Will there ever be a female major league baseball player? The quick answer is “no” because the barriers to cross are too great. That is, gender, cultural and the physical barrier with males being so much larger and in most cases stronger than females.

However, females have slowly been breaking down MLB barriers with the breakthroughs coming at an accelerated pace in the last decade or so.

On November 1, 2011 Sue Falsone became the first female head trainer not only in MLB but in any major American professional sports league when she was hired by the Dodgers. She left the team in 2013 to pursue other opportunities but for some time was teamed up with fellow Dodgers female trainer Nancy Patterson Flynn to form the first duo of female trainers on the same major league staff. Flynn left the Dodgers this past off-season to spend more time with her family.

Sue Falsone (left) and Nancy Patterson Flynn were the first two women to hold head trainer and assistant trainer positions respectively in MLB history.
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

On Sept. 28, 2015, Justine Siegal made baseball history when she was offered and accepted a coaching position with the Oakland Athletics making her the first female coach in Major League Baseball history. Siegal took the position of guest instructor in the Athletics Fall Instructional League which ran from October 4–17. Siegel four years earlier became the first woman to ever pitch batting practice to a major league team at Spring Training with the Cleveland Indians.

Another breakthrough came in December of 2015. At that time the Seattle Mariners announced the hiring of six new area scouts. Twenty-two year old Amanda Hopkins – the daughter of long-time scout Ron Hopkins – was among the new scouts hired by the Mariners making her one of the very few female scouts in MLB history.

We know that women are working in executive capacities in some MLB team front offices but none at the highest levels as General Managers or Executive Vice-Presidents. Many Dodger fans thought that Kim Ng would become the first female General Manager of a MLB team and perhaps with the Dodgers. Although she has not been hired by a MLB team, she is currently a Senior Vice-President for Baseball Operations with Major League Baseball.

Many believed that former Dodgers assistant general manager Kim Ng would become MLB’s first woman general manager – and she still may.
(Photo credit – Kirby Lee)

Have female players made any inroads on the diamond in professional baseball? The answer is “yes”. In the early fifties three women played significant roles with the Indianapolis Clowns in the declining years of the Negro Leagues. Toni Stone, Connie Morgan and Mamie “Peanut” Johnson came to play.

Since that flurry in the fifties it is safe to say that progress by female players onto professional baseball rosters has been on hold for the next 50 years but some progress has been made more recently.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, February 15, 1994, Ila Borders started for Southern California College, becoming the first woman to pitch in an NCAA baseball game. Not only did the 5′-6″ – 165-pound right-hander pitch, she pitched a complete game, retired the first 10 batters she faced and took a shutout into the eighth inning. She held Claremont-Mudd College Scripps to one run, five hits , three walks while striking out two.

Borders kept her feat in perspective: “”I definitely feel like this is a beginning for me,” she said. “I don’t know where my ability is going to level off. I don’t know who will give me the chance to pitch in the pros. But I am not going to look back when I’m 60 and say, ‘I wish I would have tried.’ ”

On May 31, 1997 Borders made her professional debut with the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League pitching an inning in relief. Three weeks later, on June 18th, she was traded to the Duluth-Superior Dukes, with whom she made 15 appearances and posting a 7.53 ERA.

The following year Borders made history again by becoming the first female pitcher in history to start a minor league baseball game and later in the season the first to record a win. In a high-scoring league, seven Duluth-Superior Dukes pitchers had an ERA above 8.00. She was one of them.

On July 9, 1998, Ila Borders became the first female in history to start a minor league baseball game. (Photo credit – Josh Meltzer)

In 1999, Borders had her best year posting a 3.63 ERA.. If she had pitched the required 69 innings she would have ranked 8th in the Northern League in ERA.

After a brief foray into the Western League in 2000 with the Zion Pioneerzz she retired from baseball.

“I’ll look back and say I did something nobody ever did,” Borders said. “I’m proud of that. I wasn’t out to prove women’s rights or anything. I love baseball. Ask a guy if he’s doing it to prove men’s rights. He’ll say he’s doing it because he loves the game.”

Nine years later in 2009, 5′-1″- 115-pound knuckleball pitcher Eri Yoshida burst upon the baseball scene. She had patterned herself after longtime MLB knuckleballer Tim Wakefeld.

After becoming the first female to play professional baseball in Japan as a 17-year old, Yoshida decided to move to the United States and begin her career in the instructional Arizona Winter League. She hoped to gain the attention of MLB scouts and try to secure a minor league contract.

Eri Yoshida faced some formidable gender, cultural and language barriers as she stepped onto the mound in the instructional league . Perhaps the most daunting was the size of the players compared to her diminutive stature.

“I was scared because the guys in the batter’s box were so big,” Yoshida said through a translator. “Their arms were bigger than my legs.”

Yoshida didn’t back down and followed with a three-year career in the independent leagues in the United States. She made her professional debut with the Chico Outlaws in the Golden Baseball League on May 29, 2010 pitching three innings and singling home a run. She went 0-4 on the season.

Outlaws general manager Mike Marshall was pleased to have Yoshida on board and understood the challenges she faced

“I can relate and then I can’t relate,” said Marshall, a former Dodgers outfielder who played one season in Japan. “I was in my mid-30s when I went there. I had played major league baseball for 10 or 11 years, I had interpreters, my own apartment and people meeting me at the airport. Everything was made to order. Eri comes here at 18, just out of high school, without her family and just rolls the dice. Her maturity is remarkable.”

In 2011 with the Na Koa Ikaika Maui of the North American League, Yoshida earned her first win as a professional, as Maui defeated Edmonton 4-1. Returning to Maui for the 2012 season, Yoshida finished with a 4-6 record and a 5.56 ERA.

Eri Yoshida was honored by Cooperstown, which sent Hall of Fame representatives to Chico to recognize her for becoming the first woman to pitch professionally in two countries. She was also honored as the first woman to collect a hit in a men’s professional league game in more than 50 years.

Will there ever be a female MLB player? With an indomitable spirit of a woman and a passion for baseball, I wouldn’t bet against it … and I wouldn’t say otherwise to Melissa Mayeux.

As a 16-year-old shortstop from France, Mayeux made history last June when she became the first female player to be added to baseball’s international registration list, making her eligible to sign with a Major League Baseball club on July 2, 2016.

“She’s a legitimate shortstop who makes all the plays and is very smooth and fluid in the field,” MLB Director of International Game Development Mike McClellan told MLB.com’s Lindsay Berra last June. “She swings the bat really well and is fearless.”

“I would like very much to continue playing baseball in France until I’m 18 years old,” Mayeux told Berra. “And then have the ability to leave for university or another opportunity abroad.”

Stay tuned…