My dad was best friends with my mom’s older brother, and he’s as close with my mom’s siblings as she is. I think so much of my youth revolved around sports precisely because not much else happened around me. It’s the kind of place that you’re happy to grow up in but also happy to get out of once you come of age. It was a huge deal when we got a Target, and we didn’t even have a chain restaurant until I was fifteen or so. Mostly everyone knew one another, and I was able to walk to elementary and middle school.īut there wasn’t very much going on in Diamond Bar. Diamond Bar is a nice suburban community-quiet, sunny, and generally happy. Way before my dad helped introduce me to athletics, I was just a little kid growing up in Diamond Bar, California, about twenty-five miles east of Los Angeles. My dad grew up playing baseball, and he dreamed of a son playing it, living out what he’d loved most as a little boy. He once said that since I was the third girl, “he was going to make a boy out of me somehow.” He was joking, of course-he loves having three girls and wouldn’t trade us for anything-but I think he had certain hopes as a father. What’s so funny is that even though my dad doted on his girls, he had a real vision of how he would have raised his son, if he’d had one. I can only guess that’s because my dad had chosen the “boy name” Alexander, and my mom decided to allow him just the smallest bit of influence. My mom settled on the name Alexandra for me. If they had a boy, my dad would choose the name, and if they had a girl, my mom would have the honor. With each child my parents had had an agreement. But I had my own set of plans, and when I was born on July 2, 1989, there I was: a little baby girl.

Not that having a third girl is a bad thing they just wanted something different. After having two girls, my parents wanted a boy. I was doing things my own way even before I was born.

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