Borders Wins Over Manager To Make Baseball History First Woman Pitcher In Minors Still Needs To Work On Fastball

Marty Scott gave it to her straight.

Love your attitude. Love your approach. Don’t like your fastball.

Welcome to the team.

The Saint Paul Saints manager told Ila Borders on Wednesday that she had earned a spot on his pitching staff. She will become the first woman to pitch in a regular-season minor league game as early as Friday, when the independent Saints play their Northern League opener at Sioux Falls.

“I told her in any other given year if we had a stronger rookie staff to draw from you might not have made the club,” Scott said. “But based on what we have here and what you’ve shown, combined with your desire and your work ethic and your love for the game, you’re going to break with the team.”

Borders, a left-hander, gave up six runs and six hits in three innings during the Saints’ four-game exhibition season. Five of those runs came in one inning; she retired three of the four hitters she faced in each of the other two innings.

When she makes her first appearance, Borders will join outfielder Kendra Hanes as the only women to play in a regular-season minor league game. Hanes played sparingly for the now-defunct Kentucky Rifles in the independent Frontier League in 1994.

“I’m pretty excited, but I’m pretty stressed, too, in a way,” Borders said. “It’s professional ball now. Every time I go out there the spotlight is going to be on and I’m going to be fighting for my life.”

At 5-foot-10 and 130 pounds, Borders’ biggest liability is her fastball. She has been clocked in the low 80s, but most often comes in in the high 70s. That worries Scott, who was the Texas Rangers’ farm director for 10 seasons before an organizational shakeup in 1994.

“Her velocity is still short, and because of that I really don’t feel like she’s going to progress up the ladder professionally,” Scott said. “I’ve done this for 17 years now, and I feel like I know what I’m talking about. But I also think I’ve been wrong a couple of times.”

If he is, it will be because Borders is nearly perfect fundamentally and has good command of all her pitches. Her best pitch is a changeup, which she used to strike out two hitters last Thursday in her exhibition debut against the Duluth-Superior Dukes.

“She definitely is a pitcher,” Scott said. “She stays within herself, she knows how to work hitters and she knows how to prepare.”

Borders says she has encountered every reaction possible to being a woman playing what has been almost exclusively a man’s game above the Little League level. Borders said her Saints teammates have been very supportive.

“I know that I’m going to encounter some stuff, but so far I haven’t,” she said. “But I really just don’t care what anybody says or does. I’ve been through the mill, so nothing anybody says or does can faze me. The toughest part is just going to be getting people out.”