brown said. “It was unbelievable.”
Much like the British singer Susan Boyle from “Britain Has Talent,” Mackenzie Brown became an overnight sensation. The demands for interviews kept stockpiling.
“My cousin is more important than Sports Illustrated,” Mackenzie laughed.
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“My cousin is more important than Sports Illustrated,” Mackenzie laughed. “I’m going to the communion party. I didn’t have to think too much about it.”
On Thursday, someone from the Mets’ front office called and asked if Mackenzie would want to throw out the first pitch on Saturday. It was perfect for her, because she’s a diehard Met fan, with her favorite player being David Wright.
“That was like unbelievable,” Brown said. “I was so amazed. It was great to meet the players before the game.”
Reliever J.J. Putz gave Brown an autographed glove. Daniel Murphy kidded with Brown, rubbing her back, hoping that some of her good luck would rub off on him. And the prized moment happened a few minutes before the first pitch, when Wright presented Mackenzie with an autographed bat.
“The players were all pretty cool and all really nice,” Brown said.
As for the pitch from the mound at CitiField?
“I just wanted to reach,” Brown said. “I don’t think it was a strike.”
The pitch to Mets’ rookie catcher Omir Santos sailed high and wide left, but it didn’t matter. She certainly had her day in the sun.
“I am never going to forget that,” Brown said.
No softball for her
Maureen Brown said her talented daughter has been playing baseball since she was a toddler.
“She’s always had a baseball bat in her hands,” Maureen Brown said. “She must have been about 4 or 5 years old. And she never wanted to play softball with the girls. She wanted to play baseball.”
Mackenzie is one of only two girls currently playing in the Bayonne Little League. She more than fits in with the rest of the league.
“I don’t think they look at Mackenzie as being a girl,” Maureen Brown said. “She’s just one of the players. They don’t treat her any differently.”
It was only natural that Mackenzie became involved in sports. Her father, Norman, was a long-time respected basketball official and baseball umpire. She’s sandwiched between two brothers at home, 14-year-old David and eight-year-old Matthew, who both play sports.
Mackenzie also plays AAU basketball at the Bayonne Police Activity League and played for a travel team that was coached by current New Jersey City University athletic director Alice DeFazio.
“Sometimes, it gets crazy with my schedule, like going from a baseball game to basketball practice,” Mackenzie Brown said. “I always try not to have a conflict so I can do both, but it does get crazy.”
Brown plays for two different baseball teams. On her other team in the Bayonne Cal Ripken League, Chris’ Corner, Mackenzie hit a home run on Friday, three days after her perfect game. She’s certainly living the life.
Maureen Brown, who serves as the vice principal at Bayonne’s Washington School, was worried that all the attention might become too much.
“I thought it was going to be overwhelming for all of us, but it really hasn’t been,” Maureen Brown said. “It’s really been a great experience and it’s a memory that Mackenzie will have for the rest of her life. The whole thing has been surreal. Like I couldn’t believe we were standing on the field at CitiField with the Mets. It’s really been a whirlwind, but a whirlwind in a great way. But it’s been life-changing, absolutely life-changing.”
Mackenzie Brown is slated to take the mound again for Unico Tuesday night. She’s not thinking about another perfect game, just helping her team win.
“I know a lot of people are going to be watching me pitch from now on,” Mackenzie Brown said. “I just have to pitch like I always do.”
A truly perfect answer.