I was also getting flack about the Silver Bullets. The day I showed up at the Saints spring training camp was the day the Silver Bullets had expected me at theirs. Dad had fielded the angry phone call. He said he just stayed quiet and let them vent. A woman—I can’t recall her name—from the Women’s Sports Foundation phoned, urging me not to play men’s baseball. She feared that if I failed in St. Paul, I’d set back the cause of women’s sports by sending the message that women’s sports weren’t good enough. But I wanted to play at the highest possible level of the sport I loved, and that was not with the Silver Bullets; it was in men’s professional baseball. I also remember being asked by a female reporter, a Christian, the old question of whether it was biblical for me to be competing with men in a man’s game. I hated that question. I believed in God; God had been answering my baseball prayers and opening doors for me at each point in my career. If my playing baseball was good enough for God, why should other Christians object? I was glad to learn that a former big leaguer, John Dettmer, would be at spring training camp, which would likely take some of the attention from me.
May 15, 1997. When I walked onto the field, I saw that the fences were close in, there was little foul territory, and the wind tended to blow toward the outfield. A hitter’s park. I looked around anxiously, but no one seemed to be making a big deal out of my being here. Awesome. Rookie and veteran alike, the players came up and introduced themselves. They were friendly. Doubly awesome. These guys were a little older than most of the other teams in the Northern League and had been through a lot to get here. The first part of our day was called “Meet the Media,” and a lot of the reporters, thankfully, did focus on John Dettmer. Compared with my media experiences in college, it was a more balanced and controlled scene.
Sixteen of us lined up behind the mound while one guy stood on the rubber, faked a throw to home, and either fielded comebackers or bunts, covered first base, or turned a double play. These drills were different from what I saw with Charlie Phillips’s assistant coach, Jim Kale, who during practice liked to try to rip our heads off with his own power. But you cannot train for reactions that way. I had always found Ping-Pong to be the best drill for hand-eye coordination and reaction time. Now I was thankful to be around people who knew the game and weren’t trying to be assholes. It was all about getting into baseball shape with quick moves, setting up your feet with your body, and communicating with your teammates.
It must have been forty degrees on the field, but with the wind chill it felt more like thirty. I wore two pairs of knee sox, a pair of compression shorts and long compression leggings under my baseball pants, a gray Saints T-shirt, a black long-sleeve Saints turtleneck, and a Saints sweatshirt. And still I was purple with cold. First off, we took PFP (pitchers’ fielding practice). There’s this great photo of the guys and me freezing our butts off. It was fun, kidding around with the guys—they towered over me, most being over six feet tall. Most of the jokes were about how cold it was. One guy said, “Ila, you’re out here with mostly women right now, because our balls have shriveled up.”
Everyone laughed at that one.
“Well, I have no boobs, so we’re even,” I replied. Everything I did, though, I gave a 110 percent, as I fielded the comebackers and bunts, and covered first.
Some said, “Slow down, Shorty”—Shorty being my new nickname, given by Dwight Smith—“You’re making us look bad.”
After PFP was done we were to throw bullpen or do running sprints. This first day, I wanted to loosen up my arm and calm my jitters, so I volunteered for the bullpen. My speed was seventy-five miles per hour, ten miles per hour behind the guys’. But my control was good; I was hitting all my spots and had good movement on the ball. The guys had speed and movement, but their pitches were all over the place. I was lucky because I had just finished college ball, so I was in good shape and my accuracy was right on. Our manager, Marty Scott, was a bearded, very heavy Texan, who could be stern. But he was sensible about the game and my place in it. As he pointed out to one reporter, “There’s a lot of guys who throw 90 mph and never get anybody out because their ball is straight. . . . She’s got a little bit of movement and she knows how to pitch.” I noticed that there were few left-handers, which meant better odds of my making the team. Afterward we headed to the outfield to run the warning track between the foul poles. I felt shy, not wanting to invade other players’ personal space, so kind of let them come to me if they wanted. I tried to be friendly and smile but also tried to be as invisible as possible, wanting to show that I was here to play and not for any other reason. At first I ran by myself, until a veteran came alongside. He had a lot of questions. I figured all the players were trying to figure me out: Could they joke around with me without being called for harassment? Trust me to not spill the beans to their wives that some of them had a girlfriend, or a drug or alcohol problem? What was my background, and would I play the rookie role, which means sitting double on the bus and carrying all the bags when needed? Was I looking to hook up with them or did I prefer girls? And how was I going to change the game for them or crimp their style? So I shot the breeze with him, laughed at his funny blonde-girl joke, and dropped an F-bomb to make him feel comfortable. He seemed to relax, and from that point on we talked about pitching. I was excited to learn from veterans like him and loved listening to their stories. After we had run twelve poles, he was ready for the showers, but he said something that, coming from him, meant a lot. “We all know what you went through to get here, and despite whether we are for or against you, we have the utmost respect for you.”
