I couldn’t recall ever being called for a balk and didn’t think much about it. I came into the game in the bottom of the sixth inning with two outs and a runner on third. My first pitch, a curveball, hit Paul Cruz. Watchful of Cruz, now on first, I threw to the next batter, Michael Dumas.
“Balk!” yelled the umpire, which allowed the runner on third to score.
What the frick? Are you kidding? A balk? I stood motionless on the mound, making my opinion of the call apparent: One, why so damn late in the call? Two, I had not balked. Maybe my biggest concern should be the umpires, I suddenly thought. If they don’t like me, they can make my life hell.
When Dumas lined a full-count pitch right at me, I knocked it down but overthrew my first baseman, allowing another run to score. When John Tsoukalas doubled for another run, Marty Scott yanked me. I had faced three batters, hit a batter, balked, committed a throwing error, and given up three runs. I left the mound fuming and embarrassed, knowing the news would be broadcast everywhere. Then Barry Moss came up and said, “Be ready to go tomorrow. You have to let it go and be ready for the next day. Your confidence is way down, and the quicker you get out there, the better it will be to regain it.” In his own way Barry was saying, “Go get ’em, Ila. It will be okay.”
He always had my back. But I remained down until, after the game, one of the Dukes came over. “I don’t know how we got out of that one,” he said. “You didn’t balk at all. I just wanted to say ‘Hi,’ and good luck to you.”
After facing up to the postgame interviews, I wanted to disappear. The following day, in Japan, Australia, and throughout the United States, sports pages announced “Borders Rocked” and quoted me as saying this was the worst day of my life.
June 1, 1997. Just like Barry said, the next day came. Marty Scott handed me the lineup card, and I carried it to home plate before heading for the bullpen. When the signal came to get ready to pitch the eighth inning, I knew—everyone knew—that if I pitched badly today, I was done. I remember praying, “Lord you know how much I have worked for this, you know how much I sacrificed for this, how I picked myself up off the ground. Please be with me and bless me, even for this one inning.” I ran out to what was becoming my theme song: No Doubt’s “I Am Just a Girl in This World,” but the music inside my head was AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” Give it your best shot, I said to myself. One hundred and ten percent of everything you have. If you do that and fail, hey, you gave it your all.
It started out rough: a hard smash off our third baseman’s glove for a single; the next batter struck out on a curve in the dirt, but the runner took second; and then a walk; another strikeout and another walk. Consistency—walk, a strikeout, a walk, a strikeout—where the hell was consistency! Bases loaded, two out. I faced John Tsoukalas, a left-handed veteran. He swung and missed the first pitch, took a called strike, and then another on a curve ball. Even though we were playing out of town, the crowd had been behind me. Now it went nuts. That pretty much sums up baseball—and my life. When I fail or something really awful happens, I come back fighting and end up becoming a better athlete or person. Coming back in, I spotted a huge grin on Barry’s face. The guys high-fived and slapped me on the back. After the game, the Pioneer Press reported this moment: “As she was getting ready to leave the park, an elderly gentleman approached Borders.
“‘I would be honored if you signed my scorecard,’ he said.
“‘Where should I sign it?’ asked Borders, experienced in the practice.
“‘By the eighth inning,’ the man said, ‘where you struck out the side.’”
Then the Canaries player–pitching coach Steve Howe came over, shook my hand, and said, “Good job. You have great stuff. Don’t let people say you have to throw harder. Keep at it.”
That meant a lot, coming from Howe, who knew a few things about coming back from adversity. He had been a star pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers but had been suspended seven times for substance abuse. After the game I thought, Cool. I had guaranteed one more day with the Saints. My name won’t appear under the GON’ FISHIN’ sign tonight.
