How did I feel . . . ? I could not recall a manager asking how I felt about starting. To be truthful, I wasn’t thrilled about pitching so soon; I hoped for some time to get ready. But I picked up my uniform—I was number six now—and suited up for practice.
The clubhouse culture here was different from what I had known in St. Paul and Duluth. If the Saints reminded me of the lordly New York Yankees, and the Dukes reminded me of the unruly Boston Red Sox, the Black Wolf defied categories—they were just themselves. They seemed to have no core identity—everyone kind of did their own thing. Most of my new teammates were married or had girlfriends. Our shortstop Dan Grice introduced himself. After that first practice everyone went home while I stuck around and talked about my role with Dirty Al and my pitching coach, Bronson Heflin, who had pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals and, like several coaches in the Northern League, also played on the team. Gallagher wanted me to start—pitch three innings and work up to five. Then he planned to bring in our hard-throwing right-hander for a few innings and finish the ninth with our closer.
Dirty Al had played for the San Francisco Giants and turned out to be full of baseball knowledge. It was an honor to play for him. He was one of the best managers I played for, easygoing and supportive. He understood that I needed what he called a “fresh start.” He handled the media like no one had since Mike Veeck.
“Too much is made of Ila being a girl,” he told the Madison Capital Times. “But what she has to realize is what Jackie [Robinson] had to realize; where too much was made of him being black. Personally, I could care less whether she’s a girl, boy, black, white, Dominican, or from Panama. It’s all a matter of how they play.”
Dirty Al’s wife, Nancy, was supportive, too. She was always cheering for me, at all the games, and saying good luck with smiles. I began to get excited about the season. I walked out with Dirty Al and Bronson to the parking lot, aware that I had nowhere to stay for the night. I told one of the locker room guys, “Hey, I forgot something in the clubhouse. Can you give me the key, and I’ll give it back tomorrow? Go ahead and take off.”
I must have sold it, because he gave me the key. I gave a sigh of relief and returned to the locker room and my bed, the stretching table. I woke up the following day and sat out on the field in peace, visualizing success on the mound, until the grounds crew and the clubhouse attendant, also known as the clubby, got in. I then headed to a park nearby and waited until everyone else showed up. I grabbed some free food from the stands and got the call that Trish’s brother had found me a place to stay starting the next day. Great news. Now I only had one more night in the locker room. After the game was over I hung out and waited for everyone to leave, and then, just as the clubby was leaving I stuck a piece of cardboard in the door to prop it open. I walked out to the parking lot and started to walk to a home I didn’t have. The clubby asked if he could give me a ride, but I said, “No, It’s okay. I like to walk—I’ve never seen fireflies before.”
“You better watch out,” he said. “It’s not safe out in this area.”
After he left, I headed back to the clubhouse, praying that cardboard had stayed put. This was getting old, but it was my fault. I was too proud to ask for help or money. I knew it was weird; I just didn’t know any other way. Trish’s brother had told me his daughter was in nursing school at the University of Wisconsin and lived in a small duplex on Milton Street. I could stay there until the end of the season. I was beyond grateful and excited—my own room to myself.
Because Madison is home to the main campus of the University of Wisconsin, it has a great young vibe to it. The city is a cyclist’s heaven, with lots of designated paths for bicycles. Even in the winter people bike to work. Although we played almost every day, I tried to get out and embrace the city. I loved walking home after a game and seeing fireflies lighting the evening. I hung out on campus or walked around Second Street, watching the people pass by. The duplex where I was staying was next to Camp Randall Stadium, where the University of Wisconsin Badgers played their football games. I promised myself that before my season ended I would attend a game there. Madison is not a big baseball town, given the great tradition of its college football team. It had won the Rose Bowl in 1994 and again this year, and head football coach Barry Alvarez was the talk of the town. The team’s prospects looked good for the coming season. I also came across a man who owned a store called the Shoe Box. He told me to come on in and get some free cleats and running shoes. I didn’t want anything for free, but he insisted on giving a discount. I signed a lot of my rookie Saints cards and gave them to him. Maybe it’s just the way the Midwest is, but the people of Madison were so gosh-darn friendly. I’d be out running, and people driving by would honk or wave. But they never got into my space. A local couple lent me their car, a red hatchback Honda Civic, so I could get from the apartment to the ballpark and back. They would not let me pay them. I was amazed at how many people were trying to help me. If not for people like this, I doubt my season would have gone as well as it did. In Madison I learned the value of giving without expectation.