I smiled at him, shook his hand, and ran four more poles. Everyone else had gone to the showers, and it gave me an opportunity to take everything in. I was living my dream, so overcome with thankfulness that I didn’t know how to contain it all. As I ran, I praised God, saying, “Thank you, God, for everything—for my legs to run, my arms to throw, my body, for this opportunity. Thank you for giving me life. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
When I was done running, I grabbed my cleats and mitt, and, still in my sweaty practice clothes, headed for the hotel bus. Because I hadn’t showered, I was first in, and when the next four guys appeared they were surprised I hadn’t changed. “Why didn’t you take a shower after we were done?”
I said, “Have you seen this tossed salad under my cap? It takes forever to shampoo and dry this hair. Plus, now I get to give you crap for a girl having to wait on you guys to get ready.”
“Well, next time take a shower, because you stink and we wanted you to come out with us for dinner.”
I laughed and said, “Okay,” but knew I wouldn’t. I was broke and embarrassed about it. I was also afraid that people would read too much into my hanging out and having a beer with the guys—a photo of that scene could be taken all wrong. Looking back, I wish I had gone with them. But I did not want anything out there that would jeopardize my chance to play pro ball. It’s hard to trust when everyone wants your job, and will do anything to set you up to fail. A good friend told me a story that reminded me to be careful: “Frankie” had been drafted by the Chicago Cubs and was the starting catcher in rookie ball. Another starter on the team had a best friend who was backup catcher; and the two came up with a plan to get rid of Frankie. Curfew was midnight, and no one (as in women) was allowed to be in the players’ rooms. At 11:50 one night, a girl showed up at Frankie’s door.
Frankie: “I think you have the wrong room.”
She: “No, I have the right room, and I want you.”
Even though he was nineteen years old and a beautiful girl was knocking on his door, he said, “Come back tomorrow,” explaining that he couldn’t have anyone in his room after midnight. She started to make a scene just as Frankie’s manager was making the rounds. Frankie tried to explain the situation, but the following day he got a pink slip. He had done nothing wrong—and who knows what the full explanation for his getting cut was—but he was gone and the other catcher was in. Baseball may be a team sport, bu
t it can be cutthroat in the minors. Everyone is scrapping for a job and some will do anything to get it, while some managers will release you for no reason at all.
Soon as I got back to the hotel, I phoned the family. Everyone was treating me great, I reported. The Saints were a very classy organization. Minnesota was green, green, green, and beautiful. As excited as I was, though, after I hung up the old loneliness started to creep in. It felt sad and familiar. With it came the feeling of being isolated, with my family and childhood friends far away. Isolated . . . Dad had named me “Ila” because he liked the sound of it. “Ila” means island dweller, and he had come to see that I sort of lived like I was on a deserted island. He was right.
I didn’t know how many other players were staying at the hotel, probably about five, but I felt apart from them. I took out my journal and began to write, hoping to relieve the loneliness. After a shower and a dinner of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a banana, I was off to bed, where I could escape into my dreams. I dreamed of finding someone I could trust and love and laugh with; and I dreamed of succeeding in baseball.
During the first week, the pitchers were split up and we pitched to the position players. I did well again, hitting my spots and getting good movement on the ball. I was throwing a little faster, but still not close to eighty-five miles per hour. I had to stick with what I was best at. If I threw harder I’d lose control and spin on the ball. What was different in professional ball was that batters could foul off my hanging curve and simply wait for the next pitch. Then I had to go with my new pitch, the screwball I developed during senior year in college. Without the screwball, I wouldn’t have made it into professional baseball.
Each afternoon, after we threw, I’d go for a run with the guys. Most of them had funny baseball stories to tell, but I had to tell them that mine were kind of depressing. They said that if I made the team I’d start to have funny stories in no time. Boy, were they right. In the meantime, we talked about working out, motorcycles, and surfing. I love reading, but nobody else really talked books. So I quoted some funny movie lines. And I’d run along, listen, and laugh with them when they were around. And when they weren’t, I’d talk to God, begging Him to be with me or to send me someone.
Week two of practice. We were now in game situations. The pitchers were trying to get the hitters out, and the hitters were trying to get on base. On May 19, my first appearance came in a simulated game, with most of the guys playing out of their usual positions and some pitchers playing defense, due to our short roster. In a game like this, as Mike Augustin wrote in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “The score didn’t matter. Yet it was Borders’s first live performance in a professional setting. It mattered to her.”
Augustin was right; it did matter to me. But Lamarr Rogers, the first batter, beat out a slow roller to short. Then Scott Leius, a former major leaguer, singled sharply to left. A fly ball to right field was misjudged and landed for a double. The fourth batter singled through the middle. It got worse. After a fly ball out, a potential double play ground ball was thrown away. Mercifully, the next guy hit into a successfully executed double play. The following inning, after giving up a double, I got three quick outs. Marty Scott pointed out that only once did I go to three balls on a batter. “I don’t put much stock in simulated games,” he told the Pioneer Press. “But Ila made adjustments in her second inning. I am amazed at her poise, her mindset, her mound presence.”
But I knew that I wasn’t fully on my game: my fastball wasn’t catching the outside corner of the plate. Even so, there would be another chance. Marty told me I was slated to pitch a couple of innings in the Saints’ first exhibition game at Midway Stadium against the Duluth-Superior Dukes.
