Sonoma Stories: The girl on Coach Perry’s team is one of the best players he’s ever seen

Near-mythical Little League coach John Perry cranks up the electric pitching machine as fast as it'll go, and still batter Kailee Diaz-Randall connects with the ball.

This season, Kailee is batting .435 on the majors-division A's of Santa Rosa's Westside league.

Defensively, the 13-year-old would rather catch or play shortstop than pitch.

But when she's on the mound, she'll shyly admit, “I can fool somebody with a pitch.”

The only girl in the Westside majors this year, Kailee throws a fastball, a change-up and curve.

“I'm working on the knuckleball,” she said.

Coach Perry interjects that Kailee's curve ball is fairly “rinky-dink.” But her change-up, he declares, “is the best of any pitcher I've had.”

And overall, Perry said, Kailee is in the top 10 of all the players, nearly all of them boys, that he has ever coached.

And he has coached many. A great many.

Perry, 66 and a retired employee of Viavi Solutions/JDSU/Optical Coating Laboratory, is something of a Little League legend.

Though he doesn't have children of his own, he has garnered national attention for coaching the Westside A's - and challenging his players with his towering standards for responsibility and respectful behavior - for the past 45 years.

When the A's take the field today for a 5:30 p.m. postseason contest on the diamond behind Wright School, it will be Perry's 1,120th game.

So for him to say Kailee Diaz-Randall is one of the finest players he's ever coached, that means something.

Kailee, a Santa Rosa native who just completed the seventh grade at Slater Middle School, credits her big brother, Dominic, who's 15 and a sophomore at Montgomery High, for introducing her to the game.

“I've always looked up to my brother, and he got me into it,” Kailee said. “He was always supporting me.”

In Little League, Dominic played years on Perry's A's. Perry became aware of Kailee when she played in the Westside minor league and was grateful for the rule that gives a coach the first shot at a team member's sibling. He brought Kailee onto the A's three years ago.

She didn't hit so well in her early seasons as a 10- and 11-year-old, but she pushed herself to get better. In the past two seasons, her batting average soared and she hit 10 home runs.

In his 45 years of coaching the A's, only one player hit more, Perry said.

The coach said Kailee is unusual that she seems to love practice nearly as much as playing in a game. And Perry has rarely coached a kid eager to play every game, every inning, every moment possible.

An illustration: Perry recalled that earlier this year the 5-foot-1 Kailee was at bat and a fastball hit her inside the right knee. She shook off the pain and took first base.

Before the next game, Kailee told the coach her leg was a bit sore so when she batted she might need a pinch runner.

Perry said Kailee was a bit slower that game but she played well, hammering a home run and striking out three in a row.

After the game, Kailee asked Perry if he wanted to see the bruise on her leg.

“It was the biggest bruise I've seen!” he said.

“I was hurting after I looked at her leg.”

He asked his player why she hadn't shown him the bruise before the game.

She replied, “Because you wouldn't have let me play.”

Another time, a collision with an opposing base runner broke a bone in Kailee's left arm.

“She was devastated,” Perry said. “Not about the arm being broke but about not being able to play.”

Kailee was voted an All-Star all three years that she played on Perry's team. She's got to leave him next year, when she'll advance to Westside Little League's junior division.

Asked what she aspires to be doing eight or 10 years from now, Kailee didn't have to think long: She wants to be playing for the San Francisco Giants.

Perry encourages her but also asks her to keep in mind that one day the Westside A's will be in need of a new coach.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.