“I remember the lights, the noise and all the excitement,” Ila recalls today. “I asked my dad all kinds of questions about home runs and strikes and stolen bases. Late in the game there was a home run by a man named Dusty Baker, and everyone was standing and cheering. I thought, I want to be a part of all this someday.”

Fast-forward to September 1997, Duluth, Minn. It’s the final round of playoff games for the championship of baseball’s Northern League, a respected independent minor league that features numerous players who have seen action with the New York Mets, Florida Marlins and other major-league teams.

Ila Borders, 23, is the only female playing in the league. It’s late in a tight game, the stands are full and the opposing team’s best hitters are due up. The Duluth Dukes manager, George Mitterwald, a former major-leaguer himself, calls to the bullpen for Ila. The crowd chants her name, “I-la, I-la, I-la!”

As pitcher, Ila gets the first two hitters out on pop-ups, walks the third and bears down on the next batter. She gets two quick strikes, then throws one by him as the umpire calls “Strike three!”

Ila races truimphantly from the field to the cheers of the hometown crowd as her teammates offer high fives and pats on the back.

Chasing the Dream
Has Ila fulfilled the fantasy she had when she was 10? Not quite, she says. Yes, her pitching performance during the playoff games was her greatest accomplishment to date as an athlete, but it was only one step on the road to her real goal — to pitch in a major-league baseball game.

“I want to make it to the ‘The Show,’ ” she says with quiet determination, using the phrase professional baseball players employ when referring to the major leagues. “I want to use the gifts God gave me to be the very best I can be, and that means going all the way.”

In recent years, many young women have become part of the scene in professional sports as reporters, broadcasters and even umpires and referees. But Ila’s dream is different. Although it’s still a long way from Duluth to New York or Los Angeles, it’s quite remarkable to see how far she’s already come.

Ila has played baseball with the boys since Little League. In high school she was her team’s most valuable player, earning her a baseball scholarship to Southern California College (SCC) in Costa Mesa. Although other young women had already appeared in men’s collegiate baseball games, never before had a woman been offered a scholarship for her baseball ability.

There was a flurry of publicity, not only in local media, but in national publications like Sports Illustrated as well. She pitched and won a complete game early in the season, another first for a college woman, and pitched regularly for the SCC team throughout her freshman year.

The Going Gets Tough
Behind the headlines and on-the-field success however, a darker story was being played out. From the beginning of her quest, Ila had grown accustomed to nasty comments, profanity and abuse from people who couldn’t handle a female’s success in a game dominated by males. She learned to ignore it — to stay focused on throwing the ball hard and accurately.

Not that it was easy to do that. There were times her father escorted her off the field for her own safety. Once, at age 14, she struck out a boy in a key situation, and his girlfriend became so enraged she came out of the stands to attack Ila.

“At least when I was younger,” she reflects, “my parents were always there to support me. When I got to college, I was on my own.”

The Plot Thickens
Arriving at college, just as she was getting closer to her dream, an even uglier situation emerged; her own teammates turned on her.

“In college I went through what no person should ever go through,” Ila says sadly. “I’d turn around during practice, and I’d have baseballs thrown at my head. I’d go out to my car and find my tires had been slashed. I found I always had to be alert and watch my back.”

What especially hurt her was that SCC was a Christian college, and many of the same teammates who taunted her one moment were professing faith in Jesus Christ the next.

“The whole situation hurt me very deeply spiritually,” Ila confesses. “It got so that I began to disassociate myself from Christian people. I never left God though, because I knew He was faithful.

“I drew strength from Psalm 37:3-4 in those times. It says, ‘Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.’ That helped me, but it’s taken awhile for me to get comfortable again with Christians.”

Transferring to nearby Whittier College in her senior year also helped Ila put her painful experience at SCC behind her. She again played baseball, pitching in 81 innings for Whittier’s NCAA sports program, but this time she experienced a more welcoming team environment.

The end of the Whittier College season in the spring of 1997 was the beginning of the current chapter in the Ila Borders story. Just 22 years old, the time had come for her to test the waters of professional baseball. Were there teams who wanted her? And if so, could she make the grade?

Making Choices
“I was surprised by how many opportunities there were for me,” she admits. “There were chances to go overseas, and of course, there was the Colorado Silver Bullets.” (The Silver Bullets is an all-women’s baseball team that has been touring in the United States since 1994, playing amateur and semi-professional men’s teams and drawing large crowds wherever it appears.)

“Even though I could have made more money in some of those situations, I wanted to play in the best league I could find that would give me a chance,” Ila explains. “The Northern League is independent, with a reputation as being good, quality baseball — equal to the Double-A level minor leagues.”

The St. Paul Saints, a Northern League team known for innovation and risk-taking, gave her a chance to make the club on a try-out basis. She impressed the coaches with her attitude and work ethic, even though her fast ball was less than overpowering.

“There are a lot of guys who throw 90 mph and never get anyone out because their ball is straight,” explains Saints manager Marty Scott, who made the decision to keep her. “[Her pitches] have a little bit of movement, and she knows how to pitch.”

After pitching in a few games with St. Paul, she received news that she’d been traded to a Northern League rival in Duluth.

“I was shocked at first, and a bit disappointed,” Ila says. “The guys on the Saints had been really great to me, and the fans in St. Paul were friendly as well.”

But the shock and disappointment soon gave way to other feelings. “I realized that if another team traded for me, that meant they really wanted me,” she concluded. “And it turned out there were smaller crowds and less media attention in Duluth, so I could relax and concentrate on baseball.”

The Duluth experience was positive in another regard as well. As in St. Paul, her teammates welcomed her warmly and treated her as “just another ballplayer.”

“It was really great. I’d go out to lunch and dinner with my teammates, and they were really supportive of me,” Ila says with obvious relief. “They were just a few years older than my college teammates, and I guess those few years made a difference in their maturity level.”

But What About Guys?
Lunch and dinner are one thing: Dating is another. Ila finds the fullness of her life doesn’t allow much opportunity for dating.

“Baseball is my first priority right now,” she declares, “and I work out every day. I’m trying to add a few miles per hour to my fastball. I’m also taking some college classes to complete my undergraduate degree. I have a job in the off-season, too. I do read a lot — mostly mysteries and detective novels — but I don’t have time for TV or dating. I’d like to have a family some day, but I know I’m still young so I don’t worry about it.”

What Next?
Ila also hopes to teach science or P.E. in high school, putting to work the kineseology degree she’ll soon earn. Coaching a high school’s baseball team is also on her mind, but all these plans will remain on hold while she continues the pursuit of her major-league dream.

Curiously, Ila seems almost uninterested in the “first woman” angle of the story. “This was never meant to be a statement for women,” she declares. “I just love to play baseball, and I believe God gave me talent at it. If I don’t use that talent, I’m doing something wrong.

“My responsibility is to work hard and do my best for Christ. If He wants me to stop, or if He wants me to succeed, He’ll make either one happen. I really believe I’m in a no-lose situation. No matter what happens, God will still love me, so He’s really the only One I have to please.”

God may be the only One Ila has to please, but it seems her first professional season pleased her employers as well. In late October 1997 she received a contract offer from the Duluth Dukes for the 1998 season.