June 11, Warner Park, Madison, Wisconsin. I made my first start for Madison against the Sioux Falls Canaries. Pitching on three days’ rest, I was kept to a strict pitch count by Dirty Al. Of the thirty-two pitches I threw that rainy night, twenty-one were strikes. Over two innings, I gave up two runs and four hits. I liked being a starter again, and I liked playing for Dirty Al.
He didn’t converse much, but there was an understanding and respect there. He knew I worked better if he didn’t tell me what to do all the time. With his encouragement, I improved, giving up fewer walks and hits. My velocity increased two miles per hour to seventy-seven. I credit this to the way Big Al treated his players. He knew how to get the best out of us. He didn’t treat me like he treated others—he saw us as individuals and adjusted his approach. It’s called being a player’s manager. And I saw that when my manager and coaches had my back, as Rol Esslinger had when I was in junior high and now Dirty Al did, I tended to play better—an insight that extended beyond the diamond into my personal life. When I had support and encouragement in my life, I performed better. Yell at and criticize me, though, and I froze up.
June 17, Fargo, North Dakota. Tonight Gilberto Reyes subbed as manager for Dirty Al, who had a blocked artery and went in for an angioplasty. Reyes sent me in relief to pitch the bottom of the eighth of a game we were trailing 4–2 against Fargo-Moorhead. I gave up a walk to Cory Smith, the first batter I faced. Nerves, the relief pitcher’s bane. But I refocused and picked Smith off at first. Getting an out that way is satisfying twice over: you make up for whatever mistake that let the guy get on base in the first place, and you demoralize your opponents. I got the next two outs. In the top of the ninth, we rallied for three runs, and Joe Stutz, our closer, shut them down in the ninth. There are times when I’ve pitched my heart out as a starter and lost the win because our relievers couldn’t hold the lead. Well, the game giveth, and the game taketh away, to get biblical about it. Tonight I pitched one inning and got my first win for Madison. I just wished Dirty Al was here to see it.
June 28, Madison. On a Sunday afternoon I started against the Schaumburg Flyers. I was on: after giving up a lead-off single, I threw three scoreless innings, with two strikeouts; and no runner advanced past first base. I got some grudging support from the Flyers manager, Ron Kittle, who told the Madison State Journal, “I think the guys don’t take [Borders’s pitching] real serious and before you know it you’re behind. . . . I tip my hat for her, though.”
By August my ERA with the Black Wolf was a fine 1.51, which stirred up some envy among a couple of my teammates. Dad found their negative comments about private clubhouse stuff and about me on the Internet. It stunk because one of them was our catcher, as I learned when an umpire came up and flat out told me, “Your catcher is the one spreading rumors and isn’t hiding it.” It reminded me of college when my catcher would tell the opposing hitter what was coming. So I walked a f
ine line between hanging out with the guys and keeping aloof. I had plenty of time to practice walking this line, because Madison was the easternmost city in the league, and the bus trips were longer. I’d get on the bus, and a fellow pitcher might say, “Oh, here comes the person with the lowest ERA on the team.”
And then there was Heflin, our pitching coach. He seemed to like me as a person but seldom instructed. Forgive me for pointing out that in the summer of 1999 my ERA was lower than his. Heflin finally called a pitchers meeting, where he told the others to stop undercutting me with petty stuff. I was there but played dumb.
