Of all the players from the 1988 Chicago Cubs, Tiffany Greene liked the smooth-swinging lefty.

"When he swung, it was graceful. It was all in one rhythm," she said.

Patsy Greene would have preferred for her seven-year-old daughter to practice pirouettes instead pitching baseballs into her ottoman. But Tiffany has always danced to her own beat.

And two decades later, she is still dancing. Greene, 28, is the only female sportscaster for an Orlando-based statsion, Bright House Sports Network. Fox Sun-Sports, which services the entire state, has six female reporters and analysts on staff.

"When I wrote in my first grade yearbook, it was always sportscaster," Greene said. "I go back and look at it sometimes and say I was very clear that this is what I want to do with my life."

She follows a long line of dreams from women in sports television, namely her inspiration Robin Roberts. Before Roberts anchored for CBS's "Good Morning America," she made her name as a sportscaster on ESPN.

For some, the dream is a reality. Suzy Kolber and Michele Tafoya are mainstays for Monday Night Football. In September, Lesley Visser became the first woman NFL analyst, when she called color commentary in the fourth quarter of the Miami Dolphins- New Orleans Saints game for Channel 4, a CBS affiliate in Miami.

But there is an odd reality brewing. Women have a greater chance of broadcasting with Stuart Scott than Pat Clarke.

Clarke, who works for WESH Channel 2, could only recall three women to work for one of major Orlando networks in his 24-year local career; Jenny Dunn, formerly of Channel 9, Dina Falco, of Channel 6 and Denise Cullen formlely of Channel 13 and 9 . All have worked in Orlando within the past five years.

National sports broadcasts have a stronger record of hiring women on-air than local stations.

The Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State examined this phenomenon when they surveyed sports and news directors from the top 50 television markets in 2006.

Of the 77 percent of respondents, almost 60 percent said they did not have any women at all in their sports operations. Just 7.9 percent had women on the air.

"An important factor right now is that the local sports segment itself is getting squeezed and in some markets it's getting squeezed right out of the newscast so there are fewer jobs to go around," said Marie Hardin, associate dean for the college of communications at Penn State. "Women, who already find that they have a shorter shelf-life because of the demand for younger female on-air talent and who may also find the family-job juggling act a very difficult one, are likely more willing to opt out of sports than to try to make it work."

WESH News Director Bob Longo said the numbers vary from market to market.

In Miami, for example, there are two women on air for the CBS-station Channel 4, Prim Siripipat and Visser. Longo, who joined WESH in January, said he had a female on-air sport talent when he worked in Buffalo during the 90s.

"I'd be hard pressed to find a tangible reason," Longo said of why Orlando's history of few women sportscasters. "It's just the luck of the draw."

Greene doesn't need luck. She has passion, perseverance and the strong advice from Roberts, whom she met this summer at a convention.

"Never to look at yourself as an African American or a woman," Greene said of her advice. "You're just a journalist."