Look closely at the youngsters fielding the towering blasts that fall just short during tonight's Home Run Derby and there's a good chance you'll see the Chattanooga Khaos 12-under softball team.
One of four such squads chosen by Major League Baseball to attend the Midsummer Classic at Phoenix's Chase Field, the Khaos are made up mostly of kids who never have played the sport before, hence the nickname.
"They're the Khaos because that's what it was the first couple of practices - pure chaos," said co-coach Michelle Taylor of Chattanooga Parks and Recreation, which sponsors the team.
"They'd put the glove on the wrong hand. They'd put it on backwards. We finally had to tell some of them that you throw the ball with the hand you write with. Eight weeks ago they didn't know anything, but to see them now, I'll be surprised if they don't hold their own."
If you are becoming a tad bit confused at this point about how a softball team whose roster is filled with players so inexperienced they don't which hand to put a glove on can receive a trip to the All-Star game, background is required.
Concerned with the scarcity of black youth playing baseball these days, MLB officials visited Chattanooga this past winter to discuss a grant with Parks and Recreation that would help fund inner-city youth baseball programs throughout the city.
Parks and Recreation program director Greta Hayes was excited but asked MLB if it provided any funding for softball, because as Hayes said, "Girls really like to play softball around here."
Intrigued, MLB checked out the pristine fields at Warner Park and the Summit and were understandably impressed. Grant money soon arrived for both softball and baseball. An invitation was also extended to the city to send a 12-under softball team to compete against similar teams from Little Rock, Pittsburgh and Boston.
Hayes, Taylor and co-coach Butch Leftwich immediately went to work.
"We invited 20 girls," Leftwich said. "We kept 12. They came from all over the city. Some had played since they were 5 or 6. Some hadn't played at all."
Added Taylor: "It was never about softball only. They had to write an essay about why they wanted to do this. It was real dramatic early. There were some who were just flat-out crying. They didn't understand what this was all about."
There was also the drama of having to board a plane to reach Phoenix: Only one of the girls had previously been outside Chattanooga.
"DeAisa's [Griffin] more scared than anything because she's never been on a plane," Tamara Daniel said Friday morning as she guided her rising Tyner Middle School seventh-grade daughter toward the departure gate. "But she's excited, too. We already had luggage, but being a parent I had to buy her everything new."
The flight aside, it's all worked out wonderfully. Local businesses such as McKee Bakery and Coca-Cola put together goody-bags. Arizona State University is providing lodging. And just to prove you can learn to play a difficult sport from scratch in 10 weeks or less, the Khaos stood 3-0-1 as the players anxiously awaited the start of Sunday night's Taco Bell Celebrity softball game featuring Jordin Sparks, softball legend Jennie Finch, Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, Arizona Cardinals wideout Larry Fitzgerald and former major leaguers Ozzie Smith, Ernie Banks, Rickey Henderson and Mark Grace.
Asked whose autograph she most wanted, young Raven Shoulders said, "Anybody."
All the All-Stars could pick up a few pointers on versatility from Arts & Sciences student Shoulders. Having never pitched before Saturday, she won her first-ever start.
"I've learned a lot about myself this week," she told Hayes afterward, a wide smile on her face.
And these bright young girls, not yet teenagers, have no doubt learned much. All of them. From Shawnquell Stanfield to Jermya Eubanks, from Alexus Thompson to Jerriale Jackson, from Riniqua Rollins to Mya Adams, from Monica Thompson to JeCobia Stepp, from TiAirra Talley to Jaimesia Parks, from Griffin to Shoulders.
Adams wrote in her essay, "I want to make new friends."
Griffin said at the airport, "I just want to have fun."
But Hayes kept coming back to something a parent had told her long before the Khaos got to Phoenix.
Said Hayes: "The mother told me that she was hearing her daughter talk about the possibility of going to college for the first time ever."
For any parent anywhere, whether they hail from deep in the city or far out in the country, that's not just a home run - that's a grand slam.