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ON A LATE JULY EVENING, 3,048 FANS were packed into Wade Stadium, a 60-year-old brickyard in Duluth, Minn. Ila Borders, starting pitcher for the minor-league Duluth Dukes--and the only female player in men's pro baseball--had shut out the Sioux Falls Canaries for five innings. But in the sixth, the southpaw with the long brown ponytail found her concentration wavering. "Two outs, two-to-nothing game, person at second, No. 3 hitter up," she recalled later. "I had to tell myself to bear down. When I struck him out--whoo!--it was an awesome feeling." The fans waited nervously for three more innings, until Dukes relievers nailed down a 3-1 win. Then they stood and chanted, "I-la, I-la!"
Save those ticket stubs; Borders, 23, had become the first woman to win a men's pro game. But the "I-la" phenomenon began well before. In her season and a half in the Northern League (equivalent to Class AA), fans have greeted her with standing ovations at every stop, like a tiny-town Mark McGwire. Dukes attendance jumps 800 fans--men, women, boys and girls--when Borders starts. Sometimes star-struck fans have forgotten their limits. "When I pitched in St. Paul [last year], the bullpen was right next to the fans, and one time this lady leaned over and tried to cut off some of my hair," Borders says, still amazed.
More disturbing to her are the critics, sportswriters and some coaches, who have complained that Borders is really just a turnstile-cranking sideshow. Even her own manager isn't sure she can cut it; before the July win, she had a career 0-1 record and a 7-plus earned-run average. That's what made it so sweet, she says. "It was a close, low-scoring game," Borders adds, "when the team was fighting for first place. They couldn't accuse me of just being a mop-up pitcher after that."
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Borders has dealt with doubters for a long time. When she was growing up in Whittier, Calif., she recalls, grade-school boys threw rocks at her in Little League. In high school, she was the most valuable player on the boys' team, but once, after she struck out a male opponent, his girlfriend threatened Borders with a knife. Borders then played three seasons for the Southern California College men's team. During that time, she says, teammates threw hard at her face during soft-toss drills. None of this broke her love of baseball, forged at the age of 10 when her father, Phil Borders, took her to a game. "I told him right then I wanted to be a pitcher," Borders says. "He said, "If you really want to do it, let's go to work.' Every Saturday and Sunday, we threw from 6 a.m. to noon. I owe him a lot."
At her Duluth stop, at least, Borders seems to have won over her teammates. "She really wants to win," says Dukes pitcher Chris DeWitt. Once, "she came out of a start and went into the clubhouse and I heard her punching walls and kicking stuff. The thing that got me were these extremely high-pitched expletives--I'm used to hearing those in deeper voices."
Yet Borders stands apart; she has to. She wears her uniform to the ballpark so she won't need a separate changing room. Single, she says she doesn't party with teammates to avoid mixed messages about dating. "It's lonely," she says, in her matter-of-fact manner, "but I'd rather watch a ball game on TV." One group Borders doesn't like is female reporters; she's quit talking to them. "If I make the [men's] team," she says angrily, "then I'm saying women's sports are not good enough. But if I fail, it'll be "You set us back.' I don't trust them."
Does she really belong as a player? Borders has great mechanics, and she does throw a smooth assortment of breaking pitches. At 5 feet 9 inches, she has bigger hands than DeWitt, her 6-foot-6 teammate. The Dukes, she says, "call me Paws." She's a broad-shouldered 150 pounds and strong for a woman, but Borders's fast ball goes only about 80 miles per hour. A good major-league arm can throw 90-plus. Dukes manager George Mitterwald says he respects her work ethic, but that she was originally acquired to "add a few people at the turnstiles. If she had a fast ball," he concludes almost regretfully, "she'd be legitimately here."
Right after her first win, however, she threw another six shutout innings. Two major-league organizations have contacted her, Borders says. Phil will help determine if they're after her arm or her ponytail. "You ask every player, their dream is to play in the majors, me included," she says. "Is it possible? I don't know." Sometimes the doubters have gotten her down. But after her recent successes, she says, "it's gotten back to where I'm 10 years old again: I'm leaving it all on the field, loving the game."
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