June 3, 1997. In my third professional appearance, on the road against the Sioux City Explorers, I got the call to pitch the sixth inning. I ran to the mound to the tune of “I Am Just a Girl in the World,” and so I was. I pitched two innings, allowing a run on two hits, and notched another strikeout. Fireworks and more cheers from the opposing fans! I still felt uncomfortable about this sort of attention, concerned that it could turn my teammates envious, as it had in college. Of course, the adulation was not unanimous: Before we entered the game, the Explorers’ radio announcer asked Sioux City manager Ed Nottle his opinion on the Saints’ roster. Nottle’s reply was memorable: “There is one thing on it I hope they get rid of pretty soon. Besides that, I don’t know much about it.”
The “thing” he was referring to was me.
So I appreciated Marty Scott’s comment about my part in the game. “I thought Ila showed tonight she has as big a heart as any ballplayer around,” he told the Pioneer Press. “Did she go out there and compete and try to keep us in this thing? Yes she did. She deserves more respect than she’s getting.”
Heading back to the bus after the Sioux City game was an education in a whole new way. Groupies were lined up outside the locker room, waiting for someone, anyone, to come out. There were fifteen or so women, some flashing their boobs at the players to seal the deal. A few of the players drove off with a woman, and others arranged to meet at the hotel later. The girls who hadn’t hooked up continued to flash the guys on the bus. Some even tried to get on our bus for a quickie in the back restroom. I don’t know how many times guys had sex in that bathroom, but I learned to avoid that place. I was amazed at how aggressive these girls were; but for the guys it was better than a frat party. There were guys who were faithful to their wives, but not many. At first the guys were a little worried about me: “Holy crap, I’m married but have girlfriends in every town. Is this girl going to talk?” But they learned fast that I would keep their secrets. I did not care who they slept with, as long as they were ready to play ball and do it well.
If my teammates were concerned about what I saw, I soon learned that their wives and girlfriends really worried. Each of these women would single me out, stare, or try to get the scoop on me. I tried my best to put their minds to rest. I wished everyone knew me better, that no matter what, I would never do anything like that. But I came to understand why most guys got into trouble. You are stressed out, on the road, lonely, and near broke, and now you have these women throwing themselves at you, wanting to make you feel good.
I adapted to the groupie scene by trying to make myself invisible. On game days I showed up in my uniform and went back on the bus that way to avoid the locker room. For road trips, when we’d be on the bus for up to eleven hours, I wore an awful-looking jogging suit that was way too big. When my back hurt and I needed to lie on the floor of the bus, the spilt beer cans that rolled to a stop next to me didn’t bother me. Guys dressed to the max, but I downplayed everything I had. I wore no tight clothes, used no makeup, and showed no skin, all to avoid drawing attention to myself. I never talked to my teammates about dating. Why? So no one would hit on me and the wives would not worry about me. At one point a religious teammate told a reporter that it would be nice to see me in a dress on the bus. Are you kidding me? Obviously he had no daughters. The next day everyone on the bus said he was a freaking idiot. They tried to get me into a pink tutu and wear it at practice or on the bus. Gee, just for the fun of it, I wish I had.
I was happily settling into life in St. Paul. Each night I set extra alarms so I’d be sure to wake up in the morning for the early bus ride. After every game, my muscles ached all over. I put my trust in God to take the abilities He gave me as far as they could go. SSK had come through—every time my mitt was stolen, they sent me another one. They probably thought I was selling them. I felt good in St. Paul, knowing that Mike Veeck and Barry Moss had my back
. They had been true to their word about the media. If I didn’t want to do an interview, they didn’t care—they just wanted me to be at ease. And I tried to do everything I could for them. After every game I signed autographs until everyone was gone or the team bus was about to leave. Maybe that boy I sign a ball for will someday have a daughter who wants to play baseball, and he will help her. Maybe that girl doesn’t have a mom or a female role model but now sees me doing something that people predicted she could not do. The memories of the hard times I’d had with some of my teammates at Southern California College began to fade. Most of my teammates and opposing players accepted me. So did most of the fans, though sitting in the bullpen was an adventure. One woman reached down with a pair of scissors to try to cut a piece of my hair. Others threw beer or food on me. All I wanted was to concentrate on gaining my teammates’ respect and helping us to win. Before one of the games I read to a bunch of kids in front of the stadium as part of a program called the Reading Tree. On the outside of Midway Stadium, an artist had begun a mural of Wayne Terwilliger, the Saints’ seventy-two-year-old assistant coach, and me. “Twig,” as everyone calls him, is a beloved baseball figure in the Twin Cities. The mural was the first thing you saw when you pulled into the parking lot. What an honor to be next to Twig on the stadium wall! I wished I were getting more innings, but the Saints were in first place, heading for the pennant, and tended to go with their veterans. Still, I was surviving as a rookie.