May 22, 1997. As we pulled into Midway’s parking lot, I saw a mass party going on, hours before the game started; it was the tailgating Mike Veeck had mentioned to me. I had always thought that tailgating was a part of football culture, not baseball. But here it was, Minnesota style: The gates had opened at four o’clock for the night game, and people had planted their lounge chairs; their barbecues, which they fired up; and even their inflatable plastic swimming pools on the grass. Beer flowed and games of corn hole, with beanbags, were being played. People mingled, visiting with other groups—it was like a huge neighborhood party.
Because I avoided the clubhouse, I had to enter the ballpark through the front gate and make my way down the third base side, where there was an entrance to the field. Some fans tugged at me, others shoved baseballs at me for autographs. Grateful to Mike Veeck for my being here, I tried to sign them all. For my first appearance the ballpark was packed. People stood in the fire tower behind the right-field fence. The bullpen, where I sat, was down the left-field line, with a three-foot chain-link fence separating us from the fans. One guy wore a baseball cap with a streamer coming out the back. It looked like my ponytail coming out of my cap. Boy, that fad caught on fast. We ended up calling for a security guard because people were coming up left and right poking me in the back to sign stuff for them.
I was glad to be pitching middle relief, which gave me time to study the batters. Besides, I’d be spared the extra pressure of starting or closing. When the signal came to get ready to pitch the top of the seventh inning, I stood up, left my jacket on the aluminum bench, and grabbed a ball. As soon as I started to throw, people all over the stadium stood to watch, just to catch a glimpse of me in the bullpen. People started to chant, “Ila, Ila, Ila.” Then a train passed by the stadium, going very slow. Its horn whistled twice, and I saw a big sign on the side of a boxcar: “Go, ILA!”
Was this Ila-mania all over again?
As I jogged toward the mound, the Doors’ “Love Her Madly” boomed over the public-address system. I could barely hear the music because the fans’ cheers echoed off the metal and concrete of the stadium. What was this? The good vibes were confusing. I was used to rejection, and here they were cheering. I was used to being the underdog. How did I react to love? Thank goodness I was on the mound, because I felt comfortable there. Even so, I felt the pressure of possibly letting a lot of people down. But I knew deep within that I would rather take a chance and fail than not take one at all and never have the chance to succeed. Maybe being willing to take that risk, not just talent, is the biggest difference between success and failure.
First batter up was Jeff Jensen, a left-hander, number three in the lineup. The stadium continued to rock, and I could not hear my infielders. I faced home plate. I got Jensen to 2-and-2, then threw a change-up. When he struck out swinging, the crowd went nuts. A ground out, a walk, another ground out, and I was out of the inning. Beautiful.
The eighth inning was not beautiful: I coughed up two singles and a walk—bases loaded with nobody out. Another single brought in a run before I notched a strikeout. And then a drive to left field went for a two-run double when Chris Evans, our left fielder, fell down, and two more runs came in. By the time I got a called third strike for the last out, I had given up five hits, two walks, and five earned runs. I was tagged with the loss. And still, I walked off the mound to an ovation. I felt the team and the local media behind me. As the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported the next day, our catcher, Sean Delaney, said, “She did a whale of a job. . . . She kept the ball down for the most part. It was exciting catching her. The fans got into it. If she stays around, it will be like that all the time.” The paper also quoted Barry Moss, who managed the game. Barry was a player’s coach, always backing us up. Now he told the reporter that I’d had a great first inning. “She was very nervous, but she threw well,” he added. “She was real effective with her change-up.”
Privately Barry told me, “Let’s work on this. You started getting the ball up.” I took his advice gratefully; I trusted Barry. After the game, which we ultimately lost, Jim Wadley, the owner of the Dukes, and some of his players came over to say hello. (One of their pitchers, Steve Maddock, had played against a woman named Kendra Hanes in 1994 in the independent Frontier League. Hanes pla
yed outfield for the Kentucky Rifles.)
After the game ended, the fans were all around, and I signed autographs for about an hour and a half, until the last ball was signed. I had once been a fan of George Brett and Brett Saberhagen, and remembered their taking the time to sign a ball for me. It meant so much. It was late when the last ball was signed, and I caught a ride back to the hotel from one of the grounds crew. When I got back to the hotel the guy at the front desk had waited to get an autograph. My pockets were jammed with scraps of paper with phone numbers of both men and women, beseeching me to call them. I did not call any of them. My focus was on making the team. Besides, I was too scared to date a woman, figuring that if we were seen together it could end my career. As for dating a man, I didn’t want to lead anyone on or be thought of as possibly there for the easygoing sex that colors baseball.
When I got to my room I called home. Dad answered and went over some pointers. He had listened to the game on the computer. Any questions I had about a certain pitch, I always asked him. Then Leah got on the phone to say that while I was pitching, Dad had paced back and forth, chain-smoking about half a pack of cigarettes. He thought I was going to get up to bat and they were going to hit you again, like they did in college. According to my sister, if I had been hit he was going to hop on a plane and nail the guy. To my family, it seemed liked Dad was pitching and not me. With all his faults, I knew he was pulling for me big time, worried about me, and loved me. After every game I pitched I called him.
Making My Pitch Page 14