She might go by the name Leslie Rogers on the softball field, but when on the stage as a rapper for “Busaoke,” her teammates prefer to call her “Eminem.”

“I’m one of the crazier people on the team,” Rogers said. “I like to do a lot of fun stuff and make people laugh. Usually on bus rides, the girls like me to rap songs.”

And what started as a team dare has turned into a player tradition.

“Busaoke,” the name given to the intra-team karaoke competition that takes place en route to softball games, has become one of the team’s signature forms of entertainment, and has given Rogers something other than her softball skills to be remembered by.

“Basically, you put on headphones and you sing at the top of your lungs,” Rogers said. “You can’t hear yourself, and one day the team dared me to rap ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem. The girls loved it.”

But the humor doesn’t stop there.

As both a passion and part of her every day routine, softball has become the outlet that has enabled Rogers to entertain her teammates, as well as lighten up the mood when things become too stressful.

“I think when things are too serious, it puts too much pressure on us,” she said. “We are a fun group. We are all so different, and it makes it fun because every day someone new makes me smile. I wouldn’t want to come here if it was work, work, work. I just love to laugh, and when I laugh at practice it makes it go faster, and I enjoy myself.”

And her teammates enjoy it, too.

Senior outfielder Jessica Mapes is Rogers’ hitting and throwing partner and spends the majority of the time on the field in her company.

“She’s just a goofball,” Mapes said. “She’s one of those people who does weird things and doesn’t know she’s doing them — she makes people laugh.”

This humorous mentality has given Rogers confidence in her abilities and has been a reminder to take everything in stride.

In her second year on the Sun Devil softball team, she has learned that it’s not always about wins and losses — sometimes, “It is what it is.”

“Last year was such an experience for me,” Rogers said. “I learned so much about myself and about the game, — the mental part especially — and the idea that ‘It is what it is,’ has just become my thing. You can control what you can control. In college softball you have to roll with the punches. Take what comes at you. It is what it is.”

Coming off of the success she had last season, an honorable mention on the Pac-10 All-Freshman team and the Women’s College World Series All-Tournament team, Rogers is currently sporting a .356 batting average with four doubles, three triples and 19 RBIs.

Her hard work on the field, complemented by the continual humor off of it, helps not only Rogers, but also the rest of the team in their journey toward success in the Pac-10.

“Everybody has their ways of blowing off steam,” Mapes said. “But it’s a lot easier when you have people around you who have a good spirit and are having fun while they are out here.”

Reach the reporter at emiley.darling@asu.edu.