SWITCH HITTER : Starr Hinojos, 11, is thriving as a girl in the formerly male bastion of Little League--defying convention, girls’ softball leagues, even fathers of boys who don’t play as well.

Houston Astros pitcher Bob Knepper said he doesn’t think Pam Postema should be umpiring major league games because that’s not a woman’s role in life. “It has nothing to do with her qualifications,” Knepper said of Postema trying to become Major League Baseball’s first female umpire. “ I believe God has ordained that there are some things women should do and some things they should not do.”

Knepper’s comments came during spring training, as baseball’s big shots sorted out which players--and umpires--would make it to the major leagues this season.

For now, Knepper’s sensibilities will be spared. Minor league umpire Pam Postema was not promoted.

But look out, Bob. If you didn’t like the idea of female umpires, you’ll probably like this news even less: Women continue to make inroads on other baseball fronts.

About the time Knepper expressed his opinion, the manager of the East Yorba Linda Little League Cardinals expressed his by choosing a line-drive-hitting infielder who occasionally wears a dress to play for his team.

Starr Hinojos, a very girlish girl of 11 years, is the only girl on the Cardinals. And she is doing very well, thank you.

“They think that I can’t play and that I’m no good, so I want to go out there and show them that I am good,” said Hinojos, who is also the only girl this year to reach the “major league” level of the East Yorba Linda Little League.

Since 1974, Little League has officially permitted girls to take the field alongside boys. But that took an act of Congress.

In the 68 Little Leagues from Cypress to San Clemente there is an average of about one girl per league who dons her cap and mitt each spring to venture into what Knepper might call the male domain of baseball.

Nevertheless, most girls who participate in Little League play in the divisions for the youngest children. By the time they reach age 10, 11 or 12, the vast majority have either dropped out or switched to girls’ softball leagues.

“Even if the girls start in our 9- to 12-year-old program, they tend to go toward softball, because that’s what they tend to play in high school,” said Steve Keener, Little League spokesman in Williamsport, Pa.

Hinojos is one of the exceptions. She definitely prefers hardball, even at the advanced age of 11.

“Some people tease me about it,” she said. “They know I’m good at it, but they just tease me . . . because I like baseball.”

Nationally, there are only about 6,000 girls among the 1.9 million youths, ages 6-18, who participate in Little League Baseball, according to league officials.

There was a time when there were none. Or almost none.

“When I started playing ball, (Little League) is what I played,” said Judy Garman, head coach for Cal State Fullerton’s women’s softball team.

“The most dramatic moment of my life was when I had to strike out my boyfriend. I remember . . . him crying, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Garman, who played Little League baseball in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, Canada, in the early 1950s, was selected for her league’s all-star team to participate in the annual tournament that culminates with the Little League World Series in Williamsport.

“We were in a little town and a couple of (girls) played. When I got to the regional playoffs, the other team objected, and I couldn’t play anymore. Nobody raised any objection until we got to regionals.

“I played just that one year, then they passed a rule that we (girls) couldn’t play.”

These days, the rules are on the side of Garman and Hinojos. But there are still subtle obstacles.

“It’s rough on her, she has to prove herself every year,” Kathy Hinojos said of her daughter. “She has to prove that she’s as good as anyone.”

Her father, Fred Hinojos, said, “It seems like . . . when she comes up they try to throw a little harder at her. They bear down a little bit more. They don’t want her to get a hit off of them.

“She slid in home and the boy catchers have intentionally done things like sit on her.”

Starr Hinojos shrugged off that talk with a grin. She said she is confident in her ability and thrives on challenges.

What’s her biggest baseball thrill? She answered with wide eyes and an inflection that built to a crescendo: “When a guy thinks I can’t do it . . . and I just whale the ball!”

Even before this season began, she had established herself as competitive with boys her age.

The “majors” division of Little League is unlike lower divisions. By Little League policy, all children who join must play on a team. But managers in the “majors” division draft only the most skillful players for a limited number of openings. Youngsters not drafted for the majors play for teams in lower divisions.

Not only was Hinojos drafted for the majors, but “I was the third one picked,” she said a bit sheepishly.

“That was quite an honor,” her mother said, not at all sheepishly.

As Knepper might ask, does Hinojos “throw like a girl?”

Her answer is a harrumph, then an emphatic “Nooo.”

Moreover, she batted a whopping .560 last year, better than a base hit every other at-bat. And already in this new season, she has made a couple of game-saving catches and won one game with her hitting.

So drafting Hinojos this year was a good bet. Not too long ago it was more of a risk.

Jim Santaro, an Anaheim police sergeant and veteran Little League manager, took the gamble in 1986 when choosing players for his minor league team.

“Some of the parents kind of looked at me as if I was loony,” Santaro recalled. “But I lined up the boys against the fence and Starr beat them all (in a foot race) by at least 5 yards.

“She’s an intense competitor. She’s just an exceptional person all the way around. It’s my opinion whatever she wants to be later on in life, she’ll be the best there is.”

There are, according to Santaro, some boys who really don’t want to play Little League baseball and become involved only because their parents force them.

“But Starr was always eager,” he said. “She would always ask me, ‘How can I get better?’ She was probably the easiest to teach.”

After girls clamored to take part in Little League baseball, Congress amended the organization’s charter in 1974, declaring both sexes to have an equal right to play. In some ways this has complicated life on the diamond.