June 10, 1997. The first regular season home game I pitched in was a wild ride. Just as it had during spring training and the exhibition season, the train, with its “Go, ILA” sign, blew its whistle as it passed by the left-field stands. I came into the game against the Sioux City Explorers in the top of the ninth, with the bases loaded and two out. I gave up a two-run single before getting the third out on a fly ball to center.
June 15, 1997. In a game against the Duluth-Superior Dukes, I was brought in during the eighth inning with one out and the bases loaded. I faced catcher Bryan Mitterwald, a left-handed batter. He swung and missed on the first pitch, fouled off a couple of pitches, then took an inside fastball off the plate. He fouled off a couple more pitches, and then, on a 1-2 count, I got him to hit into a rally-killing double play.
Mitterwald told the Pioneer Press, “She threw me some breaking balls and I just tried to stay back on them, but I didn’t do my job. . . . She didn’t throw nothing by me. . . . But she got me out on a good pitch, a curve in on my hands.”
The Saints swept a doubleheader from the Thunder Bay Whiskey Jacks. In the first game, I pitched the bottom of the seventh, giving up two singles, a walk, and a run, with one strikeout. Back at Midway, I pitched the ninth against the Winnipeg Goldeyes and gave up three unearned runs. And there I sat. The Saints were in first place, contending for the Eastern Division again, and I was seeing little playing time.
June 26, 1997. And then it was over. When I showed up for practice, Marty Scott called me into his office. “We really like you here,” he said. “But you should be getting more innings.” He told me he valued my work ethic but that my stuff was not up to par for a pennant contender. My record was seven games, six innings, eight runs, eleven hits, four walks, five strikeouts, 7.50 ERA. The club wanted to free up space on the roster for a hard-throwing pitcher. At first I figured I was being released. And then Marty said that I had been traded to the Duluth-Superior Dukes. That team needed a left-handed reliever and had a rookie spot available. Marty expected that I would get more work there. I had not seen this coming, but that’s life in the Northern League: you’re up, you’re down, you’re out. Last season, after Darryl Strawberry lit up the league, he returned to the bright lights of New York, where he played three more seasons with the Yankees. After Jack Morris threw a complete game shutout, the Yankees offered him a place on their Triple A roster. He declined. Instead, Morris finished out the first half of the season in St. Paul with a fine ten-inning performance, then quit to return to his ranch in Montana. And I was moving not exactly sideways but a step down to a smaller-market team, where Marty thought I would do better away from the ever-present Twin Cities media.
My six weeks with the Saints had been crammed with people who became dear to me. I would miss Barry Moss and Marty Scott and Mike Veeck. I’d miss the loyal and forgiving and enthusiastic St. Paul fans. And what about Connie Rudolph and her family? I felt a close bond with Connie and didn’t want to lose it. Yet baseball-wise, the trade seemed like a win-win-win for both teams and for me. Both teams were looking to strengthen their rosters, and I definitely needed to pitch more innings. But a couple of individuals expressed their unhappiness with the trade. When Mike told his daughter Rebecca that I had been traded, she reacted in true Veeck fashion—she turned to the media. “When my daddy told me Ila wasn’t going to play for the Saints anymore, I cried,” she told Mike Augustin of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “Ila was my favorite player. She came to our house. I followed her all around.”
