The closest Lauren Underwood ever came to being a baseball player was the night in 2007 when she was asked to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Jackie Robinson Day at Comerica Park in Detroit. She practiced for days, tossing pitches from the mound of the baseball stadium of the University of Michigan, where she studied nursing.
She got pretty good at it, too, able to heave the ball over those 60 feet 6 inches directly into the catcher’s mitt. But when she arrived at the park on the appointed day, she was told she had to throw from the grass halfway to home plate.