Kennedy High baseball star has a wicked curveball. What makes her a trailblazer
Laney Fukuoka has heard it all.
The out-loud wise cracks, the subtle digs, the snickers. The Kennedy High School senior pitcher has also caught the expressions of discord and doubt when taking the mound — the rolled eyes, the nodding of the head, the deep sighs.
The heckling line most common? “She throws like a girl!”
Well, shoot, man. News flash: She is a girl.
Check out her manicured nails, the blue polish, the long, straight black hair snaking out from her Cougars cap that dances when she winds up and unleashes a pitch. And don’t forget to notice her smile, her wicked curveball, her efforts and attitude.
Fukuoka is a champion of perseverance and pride on a struggling team where the bottom line remains firm: It’s a game, so enjoy it while also embracing the sport as a reminder of life lessons. Not every pitch breaks. Not every grounder is fielded cleanly by teammates giving it their best. And not every day is a sun-shining day at the park.
She is a rarity, a girl starting on a varsity baseball team. Fukuoka uncorks pitches days after dazzling in a blue gown for a school dance, the radiant smile to match. She has worked the count to full in the batter’s box as a hitter an hour after acing an Advanced Placement test as a student with numbers that really resonate: a 3.5 GPA.
Fukuoka also plays first base and helps the Cougars zip through drills with laser throws, so you can see she has an arm and feel for the game and is no novelty act. She is the most experienced player on the Kennedy roster, and as Cougars coach Dave Enos reminds, “She’s our best player.”
Fukuoka is also quick with the comeback. In facing West Park of Roseville in a recent Metro League game, Fukuoka was asked by a Panthers player if she had noticed his pitcher. He posed to Fukuoka, “He might need a date.”
Said Fukuoka, “How tall is he?”
Bam!
Fukuoka is 5-foot-7, by the way, so she would have seen eye-to-eye with the West Park pitcher. Mostly, Fukuoka towers as a sparkling example of rising above the noise and criticism in a sport big on it. It’s how one responds that counts, Fukuoka said that she has learned along the way, and it is a theme she shares with young girls who ask her about dealing with boys in a male-dominated sport.
Baseball can be difficult enough to play, especially for a team on the rebuild, short of experience and without a home field to play or practice on due to facility upgrades on the Greenhaven campus. Fukuoka is every bit human, too. She speaks eloquently about her joys of the game, the challenges, the pain of defeats and the heat of criticism. And she is the one with the big smile and the steady leadership on the field and in the dugout. She has called her teammates “great” and “special” and has defined her senior season as “the time of my life.”
“There are times I’m nervous when I go out there, controlling my emotions, mental health,” she said. “Feels like there can be a lot of weight on your shoulders just being a girl out here, but I’ve learned to change it to a positive thing, too, attracting an audience and just doing what I love. So it’s been amazing.”
Fukuoka, who’ll turn 18 on May 15, had this to say of the tired “you throw like a girl” line: “Honestly, I’ve taken it as a compliment. My coaches use it as a compliment. I get some hecklers here and there, but just blocking that out.
“It’s normal to receive some hate. But you should never take any criticism from anyone you wouldn’t take advice from.”
Fukuoka earned her spot
Fukuoka isn’t on the Cougars team as some sort of statement or a power play by a pushy parent. She has earned every bit of her role as a team-elected captain and as a third-year starter on the varsity program for the Sacramento City Unified School District program.
How Fukuoka has handled the heckling defines her resolve and good nature. She explains that wins and gaudy statistics would be nice, but numbers are not the only thing that defines athletics. That is her refreshing reminder on why all of this matters.
Like a team leader, Fukuoka has owned her pitches that did not hit the strike zone, or the base hits and runs she has allowed. She is a hard self critic, seeking a measure of perfection in a game big on failure.
Her team has been undone by errors, reflective of a roster young on experience. Some players are first-time varsity players, and there was no junior varsity team at Kennedy last season in which to help players learn the game. But players mirror their captain in caring for the game and each other.
Kennedy has three victories and 21 defeats this season, but you won’t catch Fukuoka throwing her glove at the backstop or going home fuming. Baseball is still a great way to spend a day and season, she said.
“I just love the game so much,” she said. “Good things and bad things happen in baseball but it can still be such a fun sport.”
