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.
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.
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.
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…
Really? First of all, anyone can be placed on the international registration list. Just takes one scout (or someone in the MLB international scouting bureau) to make that happen.
With all the notoriety she has received there isn’t a single video/footage of her in game action. Why is that?
So what is her home to first time? Home to third? Arm strength?
Just from watching the videos, there are many 14 y/o boys in this country with far superior skills than what I saw in these ‘highlight’ videos. Only shows her taking weak ground balls while never showing her completing the throw to first. Does she pop the glove? Are the throws accurate?
And the batting practice…..please. Bat is way too slow but ironically they never show the pitcher/velocity of the pitch.
Are we now going to lower the bar with our pro sports now just to be PC?
We’ll see if she can start at a Division 1 college SOFTBALL team first.
Chili I love your posts. Nothing wishy-washy about them.
No one is suggesting the bar should be lowered to be politically correct. Please be advised that all I am doing is highlighting accomplishments by women in a man’s game. What they have done are firsts and in my humble opinion that counts for something – in fact they are significant accomplishments. They have trumped me on every one of those counts. I’m not sure how many you have achieved but if you have kudos to you as well as those woman who certainly took risks.
It might also be noted that approximately one in 200, or approximately 0.5 percent of high school senior boys playing interscholastic baseball will eventually be drafted by a MLB team. Once drafted they odds of playing MLB go up but not significantly. Does that mean the 199 who did not get drafted should not have tried to be the first in their school, or county, or family to have done so?
These woman had a dream – a risk laden dream encumbered by gender, cultural, social, physical bias – just as all young men players do, and they followed the dream as far as they could. My hat goes off to them.
I wouldn’t say that Melissa Mayeux has received “notoriety” as you mentioned. It may be some acclaim of which you feel she is not worthy but she had done nothing to incur “notoriety.”
After your anti-female tirade yesterday I couldn’t wait to see what you had to say to Harold’s well written and well researched article today – and you did not disappoint.
Having been around professional baseball scouts, player development people, medical and training staffs and front office people for several years, I can assure you that it would take an extraordinary athlete to break baseball’s gender barrier. But if that doesn’t sound incredibly familiar to you, then you know far less about baseball history than you think you do.
Anti-female…..No, but I guess the truth hurts. Did I say anything that wasn’t factual on the last article/post? Isn’t there a professional women’s softball league? What’s wrong with ‘attempting’ to play there even though I’m not sure she would be able to compete.
Since you brought up being ‘around’ baseball scouts, trainers, etc which I guess makes you more attune as to what it takes to make the big leagues, I’m quite confident that I’ve played the game at a much higher level which is my point of reference. And yes, I know MLB players and scouts as well. In fact had a scout come to my parents home when I was younger and had a different scout stop by my home a few years ago.
And in all honesty that doesn’t make me any smarter nor does it you. I just know how players are graded.
Maybe you can find out her home to first time. After all that is important and to be a true prospect playing a middle infield position you’ve got to meet a certain number. What is her arm strength? After all you’ve got to be able to throw a baseball at a fairly high velocity. If she is a true prospect than she should already be at that measureable.
Being a female it is safe to assume that she has maxed out her growth as most females reach their adult height by the age of 15.
I’m not hating on her even though you want to go that direction I just don’t understand why people feel it’s necessary to be PC.
Like I said, please do follow up with her progress and let me know when she is ‘maybe’ starting on a Division 1 college softball team.
Leslie told me over ten years ago that the first woman to become an MLB player would be a pitcher.
Great articles and some fantastic research, Harold!
Justine Siegal believes if the MLB gender barrier is broken it will be by the female Tim Wakefield especially in the AL.
Hey Harold – check this out: GetTopical.com
That’s a good thing, eh!
the one major pro sport that can go coed is definitely baseball.
Makes you wonder what will happen first. The Dodgers making it to the World Series or a girl like Melissa Mayeux making it to MLB.
She’s only 17 OBF so I’m betting on the Dodgers.
Hope you’re right.
as umpires maybe
Totally forgot about that possibility.
April 30, 2007
And we have a little more in women in baseball, a milestone to tell you about. For the first time in nearly 20 years, a woman has called a Major League exhibition game. Ria Cortesio officiated a game between the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks in Mesa, Arizona this spring. She’s an umpire in the AA.
The question is whether MLB will soon see female players and the answer is no.
If she has TJ surgery, maybe the Dodgers will draft her…as a pitcher. If they ever run out of Cubans to sign, that is.