SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gathered around the small screen captivated by a highlight reel from baseball World Cup qualifying last year, a Ugandan woman beams. Then one more smiles widely. And another.
They take turns expressing how they too might shine on the big world stage one day.
Indeed, an international star like U.S. pitcher Kelsie Whitmore or Japan’s Ayami Sato eventually could come from the African country where women’s baseball has planted roots in recent years.
“Baseball has done a lot in our lives,” said Lillian Nayiga, a single mother playing baseball in Uganda while also teaching other women.
In the upcoming “See Her Be Her” documentary, sports photographer Jean Fruth and her team chronicle seven standout women doing far more than just playing the game in their corners of the world spanning the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Japan, South Korea, Cuba and Uganda.
“We’re representing women in sport, and that’s something really powerful to hold onto,” said Whitmore, who two years ago became the first woman to sign with a regular-season men's professional team in an MLB partner league, playing for the Atlantic League's Staten Island Ferry Hawks.
Whitmore pitched this past summer for the independent Oakland Ballers and became the first woman to start a Pioneer League game.
The nearly 2-hour film, set to premiere Sunday night on MLB Network between Games 2 and 3 of the World Series, follows the teams through 2023 qualifying for this year’s Women’s Baseball World Cup — won by Sato and seven-time reigning champion Japan over the U.S.
There’s Canadian Alli Schroder, who works grueling two-week stretches fighting major wildfires. She showed up to play this summer with burns on a hand from falling into an ash pit and deals with chronically sore shoulders and knees that might shorten her playing career. The fingers on her non-throwing, left hand were injured enough she worried whether she could even swing a bat.
“I figured before that I burnt myself out from playing baseball and training, but it’s incomparable to working 14-day shifts in a row fighting wildfires,” Schroder said. “There’s a lot more at stake on the fire line than there is in a big game, and I think that’s something that I’ve really been able to use to calm myself down on the baseball field in big situations.”
Korean standout Soyeon Park typically can only play on weekends while she trains to become a pilot. Fellow countryman Chan Ho Park, the former big league pitcher, is a fan.
In the baseball-crazed Cuban culture, first baseman Libia Duarte wants to see women playing baseball at a high level accepted so they can break the stereotype that they should stick to being housewives.
Gabby Vélez of Puerto Rico shares her own mental health struggles, and each of these women give back in their unique way trying to pave an easier path for the young women coming after them.
“These women will touch your heart,” Fruth said. “They certainly touched mine.”
Each faced her own struggles — doubters, discrimination — competing in a sport primarily played by boys and men for well over a century. Those skeptics who believe women don't belong motivate Whitmore, who on her phone keeps a screenshot of demeaning social media posts.
The women also have some prominent backers.
Former Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki has become an ambassador for them, leading efforts to build the women’s game in Japan.
“People come and see Major League Baseball games, but the same doesn’t apply to women’s baseball,” Suzuki says in the film. “People who share the same passion should come together. Instead of discussing the level women’s baseball is at, we have to first create the stage for them. That’s what drives motivation. I hope this wave will spread and grow all over the world.”
Ferguson Jenkins, Cal Ripken Jr. and Jimmy Rollins are all in, too. Their support matters.
“There is no Cal Ripken Jr. of women’s baseball — yet,” Fruth said.
The documentary is the vision of non-profit Grassroots Baseball, founded by Fruth and former longtime National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum President Jeff Idelson. They traveled extensively across six countries and Puerto Rico to provide an intimate glimpse into the athleticism, talent and determination of these ladies putting baseball on the world map.
Executive Producer Wendy Selig-Prieb, the former Milwaukee Brewers CEO and a daughter of retired baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, was thrilled to get behind this work at a moment when interest in women’s sports is exploding.
“To sit there and to watch the entire film, it is powerful, inspiring and eye-opening. And I say eye-opening because the quality of play and competition not just in the U.S. but globally certainly exceeded what I understood before and what I think a lot of people know,” Selig-Prieb said. “And so what Jeff and Jean are doing by providing visibility for not only the potential and possibilities that exist going forward, but more importantly what’s happening right now in women’s baseball, is just tremendous.”
Grassroots Baseball also is releasing a book to accompany the film featuring a collection of Fruth’s photos taken during the project.
Selig-Prieb hopes the film provides girls and women everywhere a glimpse of what is possible, even if baseball isn’t her passion.
“The name sums it up, right, See Her Be Her,” Selig-Prieb said. “I never aspired to be the first woman to do anything. It was not an aspiration or a goal I had. But it is where I have sometimes found myself. And what I learned from that is when you are, you gain a voice. And I like using mine to support others and amplify others who are forging a new path."
In Uganda, they are aiming big in baseball — even if some show up to play barefoot or in dresses. The joyful women hold hands in a large circle, dancing this way and that.
“I want to pitch 90 mph,” one player shares.
“I want to be a catcher professionally,” offers another.
Americans like Whitmore, Anna Kimbrell, Ashton Lansdell and Meggie Meidlinger are among those helping grow the game by traveling to Uganda to provide instruction and support. Meidlinger had been previously to lead clinics and was inspired by the interest and stayed involved.
It goes way beyond baseball.
“Why the game is more than just a game is to be able to draw in all those other young girls around in the game and who love it," Whitmore said, "and just to be someone for them."
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