When your parents name you after a famous athlete - let's say Michael Jordan - there can be inordinate pressure placed on the kid in later life.

That seems to be working out OK for Jordan Bruere (Brew-air), who doesn't throw like a girl.

She sure looks like a girl: hair in a ponytail, which pokes out from her visor, with a cute smile impervious to braces. "She's really good," says Matthew Erickson, a teammate of Jordan's on the Rio Rancho Cannons, a team of 12-year-old ballplayers. "She embarrasses the other team.

"They'll say, 'A girl's up - scoot up,' and she'll hit a home run."

"We go to tournaments, (and hear), 'The girl's pitching the girl's pitching,' and she blows it by them," added assistant Cannons coach Rodney Anderson, a long-time friend of the Bruere family and self-proclaimed uncle of the Bruere children.

"The best thing about Jordan? She's just a good girl," Anderson, whose son Kyle is on the team, said. "You know how some kids would be cocky? She's not like that."

Jordan's skills were noticed when the Cannons were playing a recent game in Colorado, and she ultimately was invited to Cooperstown, N.Y., to play on an all-girls all-star baseball team in August.

Although Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter's her favorite player, you could say Jordan's going to the Hall of Fame before he is.

"She wants to be a three-time All-American, so she has a lot of work to do," says her father, Carl Bruere, a Mountain View Middle School physical education teacher and new Rio Rancho High School assistant football coach.

Truth be told, baseball might not be her best sport.

"It depends on the season," she said.

In the fall, she stays busy playing volleyball; her Mountain View Lions team was 15-1 last fall. In the winter, it's time for hoops; she averaged 19 points a game for her seventh-grade team, her father proudly noted.

In the spring and summer, it's America's pastime that keeps her busy.

She bats third for the Cannons, can pitch or play first base, and leads the team with seven homers this season.

But a girl playing baseball; why not softball, she was asked before a recent practice at Eagle Ridge Middle School.

"I don't think it's unusual because a lot of girls play softball and they're good at it.. Because I have always, since I was 4, have played baseball with my brothers and it's just a good experience," she replied.

"I played softball when I was 8 and 9, and I pitched for softball, then I came back for baseball," she said.

Another question: When she arrives at Rio Rancho High School or, more than likely, Cleveland High, what will she play in the spring, baseball or softball?

"That's going to be a hard decision for me," she admitted, "but I'll figure it out."

Figuring things out isn't hard for Jordan, whose mother, Rebecca, teaches science at the Mid-High, where she also coaches volleyball and softball.

Some of Jordan's athletic genes obviously came from Mom, who played basketball and softball at Bernalillo High School (Class of 1987) and then extended her athletic career by playing volleyball and basketball at New Mexico Highlands University, where she met Carl.

Jordan began playing sports when she was about 4, Rebecca Bruere said. Even before that, however, she recalled, "Her first word was 'ball.'"

With pretty much all A's in school, as in a 4.0 grade-point average last semester, at MVMS, it's easy for her folks to allow her time to pursue sports. At home, she said, "I have a basketball court and a batting cage and all kinds of stuff so I'm always with a ball," she explained, adding, "I focus on my school work and sports comes second.

"There's some days that I have off-time, I do some fun stuff with my friends," she said.

Sure, it can be tough being the only girl on an otherwise all-boy team, and you know how mean some boys can be, especially when they see a girl in what once was thought of an all-male sport.

"I really don't let it get to me. I just laugh it off," she said, when hearing taunts and jeers. "It's just really funny how they laugh like that. And then, after they see me pitch or hit a home run, they, you know, shut their mouths and it's just really fun."

Don't expect to see Jordan wearing a skirt or a dress, even though she's not always in a baseball uniform.

"I'm a tomboy. Once in a while, for a school dance or something, I'll wear a nice T-shirt and stuff, but I'm just T-shirt and shorts most of the time," she said.

Playing at Doubleday Field, the site for countless ballgames every year, plus a Hall of Fame game annually that features big-league teams, will be a memorable experience, she said.

"It's really exciting because it's just a great experience, especially now that I get to play with an all-girls team and we're also playing against guys," she said.

Her favorite "guys" are her dad, of course, and brothers Easton, 11, and Logan, 8.

In case you don't snap to the sports connection there, Easton is the name of a bat-manufacturing company in Pennsylvania; Logan is the surname of a former Denver Broncos tight end and current sportscaster in Denver, Dave Logan.

"It's just been a great experience to play with my brothers," she said. "All girls, they aren't just like little girly-girls, and they can't do anything. Girls are just as good in sports and everything as guys."

"I always just know to go out there and play my best and, like, later on, I'm trying my best in sports and I'm hoping to be a three-sport All-American," she said.

What about living up to being named after His Airness?

"I really don't think about that much," she said.

"You just have to go after whatever your heart tells you," she said. "My friends and I, they've been getting together to get me to put on makeup and stuff, and I did; that wasn't my thing. I just came right back to sports.

"When I'm on the field, I still have that confidence, just the same as I've been my whole life."

Knowing Jordan's three-sport interest, RRHS softball coach Paul Kohman, who has worked with her on fast-pitch hurling, said he probably won't get the chance to have her play for his summer team, the Sundancers.

"I doubt she'll ever play for the Sundancers," Kohman said. "She's a very talented young lady - it just depends on what she puts into herself."

As of now, for someone who doesn't become a teenager until Aug. 25, it seems likely she'll easily put at least the proverbial "110 percent" into every sport she plays.