And through it all the general craziness of baseball went on and on. At one point a pitcher for the team came up to some guys and me and asked us to check out his shave job because his wife was coming to town. It’s called manscaping.
One night, a guy from my team came banging on my hotel room door at midnight in his boxers. I opened up and said, “What’s up, Joe [not his real name]?”
“Do you have a condom?” he said. “I just met this girl, and she doesn’t have one and neither do I.”
I kind of laughed and said, “No,” but thought, Good for him. He was a handsome guy with a lot of talent, but his wiener took priority every time. The following day we were to leave at three in the morning for a road trip. Joe was nowhere to be found. We waited for him for five minutes and then left. Coach said if he wasn’t at the game by the time we got to the ballpark, he would be released. Stunk for me because he was the guy who would come in behind me. A teammate called him and told him he better make it to the game. I don’t know how, but he found a bus headed for the town we’d be at and made it to the field in time.
There’s a time to fight for how you want to be treated, but at this time and place it was about getting along and trying to stay under the radar. There were times when I wanted to pay back the guys, but all it would take for me to be dropped was to offend someone, so I just took it and laughed.
It was the same in the bullpen. Two guys got into a fight in the stands because one of them was throwing pistachios at my head, trying to get me to react, and the other guy was telling him to knock it off. Both were finally escorted out, but it was a scene. On another night, near the end of the game, a bunch of college guys bought the bullpen a round of beers. In my drink was one of those paper umbrellas, with a phone number written on it. I laughed and looked up at this guy standing up, with all of his friends pointing at him. I raised the cup to him in thanks, put the umbrella in my back pocket, but never called him. I faced a tougher decision during one of the club’s promotions, “Bring Your Dog to the Ballpark,” when fans could lead their canines onto the field to meet the players. I spotted her immediately. I went straight to her—a Boston terrier, a breed I love—not even glancing at the person on the other end of the leash. After playing with the dog for a few minutes, I remembered my manners and spoke with the owner. Her name was Janice, and she was a professional triathlete. Our conversation flowed effortlessly for about ten minutes, until it was time for me to leave for the bullpen. I could tell she wanted to say something more. “It was great chatting with you,” I said. “Hope you can both come out here for another game.”
I guess that opened the door, because she said, “Forgive me if I’m off with this, but here is my number. I would love to meet up again.”
Janice’s words brought a smile to my face, which quickly faded. I already felt like people were watching for who I might date. I dared not risk anyone in baseball getting wind of my dating a woman. I kept her number, staring at it from time to time but never made the call. I did look for her at the ballpark but never found her.
Al’s plan was working well. I threw three innings of shutout ball in a 4–2 victory over the Dukes, then three more scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk but no runs. I felt in control, and I was putting up good numbers—two earned runs over seventeen and one-third innings for a 1.04 ERA—and so were our right-hander and closer. The Black Wolf were winning. I celebrated by watching the Wisconsin Badgers beat Murray State at Camp Randall Stadium. That year Wisconsin would go 10-2. I have been a Badgers fan ever since.
July 18. On a rainy Sunday I made my sixth straight start against the St. Paul Saints, struggling through three innings and giving up five hits and a walk. Sometimes those are the games you remember, rather than the ones where everything was in sync, because you battle through them. I picked off the Saints’ lead-off batter in the first inning and stranded four base runners. As the Capital Times reported, “‘She battled,’ said former major leaguer Matt Nokes, who had two hits, including a single in the third inning off Borders. ‘You have to be patient. She’s tough to hit.’”
Dirty Al had my back. “She didn’t have her real good stuff,” he told the Capital Times. “That was the first time she’d pitched on just three days’ rest. . . . She threw in the bullpen yesterday, which she likes to do before she pitches. We might have to change that.”
