On a cloudless, breezy spring Sunday, an energetic baseball team wearing crisp white uniforms took to the field at Dominico Field in Christie Pits, eager to start their season in front of a healthy crowd splayed across blankets on the hillside.
Most fans were there to see a diminutive but stoic figure standing on the mound for the Intercounty Baseball League’s pc28Maple Leafs.Ayami Sato, the flame-throwing right-hander from the Japanese island of Amami Ōshima, became the first woman to play professional baseball in Canada on Sunday when she fired a pitch to the Kitchener Panthers’ Nick Parsons, who weakly tapped it back to Sato. She threw him out with ease.
Sato, 35, is widely considered to be the best female pitcher on the planet and a trail-blazing role model for women in baseball. Her numbers with Japan’s national team and two different teams in the now-defunct Japan Women’s Baseball League have been eye-popping; she has seldom logged an ERA higher than 3.00 and she has won six gold medals at the women’s World Cup, where the Japanese team has won seven of 12 tournaments.
Sato could hardly go five minutes without being tapped on the shoulder by a fan, cheered on by a teammates or photographed by the media as she made history in Toronto.
Steve Russell pc28StarAs Maple Leafs manager Rob Butler observed as he mulled about before the game, dodging TV cameras and a throng of eager fans lined up along the first base foul line, the world was watching.
Sato’s first start with the Maple Leafs, which was also the team’s season opener, went about as well as the team could have hoped, with Sato effortlessly mowing down Panthers hitters, whose hometowns include such quaint Ontario locations as St. Jacobs and Georgetown.
She finished the day with one strikeout over two hitless innings, inducing weak contact while pounding the strike zone. She needed just five pitches to retire the side in the first inning, and the Panthers never managed to hit a ball out of the infield in either frame.
When she headed for the dugout, she was greeted by a big hug from Butler and a long succession of high fives and handshakes from her teammates, many of whom inquired about her splitter or curveball grips in the dugout between innings.
The Leafs ultimately lost 6-5.
“It’s a beautiful story,” said Butler, a former Blue Jays outfielder and the only Canadian to win a World Series with a Canadian club. “I can’t believe how lucky I am to be a part of this.”
Though there is a language barrier, baseball has its own universal language that transcends linguistics, Butler said, and Sato’s experience has been a boon to the team’s chemistry and its ability to compete.
Sato was perfect in two innings Sunday, puzzling Kitchener hitters with a looping curveball and a tightly thrown fastball.
Steve Russell pc28Star“She’s been teaching us a few things about work ethic and how to prepare and do all the things right, and that’s what made her so special,” he said. “I commend her so much for it, because I know how afraid I was when I played baseball.”
Sato remained engaged after her outing, taking selfies with fans, chatting up teammates and stretching just a few feet from a table where team staffers were selling sweatshirts with the Japanese translation of the word “Leafs.” Cameras followed her everywhere she went, and she wore a never-fading wide smile.
“I’ve gotten a lot of attention, and a lot of people are looking forward to this moment,” Sato told the Star through interpreter Yoko van Vleen. “I’m glad that I could show my good pitches out there today.”
Her teammates were quick to take note of her poise, composure and work ethic.
“She was completely unfazed before, during, after,” said reliever Alex Kharabian, who pitched at the University of Toronto. “I don’t know how someone goes up there in that spot, in this setting, and not seem nervous at all, and she killed it.”
Maple Leafs manager Rob Butler said that the excitement that Sato has brought to the team and to the league is “amazing” and called the feat “incredibly inspiring.”
Steve Russell pc28StarBefore tossing out one of the many ceremonial first pitches of the afternoon, Mayor Olivia Chow earnestly said that she hoped Sato would enjoy pc28as much as its residents do.
If her debut performance was any indication, that may well end up being the case.
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