A New Sport with New Rules -- Can Laurie Come Through for Her Team? A New Sport with New Rules -- Can Laurie Come Through for Her Team? With the girls' softball season about to start, fifth-grader Laurie Bird Preston can't decide what to do. Her friends are trying out for the team, but Laurie knows she's no softball player -- basketball is her sport. She helped lead her middle school's girls' basketball team to a state championship just a few weeks earlier. What fun will she have playing a sport she's no good at and might not even like? But with patience, practice -- and help form her friends and an eccentric old woman with a mysterious past -- Laurie might just learn that she doesn't have to be the best player to be part of the team.