As the season wore on, my teammates seemed to get more comfortable around me. Word got around that I wasn’t sleeping with anyone, didn’t pursue women, kept my nose clean, and was just there to play ball. Guys started coming up to me like they had in high school to ask if I would catch them in the bullpen. We had a bullpen catcher, but I would always go down there too, explaining, “Catching makes me a better pitcher,” which was true. I’d let them know what was working, what wasn’t, and why, as well as how much break they had on it and how much movement.
I had the best year of my career in Madison, with the lowest ERA on the team. I was gratified that my numbers had proved what I could do. Opponents hit .273 against me, third best on the team. As I left the clubhouse for the airport, Dan Grice called out, “Stay in touch.”
Dirty Al and the pitching coach said, “Have a great off-season. See you next year.”
I caught the plane to St. Paul for my connecting flight to Los Angeles. As the plane soared over the forests and lakes of the Upper Midwest, I leaned back and reflected on the past three years of baseball. In 1997 my goal had been to simply survive the season. In 1998 I had wanted to make an impact for the Dukes. This past season, with the Black Wolf, the goal had been to improve—and I had. Maybe my next goal would come true: an invitation to spring training somewhere in Organized Baseball. I figured that the people who decided these things could by now accept that I was the real deal, because I had just ended three years in a tough league on a high. When Kelly picked me up at LAX, I shared my excitement about the season: 1-0, 1.67 ERA, eighteen games, 32.1 innings pitched, thirty-three hits, seven runs, six earned runs, three home runs, ten walks.
October 20, Hollywood, California. Today a letter arrived from the Madison Black Wolf advising me of the club’s “intent to exercise [my] one year option . . . through the 2000 Northern League season.”
More good news came in a phone call. Photographer Annie Leibovitz invited me to attend the launching of her book, Women, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington DC on October 26, 1999. I was invited—me, the closeted gay broke ballplayer. I also received an engraved invitation from the White House to honor Annie’s exhibit at the Corcoran, Portraits, Profiles, and Progress: Celebrating Women of the Twentieth Century, where I would meet President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. In her invitation Annie had included a signed copy of her picture of me. If ever there was a fire in my home, I told myself, I would save that picture and my Northern League championship ring. But I had no money to pay for an airline flight, let alone a hotel room. There was no way I was going to charge those things to my credit card instead of paying Kelly back—that was something Dad would do. So I called to thank Annie, saying that I would love to be there but could not make it. She asked why, and I said, very embarrassed, that I could not afford it. She was surprised to find out that I had no endorsement deals and was broke. I remember thinking that she also likely knew that I was hiding who I truly was.
Annie arranged for Kelly and me to fly to DC and put us up at the nic
est hotel I’d ever been in. When we rolled up to the Corcoran Gallery, I was stunned. On the outside of the building was a huge image of Annie’s photograph of me. Surreal. This famously talented stranger had recognized something in me and captured it on film.
Inside the gallery were portraits of seventy of the more than one hundred women of the book, including Annie’s mother, Marilyn, five women coal miners from Alabama, tennis star Venus Williams, and Hillary Clinton. Annie told reporters covering the show that this had “been an emotional project over the last three years.” Her guideline for selecting which images to include had been, “If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.”
She said that my image “captured . . . a glamorous moment.” And in the Washington Post’s review of the exhibit: “Then you look at Ila Borders winding up to throw a baseball in a vast twilight of clouds and distant trees, and you know you’re looking at a whole picture that stands by itself, no questions asked, the seams forgotten—art.”
It all struck me speechless. To be a part of something done by Annie Leibovitz, who I believe is the most gifted person in her field, was an unbelievable honor. At the reception, actors like Drew Barrymore and Gwyneth Paltrow mingled with secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I like to say that I don’t get starstruck, but that night, yeah, I was dazzled. I got to meet President Bill Clinton—and yes, he is charismatic and charming—and Hillary Clinton, a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan who was warm and friendly, and went out of her way to acknowledge the importance of my career. When I approached my photograph, actor Robert Duvall came up to me and said, “Hey, that’s you! So, how’s it going?”
Making My Pitch Page 21