Beyond Borders

In 1994, Ila Borders became the first woman to pitch in a collegiate baseball game, after being the first woman to receive a college scholarship to play baseball. Borders pitched for four years in college, for Southern California University (now known as Vangaurd University) and Whittier College. During her Senior year at Whittier, she was referred to as the team's most consistent starter. She was 2-2 with a 3.00 ERA against conference opponents, and 4-5 with a 5.22 ERA overall in her 1997 season. 

After college, Borders signed with the Saint Paul Saints of the independent Northern League. She would only spend one month in Saint Paul before being traded to the Duluth-Superior Dukes. Her debut for the Saints was a rocky one -- she hit the first batter she faced, balked during the second batter's plate appearance, and ultimately gave up 3 runs without recording an out. Borders was primarily a starting pitcher until joining the Saints - learning a new role while also being under intense scrutiny certainly didn't make her job any easier.

Borders would pitch for the rest of the 1997 season for Duluth, and would find success in 1999 when her new team in Madison (Still part of the Northern League) began to use her as an "Opener" - a role that has just now caught on in the majors. She started 12 games for Madison, appearing in 15 games overall, and had a fantastic 1.67 ERA over 32 innings pitched. Borders was a control pitcher that would work the corners and lower half of the plate to attempt to induce ground balls.

After her playing days (She retired following the 2000 season) she became a firefighter and EMT in California, Arizona, and in Oregon. In recent years, she returned to baseball, as a pitching coach for the U.S. National Women's Team. In 2018, she made a comeback as a pitcher on the Women's National Team. She was named to the 20 player roster, but did not make an appearance in the 2018 Women's Baseball World Cup. 

Further Reading:

Official Website for Ila Border's autobiography Making My Pitch

Essay by Cassidy Lent on Baseball Hall of Fame site about Ila

2017 Baseball America Article on Borders by J.J. Cooper

What A Difference A Week Makes

Photo from Rochester Red Wings' Facebook Page

Soooo.... As I was saying, Bartolo Colon drew interest from several teams, and the Minnesota Twins were able to swoop in and sign him to a minor league deal. Speculation is that he could be in a Twins uniform as early as Tuesday against the New York Yankees.

I took a trip over to my local card shop today. Since Three Star Sportscards expanded to a second location, the amount of items out of storage and on the shelves has gone up. There was a nearly full box of these 1990 Topps DoubleHeaders, a strange creation that combined an image of the player's rookie card on one side, and their 1990 Topps issue on the other.

There were 30 packs left, each with one DoubleHeader inside. oddly, there were only "Checklist A" and "Checklist C" packs in the box. 

The pictures are thin and glossy like magazine pages, and snapped into place in a plastic stand.

There was a little inconsistency about which card Topps considered to be a player's rookie. Sometimes, they used a Topps Traded version (like Barry Bonds above) or they would use their first flagship card instead. 

I splurged on this sealed box of 1993 Topps Series Two. It's probably all Derek Jeter rookies.

There was a nice collection of oddball sets on a table - Found a fun group of Tombstone Pizza cards for 2 bucks.

I also picked up a Joe Mauer pre-rookie card from his days with the Elizabethton Twins in the Single A Appalachian League.

The Saint Paul Saints release a team set every year- in 2008 the set commemorated 150 years of baseball in the state of Minnesota.

The Saints carried on a tradition from the Veeck family. The son of former White Sox owner Bill Veeck was the principal owner of the team and had no shortage of events and unique promotions to bring in the fans.

There's a familiar face! Strawberry threw out the first pitch in the 2008 All-Star Game. He played for the Saints briefly before making a Major League comeback with the New York Yankees.

My favorite card in the set - my first Bill Murray card! Murray is a minority investor / co-owner of the Saints, along with a couple other minor league teams in the independent leagues.

oh and I also bought a couple hobby boxes of Stadium Club, which I will talk about later....