DATE: Tuesday, July 29, 1997                TAG: 9707290446

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   86 lines

SHE'S THE STAY-AT-HOME ROADSTER

Melissa Mikolajczak rearranged her entire weekend for her first Virginia Roadsters softball game. After leaving a business meeting in Baltimore early, she grabbed a plane back to Norfolk and changed clothes in the car, figuring she had plenty of time to make it to War Memorial Stadium in Hampton.

Halfway there, traffic began to creep approaching the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.

Car on fire ahead. Expect an hour delay.

Mikolajczak groaned and dialed Ann Depperman, announcing, ``I'm going to be late.''

No problem, the Roadsters assistant general manager told her. ``Just get here when you can.''

Missing the pregame warm-ups might not bother most folks, but Mikolajczak wasn't just going to the game; she was playing in it.

The Beach resident is the only local connection on Virginia's Women's Professional Fastpitch team, which is dominated by recent college graduates, many of whom are now assistant coaches.

Mikolajczak is neither. At 28, she is the second-oldest player on the team. She works as an account executive for Coca-Cola Fountain, the strategist who convinces area eateries to offer Coke products.

Petite and muscular, she is a utility infielder for the Roadsters. In a preseason tryout camp for undrafted players, she earned a job as a fill-in whom manager Lynn O'Linski could call in a pinch to don a uniform and cleats if a roster spot opened because of injury. In that role, she attended virtually every home game, arriving in uniform to take part in warm-ups whether she was activated that night or not.

Over the first half of the season, Mikolajczak - pronounced Mick-o-LIE-check - played well enough to convince O'Linski to sign her to a full-fledged contract in mid-July. These days she starts at second base and generally bats clean-up in the Roadsters' lineup. Her defense initially caught O'Linski's eye in the tryouts, but it was Mikolajczak's offense that earned her a permanent spot.

``She's continuously gotten better at the plate,'' O'Linski said. ``She's one of our long-ball hitters, and she's a gap hitter.''

In 16 games, Mikolajczak's average is .213, with two doubles and two triples in 47 at-bats.

``I hadn't seen live women's fastpitch, underhand pitching, in seven years - since college,'' she said. ``Just getting the bat on the ball was pretty monumental for me; I was pretty excited about that.''

Recreational softball has never appealed much to Mikolajczak, who prefers the structure and the accountability that a pro league demands. She admits to being only in average shape since graduating from Virginia in 1991. She played softball and volleyball there and stayed in Charlottesville three more years coaching volleyball. Afterward she moved home to Tampa where she heard about a fledgling women's pro baseball team, the Colorado Silver Bullets, holding tryouts in Orlando.

``I got the bug and went for it,'' she said. ``It was like a real major-league tryout. You got four grounders, five swings and timed in the 40. That's it.''

Mikolajczak made the team for the inaugural 1994 season - as an alternate. After four weeks of spring training, the closest she got to a game was as a spectator years later in Richmond. Promises of a women's baseball league overseas, dubbed the Mediterranean League, went unfulfilled, and when Mikolajczak moved to Chick's Beach in February, pickup basketball became her sport.

Then she heard about Roadsters tryouts.

``She was one of the few people who called who really had a clue about the level of play required,'' Depperman said.

Unlike her teammates who coach at the college level, Mikolajczak does not have a ``day job'' that gives her the summer off. In order to balance the Roadsters' schedule with her marketing position at Coca-Cola, she and O'Linski worked out an arrangement by which Mikolajczak stays at home on most of the team's road trips and gets paid a prorated salary based on the number of games she plays.

The situation leaves her starting spot vulnerable if her road replacement plays well, and the two jobs make for a long day when the Roadsters are in town. Mikolajczak gets started before 6 a.m. and hustles to pregame warm-ups after work; afterward, she drives perhaps 40 minutes from War Memorial Stadium to her home in Chick's Beach. She also is taking a night accounting class necessary to gain entry into William and Mary's master's program.

``I have a whole day where I'm focusing and it's mentally draining, not necessarily physically draining,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

TING-LI WANG/The Virginian Pilot

Melissa Mikolajczak, a Virginia Beach resident, doesn't fit the mold

of most Virginia Roadsters, who are fresh out of college. KEYWORDS: PROFILE WOMENS SOFTBALL

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