It is a passion. It’s a dream. It’s a commitment. And now, it has become a responsibility.
Jeff Idelson, the former Baseball Hall of Fame president, and photographer and filmmaker Jean Fruth traveled around the world, interviewing and filming girls and women baseball players. They went everywhere from Uganda to Cuba to Japan to Puerto Rico to South Korea and Canada, watching and listening to girls and women sharing their passion of playing baseball.
Now, they want to spread the message to the rest of the world.
They have produced “See Her Be Her,’’ a film about women’s baseball around the globe, following the lives of seven women in seven different countries. The documentary, in conjunction with Dolby Laboratories, is set to be shown at AMC Theaters on a 12-city tour across the country, while also streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. The tour, beginning Feb. 22 in San Francisco, will continue throughout the season and end during the World Series. It will also include a Q&A with a panel of women baseball experts and book signing.
“This film means so much to me,’’ Fruth said. “Just talking to them about the joy and different experiences they have playing baseball, it was magical. The point of the film is to raise visibility for these women. We need to shine light on the women’s baseball game.’’
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Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. talks about growing up with three siblings in the baseball family, insisting the best baseball player in their family growing up was their oldest sister, Elly.
“I would have loved to have seen Elly play baseball,’’ Ripken said, “but at the time, there was just no outlet for girls to play the game. …. All she wanted to do was play baseball, but there wasn’t an opportunity for her to play. She was mad all the time. She became a star in softball.
“Elly wanted desperately to play baseball, but she didn’t get the chance.’’
Kelsie Whitmore describes her experience playing for the Saten Island FerryHawks, becoming the first female to play in a full-season league partnered with Major League Baseball. She now pitches for the Oakland Ballers in the Pioneer League.
“Hey, if your dreams aren’t scary,’’ Whitmore says, “they’re not big enough.’’
Just ask Ayami Sato, considered to be best female baseball player in the world. Sato helped lead Japan to five gold medals, and is the only women’s baseball player to ever have won three consecutive MVP awards in the World Cup.
“Baseball consumes my life,’’ Sato says, “and I wouldn’t have it any other way. … When I’m not playing, I am doing everything I can to grow the game.’’
Fruth and Idelson hope one day that there will be a female major-league baseball player, but most important, the say, is to assure women have the opportunity of playing baseball, and are not relegated to softball.
“It would be amazing, of course,’’ Fruth said, “but to me the real win is for more opportunities overall for women and girls, breaking the barriers. The bigger win is having a place to play, having a women’s professional team. They can see that, and dream to do that.’’
In the words of Hall of Fame tennis player Billy Jean King, who’s part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers: “Every girl should have the same dream as every boy would have.’’
Women’s baseball is lagging behind other countries with 23,000 women playing baseball in Japan, 27,000 in Canada, and six women umpires in Cuba’s professional league. Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki, who once had a female teammate in elementary, Tomomi Niwa, spends time trying to develop female players during the Japan High School Girls All-Star game.
“It’s happening in other countries,’’ Idelson said. “They just need the visibility because people have no idea that women are playing professional baseball around the world. When you see someone with Ichiro’s status working with women high school All-Stars at the Tokyo Dome, it shows you what it means in Japan.
“We know the film is going to open a lot of eyes, and the more exposure, the more opportunity.’’
And, yes, one day….
“As minds become more open and the gender gap narrows, women will continue to change the game for the better and for good,’’ Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. said. “It meant so much to me to get to play alongside my dad. I hope that one day I get to see a young woman play alongside her mom in a major league game.’’
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