Ever-present and relegated to the sidelines, women's baseball is finally being seen

12/10/2024 12:00 PM

"See Her Be Her" chronicles the rise of Women's baseball.

In another world on an alternate timeline, tennis great Billie Jean King might have been a professional baseball player. Elly Ripken could have been a star ball player in the legendary Ripken baseball family, like her Hall of Fame brother, Cal Jr.

Jackie Mitchell could have broken Major League Baseball's glass ceiling in 1931 when she struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) could have existed beyond 1954 alongside MLB with the Colorado Silver Bullets and others joining as expansion teams.

Instead, there were arbitrary and artificial barriers, invisible signs on baseball diamonds that read: no women allowed.

Finally, that's starting to change.

Thanks to amazing trailblazing athletes around the world and visionary photographer Jean Fruth weaving together inspiring stories, women's baseball is now getting the attention it deserves in Fruth's cinematic directorial debut "See Her Be Her." The documentary showcases women's baseball centered around the six semifinalist teams in the 2024 Women's Baseball World Cup.

At a time when women's sports are on the rise, breaking viewership records on basketball courts, soccer fields, and beyond, women's baseball is finally getting a swing.

"The goal is you make the film and you give visibility and visibility leads to opportunity," Fruth said of the film that debuted on MLB Network on Oct. 27. "We are starting to get really good traction with it. It's really good timing. It's so important for these women. The lack of equality – it's just time for people to step up, you gotta do more, you gotta help move things along. It doesn't happen naturally."

The stories

The film stars a cast of international baseball stars who are pushing women's baseball to the next level. Kelsie Whitmore is paving the way for women's baseball in the United States after becoming the first woman to play in a full-season league partnered with Major League Baseball in 2022, while also staring on the U.S. Women's National Team. She's currently a pitcher and outfielder for the Oakland Ballers.

Ayami Sato's skills on the pitching mound have helped build up the game in Japan, which is home to 23,000 female baseball players on 102 teams in the country. Sato has led Japan win six Women's World Baseball Cup Championships from 2010-24 (they've won seven straight titles, including in 2008 before she was on the team).

Lillian Nayiga's love and talent on the baseball field is fostering a new generation of girls baseball in Uganda through an organization called Baseball at Heart. Women in Puerto Rico, Cuba, South Korea, Canada, and beyond are proof of the growing women's game.

"It definitely became so much bigger than we ever expected to become," said Fruth, whose resume includes covering the Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants, being a photographic storyteller for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and creating three baseball books filled with her stunning photography. "But it was kind of no choice because if you don't tell the international story, then it's not really the story. It's important to know how big it is."

By the time filming was over, Fruth had traveled to seven countries on three different continents, conducted interviews in four languages, amassed beautiful b-roll scenes, photos for the book sharing the same name, which is also accompanied by essays by the women stars, Cal Ripken, Jr., AAGPBL players, and more, Fruth had over 500 hours of film.

"It was really hard to cut the women's stories down because all of their stories went deeper," Fruth said. "You had to tell the story that moved along the story arch. The mission is to give them more opportunity, so you always have that in your head. What's going to give these women more opportunities? So, you keep that as your goal as you are editing."

The momentum

Despite leagues stopping and starting in the past, women being sidelined because of their biology or told to play softball instead, women baseball players have always perserved. The Women's World Baseball Cup was founded in 2004, but without the big dollars that make promotions and TV and streaming contracts possible, it remains in the shadows. "See Her Be Her" is now reintroducing women's baseball to fans and players to increase visibility to level the playing field.

"You start with something small, you gotta build it and then when it's there, it's the see her, be her. Now, little girls can go, 'oh, there's professional baseball,' so then the pipeline grows," Fruth said. "More girls play and more women play and they stay in the game longer because there's more opportunities for them to play. All of that takes time, but it's absolutely possible."

The possibilities started growing before "See Her Be Her" even came out. With Fruth filming the Women's World Cup in August in Canada and while negotiating it's airing on MLB Network, the attention led to MLB.com streaming the championship between the United States and Japan in Canada. When the film aired on MLB Network in October, Fruth was flooded with positive feedback.

"We got such great pictures of girls teams and watch parties, thanking us," Fruth said. "People said, 'my daughter saw this,' and even men saying, 'I didn't get it. Now I want my daughter playing baseball,' so you're converting those guys too."

Now Fruth, and "See Her Be Her" producer Jeff Idelson, the former president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and Fruth's co-founder of the non-profit Grassroots Baseball that's helping to promote and celebrate amateur baseball around the globe, are working to get the film out to more audiences.

"Not everybody could see it on MLB Network, so now it's just getting the streaming part, which we are getting close to, so the goal is early next year so that everyone can see it and be able to stream on a platform where it's available to more people and available in the other countries," Fruth said. "We are working on an international streaming partner. I am working on it as fast as possible so it's available, hopefully for baseball season."

Two days after "See Her Be Her" aired, news of the Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL) arrived. The six-team women's league on the East Coast will start play in 2026. The league is co-founded by Justine Siegal, former player and the first woman to coach for a men's professional baseball team (Brockton Rox in 2009) and founder of Baseball For All, a nonprofit that provides opportunities for girls to play and coach baseball, and lawyer and businessman Keith Stein.

Between the WPBL, the Women's Baseball World Cup, and growing leagues in countries around the world, Fruth sees unlimited potential for women's baseball.

"I do believe in 10 years my hope is we'll see a league that people want to see with a great product on the field and it has the success that their counterparts have had in other sports," Fruth said. "We have good examples. Just like basketball, just like soccer. Just like tennis."

See it, be it

King is not only an executive producer for "See Her Be Her," but she also wrote the foreword to the 256-page book. She became the role model to show that women could be professional tennis players and athletes. Once they could see it, they could be it. Now, this can be the path in baseball.

King and her wife, Ilana Kloss, are a minority owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. As a kid, King loved baseball. When she was nine, she went to a Pacific Coast League Game in L.A. He brother, Randy Moffitt, witnessed the pinnacle of what he could be and went on to record a 12-year career in the Big Leagues. It was a different scene for King.

"The thrill of being at the ballpark quickly wore off when it dawned on me that all the players down on the field were men. There I was, a girl who was good at sports, realizing that because I was female, I could not grow up to be a baseball player," King writes in the book. "It crushed me."

When Fruth reached out to King to write an essay for the book, she was delighted that King also wanted to be involved in the film, but that she also loved baseball so much and would add this as another chapter in her lifelong battle for sports equality for women. Fruth was blown away by King's words.

"She said, 'Everybody should have the right and the chance to dream. Every girl should be able to dream. Every woman should be able to dream and they should be able to dream at the highest level,'" Fruth said. "It was so cool. It was so real. She stuck to it. She's amazing."

One of the most touching scenes in the film is when the women playing baseball in Uganda get to see highlights of the Women's Baseball World Cup after a day full of baseball drills. It was exactly what Fruth dreamed of.

"Their eyes popped out of their head and they were like, 'Yeah, we want a team. We want to do that,'" Fruth said. "It was such the see her, be her moment. Seeing them in their uniforms, playing at that high level, hitting home runs, like Kelsie (Whitmore) hitting a three-run homer. And those women can do that if they are given the opportunity. That could be a whole other movie."