Fukuoka has a fan in Mike de Necochea, the longtime head coach of the powerhouse McClatchy Lions and a decades-long rival of Kennedy.
“Laney has demonstrated that she can compete effectively at the varsity level,” he said. “As a father of five daughters, I truly admire her dedication and determination to play.”
The coach added, “When my leadoff hitter, Antonio Barber, faced her for the first time this season, he smoked her very first pitch back at her — a hard line drive that just skimmed her and her glove. She handled that moment with composure and continued to pitch without skipping a beat. It’s clear she possesses a strong mental fortitude and maintains her poise on the mound. And she holds her own in the batter’s box, managing to draw two walks against us after battling through several foul balls. I do wish her the best and plan to follow her baseball journey.”
She once struck out 11 with curveball
Fukuoka has had games in her prep career in which she has struck out 11 batters. She has had games in which a strikeout victim tips his hat to her, a compliment in the highest order.
“The players on other teams over the years have mostly been really good to her, a lot of nice boys who can see she’s a good player,” said Fukuoka’s father, Cory Fukuoka.
“The parents? They can be pretty bad. I’ve heard mothers scream at their sons, ‘Don’t you dare strike out against a girl!’ One team had a coach tell his players that if they struck out against her, they’d have to do 20 push-ups right there in the dugout.”
Cory Fukuoka said his best comeback line still works and mutes the grumps.
“I hear a mother from the other team scream, ‘Why isn’t she on the softball team?’, and I go, ‘Because she’s a baseball player!’” he said with a laugh.
The father added, “I’m just so impressed with how Laney has handled all of this. She can sleep before a game, relaxed and confident. Me? I’m a nervous wreck!”
Cory Fukuoka is a Kennedy High graduate and a 25-year teaching veteran in the school district. He is all about opportunities and extra-curricular fun for students, and his joy is in seeing the joy in his daughter’s face while on the mound or playing first base. He is a single father whom his daughter has called “a hero.” He got his daughter into baseball when she was 5 years old but never pushed her into the sport.
Her skills have been enough to lead to invitations to be invited to instructional camps in Japan and Australia.
“Oh, it’s all her, and she really wants to be good at baseball, to enjoy this,” he said. “She has a quiet confidence about her. This sport means everything to her.”
Fukuoka taught herself the curveball that has become her money pitch. Can her older brother, Tristan, hit that pitch?
“No way,” Fukuoka said with a laugh.
Said the proud pop, “I can’t touch that pitch either. I don’t even try.”
Cory Fukuoka is the team’s statistician. He doesn’t avoid any numbers and sugar coats nothing in a sport in which too many stat keepers at the high school level fudge numbers to make a player look better. Fukuoka has one pitching victory and eight defeats, and she has a 5.98 earned-run average. She has struck out 37 batters in 43.1 innings but hasn’t yielded any home runs. The team has committed 124 errors, leading to a lot of runs as the club is learning on the fly how to play the game.
“I don’t really look at the stat sheet or the scoreboard or anything,” Fukuoka said. “Getting to play with this wonderful team and great coaches has meant a lot to me. We’re trying to rebuild the program.”
She added, “I’ve definitely learned about determination. This game is more mental than anything, more mental than physical. Out of these four years here, I’ve definitely had my ups and downs, challenges and internal struggles. But just being who you are and playing the game the right way, it’s kind of like life.”
Fukuoka will pitch in college
Life will take Fukuoka to the East Coast for college late this summer. She will study communications at Emerson College, a small, private school in Boston.
And how about this for good vibes? Fukuoka and her father are big-time Boston sports fans, be it the Celtics or Red Sox. When Cory Fukuoka found out that Emerson was located in his adopted favorite city, he nearly dropped to his knees to kiss the ground.
“That is just so cool!” he said.
More cool: His daughter is taking her curveball with her to college. She has been signed to an academic scholarship to the school and will compete on the men’s baseball roster, to uncork that curveball and to add a bit more class to the group.
“I think there are only about five women playing on baseball teams in college in the country, so we’re really proud of her,” Cory Fukuoka said.
Added his daughter: “I’m so excited. I want to enjoy baseball for as long as I can. I want to play for as long as I can.”
Said her prep coach, Enos, “Laney has been a real joy. She can play. Great attitude. It’s been an honor to have her in this program, and it’ll be fun to watch her in college.”
This story was originally published April 27, 2025 at 5:00 AM.