Silver Bullets Make Strides, Have Goals Women’s Baseball Team No Longer Just Out To Survive

Former pitching great Phil Niekro was just as curious as anyone when he was asked to manage the Colorado Silver Bullets, the first women’s professional baseball team to compete against men.

“I didn’t have anyone to call to say, ‘What can I expect from this ballclub?”’ Niekro said. “We didn’t know what we were getting into.”

Niekro, who had a record of 318-274 in 24 years in the big leagues, has been with the Silver Bullets from the beginning, along with his brother Joe, also a former major-leaguer who serves as the team’s pitching coach.

The ballclub held an invitational camp and open tryouts beginning in December 1993. Those were attended by 1,300 aspiring female baseball players. On April 3, 1994, the Silver Bullets’ inaugural 24-player squad was announced.

“They didn’t know if they were strong enough to play the game,” Niekro said. “They didn’t know if their bodies were going to hold up, if their arms could hold up, if they could swing a wooden bat or if they could play on a big field. Most of them were used to playing softball.”

The Silver Bullets took their lumps playing against Class-A, Double-A and college players, finishing the 1994 season with a 6-37 record. They played most of their games on the road, many times at major-league ballparks and in front of crowds of 30,000 curious spectators.

“We didn’t have a goal last year,” Niekro said, “That was the first time women had played against men in baseball. We just wanted to get through the season.

“Last year we played teams way over our heads. We had to get a schedule where both teams would have a chance to win and the games would be competitive and the fans would like it.”

The Silver Bullets have already eclipsed last year’s record with a 10-26 mark in 1995, with 10 games remaining. Melissa Coombes, Tamara Ivie and Kim Braatz are three of the better players on this year’s roster.

This season, the Silver Bullets have played mostly semipro and military base teams.

So how do men handle losing to a team of women?

“Some of them take it real good, and some of them have a hard time,” Niekro said. “They have a hard time going back to work the next day. I think people will start realizing if you give these women a chance to play this game like men have for years and years they are going to get much better.”

Some teams have made sure they won’t lose to the Silver Bullets by bringing in ringers.

“That happened to us occasionally last year,” Niekro said. “Especially this year it’s happened a little more now because we are playing on national TV. We have 20 games on (Prime Sports). Just to make sure they don’t get beat, they’ll bring in one, two or three guys so if it does get close they can always have a backup or somebody that could close the door on them. We’ve kind of watched a little better, so that’s not happening as much.”

The big question is how far women baseball players can go in the future.

“Teamwise, we are not that competitive yet,” Niekro said. “We are getting a couple of players that are getting close to playing low minor-league levels. I don’t know what organization would break that barrier. They just need time.

“We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.”