Keith English, the utility infielder I was traded for, wasn’t excited either. “I will probably be the most hated person in St. Paul—they’re losing their Ila,” he lamented to the Duluth News Tribune. “I got traded for a girl. It can’t get any worse than that.” (English, who was batting .091 at the time of the trade, was quickly shipped to the Frontier League, another independent league.)
I did not care if I was traded for a box of baseballs; I just wanted to play. Yet as I threw my clothes and gear into my luggage, I had to wonder how married ballplayers with kids dealt with having to suddenly move. People have romantic ideas about pro baseball, but both of my Little League friends, Mike Moschetti and Frankie Cicero, draft picks just a few years ago, were out of the game. The life is hard. Airline ticket in hand, I said a quick good-bye to Connie and the Rudolph family and caught the last flight of the day to Duluth.
5
Duluth-Superior Dukes
Being “Babe”
Game Day: Fifth Inning. “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t . . . Do softball instead, and you’ll be great.”
How many times have I heard those statements, while in my head I held on to the conviction Yes, I can . . . Just watch me . . . I’m not taking the easy path; I’m taking the one I love.
That’s what I’m thinking as I get ready to pitch the bottom of the fifth inning: I am not too small; I am not the wrong gender. I can get another win in men’s professional baseball.
I pick up the ball behind the mound and toss it into my mitt. They say negative self-talk is bad, but it fuels me. I think about what one of the Silver Bullets starting pitchers did last June. Pamela Davis pitched the fifth inning for the Class AA Jacksonville (Florida) Suns against the Australian Olympic men’s team. The press reported, “She is believed to be the first woman to pitch for a major league farm club under the current structure of the minor leagues.”
My reaction had been, that’s not real, one inning of exhibition baseball. It’s just one more notation of a woman who made a brief appearance in men’s professional baseball and moved on. I was lucky to not sign with the Silver Bullets. The season they invited me to camp turned out to be their final one after Coors Beer pulled the money plug. I also think about how my local high school refused to have me play, and how God always put into my life people who were willing to help at the perfect time—Rolland Esslinger, Charlie Phillips, Jim Pigott . . . Then Mike Veeck took a chance on me, and now owner Jim Wadley and the Dukes are behind me. I want this win bad.
Warming up on the mound. I feel confident. My stuff is still moving really well. We’re leading 2–0, our team is jacked, and so am I. But I also know this RedHawks team just needs a little momentum, and it will make me pay. Just keep pitching smart, I tell myself. Stay focused, and quit thinking about anything else until this game is over.
Forry Wells digs in at the batter’s box. First pitch is a fastball outside, which he fouls off into the stands, igniting a scramble among the fans to capture the prize, the ball. Strike one. The ump throws me a n
ew ball, and I grab hold of it and feel the seams. The new ball feels good and isn’t too glossy. Forry takes my next pitch, a fastball inside, for a ball. I try a curveball that cuts sharply to the outside of the plate. Wells swings and connects, but not with the barrel of the bat, and so a towering fly goes to middle right field. “Here we go, Ila,” says an infielder. “One down, one down.”
With Ruben Santana up, I fall behind in the count and end up walking him. I was nibbling at the plate instead of going after him. Motherfucker, Idiot. Maybe by cursing like this I am being like Dad, and that fuels me to shut him up by pitching well. Oh, cut the psychology, Ila.
The walk brings manager George Mitterwald to the mound, along with Javier. With the tying run coming to the plate, I spot one of our pitchers in the bullpen taking off his jacket and starting to stretch. Shit, one mistake and I’m out of here.
George wants to know how I’m feeling. “I feel great,” I reply. You are going to go down scratching to stay in this game and help win it, I say to myself. No way am I coming out.
George looks at Javier. “What happened with that last batter? Do you agree that everything is still looking good?”
Javier says that everything does still look good.
George looks back at me. “Ila, you’re better than that. You cannot walk someone with a two-run lead. Make them hit the ball.”
Making My Pitch Page 16