Fast women.

• Author: Schley, Stuart
• Position: Sports Biz; Amber Burgess and National Pro Fastpitch

YOU'RE TIRED OF ARROGANT ATHLETES. You've had up it to your neckline with contract squabbles and steroid busts. You're burned out on $100 tickets, showboating rookies, no-trade clauses and free agents who disappear into the night.

Your faith is wavering. The romance is fading. You need a hero. A reason to root. A throwback.

You, sports fan, need Amber Burgess.

You need Amber Burgess because she's an athlete who is positively, outrageously, infectiously, convincingly ecstatic to be making a little more than $5,000 to play 60 games this season. You need Amber Burgess, who hit .252 with five homers in her senior year for Nebraska, because she's a Littleton kid who grew up playing ball on the same fields where your kid knocks down grounders on Saturdays in summer.

You need her because of where she went to high school (Columbine), when (1996-1999) and who coached her (the late Dave Sanders). Most of all, you need her in the age of end-zone cell phones and BALCO supplements and hotel-clerk scandals because of what this 23-year-old catcher believes in most as an athlete.

Which is, get this: the soil.

Good, old clay. Earth. Ground.

"I grew up," says Burgess, "respecting the dirt."

You may regret having paid $65 for that Portis jersey. You may be wondering privately what it is about a three-hour hockey game that makes a pair of rink-side seats worth $354. But you hear a love-of-the-game athlete with, until now, zero chance of playing professionally express her fondness for terra firma, and even you, oh jaded one, get back a little of that old-time stirring.

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The Denver-based league that has given Burgess and about 95 other players a chance to extend their playing careers is called National Pro Fastpitch. Six teams, 60 games apiece, June through August.

For the uninitiated, this is not your Thursday night beer league. The emphasis of National Pro Fastpitch is "fast," and it's typified by flame-throwers like Jodie Cox, a lefty who struck out a conference-high 224 batters last year for Cal State Fullerton.

Team owners need at least $150,000 in working capital, and will spend close to $400,000 in their first year of operations. First-year profits, if any, will be slim. Even with a strong fan turnout, owners will depend on corporate sponsorships for about half of their revenues, says Rich...