Bill Beebe, administrator for Little League District 55, which includes leagues from Newport Beach to San Clemente, recalls a recent dispute stemming from a league president’s narrow interpretation of the rules and the objections of the parents of a ballplayer, who happened not only to be one of her team’s top hitters, but a girl as well.

“It got to be a controversial item because the league president told the mother that the girl had to wear a jockstrap with a cup,” Beebe said. “It was quite funny.”

Beebe straightened out the problem, ruling that the girl was not required to wear boys’ protective gear. Beebe said he understands how misunderstandings can happen.

“Five or six years ago an . . . all-star team came up to play in San Clemente,” he said. “I was umpiring and had no idea in my dreams that the catcher was a girl. She just came out and I slapped her on the back, not knowing. Thank God I missed her fanny.

“I said: ‘Do you have a cup on?’

“She turned around and took her mask off and said: ‘I don’t wear a cup, sir.’ ”

Hoping to ward off misunderstandings when girls play on teams with boys, East Anaheim Little League president John Williams drafted a letter some years ago to all parents.

“We made sure we brought things out in the open that people ought to think about when girls play Little League baseball,” he said.

For example, the letter said that one common congratulatory gesture in baseball is “a pat on the butt,” Williams said.

If the presence of a girl on the team can cause awkward moments, it also can cause friction. Such was the case one year when a parent complained that his son should be a starting player instead of Hinojos.

Santaro had to explain to the parent that: “Starr’s a far better baseball player than your son, it’s that simple.”

Despite her prowess and the general acceptance of her teammates and opponents, her parents have noticed resistance.

During the past off-season, “we ran into a friend who’s real involved in Little League, and he was telling us how a girl taking the place of a boy is not fair,” Kathy Hinojos said.

“I just said that just kind of depends on the girl. . . . To just take up the space is one thing, but if she’s really capable of playing ball, what’s wrong with it?”

Santaro, who this year manages a “majors” division team, was going to draft Hinojos again. But Cardinals manager Rick Webb got to her first.

Kathy Hinojos wondered what was in store.

“I was real curious why he picked her, hoping he didn’t pick her just to bench her,” Kathy Hinojos said. “From what I understand, politics get into Little League. I’ve not experienced anything yet, but (until this year) we haven’t been in the upper division.”

Webb said he drafted Hinojos “basically on her ability.”

“If you are drafted up to the majors, you’re ability level is very good,” he said. “She’s a team player. She throws the ball hard. She hits the ball very well. The team looks at that, and they can see how good of a player she is.”

Why wouldn’t a girl of Hinojo’s ability prefer to play softball with other girls, where she probably would be even more of a standout?

Hinojos prefers the tougher competition, said Santaro, her former coach. “She’d rather play with the guys.”

Nevertheless, this year Hinojos was recruited for the girl’s softball team at the Friends’ Christian School, where she attends fifth grade.

“She enjoys it,” according to her mother, adding that: “She laughs and cracks up and everything because of the way they catch the ball.

“There’s a big difference in a boys’ game and a girls’ game that she’s playing in.”

Her father reasoned that “in today’s world, there’s fierce competition in any aspect you go to. The competitive spirit--we’re reluctant to curb it or hold it down.”

Her mother said: “God gave her a grand gift, and he gave her the ability to do the things she’s done. I think she should keep active (in baseball) until she gets in high school and really wants to shoot in one direction or another.

“If she chooses to go on with baseball, we’ll stand behind her 100%.”

For a while Hinojos had second thoughts about continuing with baseball. Friends told her that because there is no professional hardball league for women, she might as well quit and play softball.

“That got me for a while,” she conceded. “I decided after my mom and my dad encouraged me . . . to go ahead and play this year. Then it’s my decision at the end of the year if I go on next year.”

As far as opposing pitcher Steve Heist, 11, is concerned, Hinojos is “a pretty good” ball player. She even made a couple of plays at first base against his team, the Giants, that Heist conceded he probably couldn’t have made.

But even if a girl who didn’t play as well as Hinojos wanted to play Little League baseball, Steve said that would be just fine with him.

Many Little Leagues operate softball programs for girls who choose not to compete with boys in baseball. In 1985 the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of two San Diego boys who were barred by Little League officials from playing softball with girls.

The ACLU won a preliminary court order that has permitted the boys to play in the Sunshine Little League softball program. But a trial is scheduled for May to determine whether Little League officials violated the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act by barring boys from the league.

League officials wanted to restrict the softball league to girls because “teams who had boys would tend to dominate over the teams with only girls,” according to Little League attorney Margaret Gorman. “It seemed unfair to the girls who were playing.”

But ACLU attorney John Murphy found fault with that: “It’s unfortunate that the Little League thinks so little of the girls’ skill level. They just made an arbitrary decision. The (two boys) really wanted to play, and they weren’t allowed. They have always played softball. They were never interested in playing hardball.”

At the upcoming trial, Little League officials intend to “bring in experts to talk about the difference between boys and girls,” Murphy said. “We’re all ready to be educated.”

Does Hinojos--a girl who plays hardball with boys--think it is all right for boys to play softball with girls?

“At this time I should say ‘No,’ because they always say I can’t,” she teased. But after a laugh, she said sure, boys should be allowed to play softball with girls.

The only thing is, she said, the boys might “feel kind of funny.”