New baseball documentary aims to create more chances for women on the field
Women’s sports are reaching new heights in popularity and revenue in 2024, with basketball and soccer leading the way. But what about baseball? A new documentary hopes to shine a light on the growing number of women playing the sport and the barriers that still face them in many countries, including the United States.
“See Her, Be Her,” a documentary from Grassroots Baseball cofounders Jean Fruth and Jeff Idelson, follows the lives of seven women baseball stars who represent the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Japan, South Korea, Cuba and Uganda, set against the backdrop of the World Cup Championship. The 90-minute film will make its debut between Games 2 and 3 of the 2024 World Series on MLB Network, Fruth and Idelson announced Friday. The film aims to bring awareness to women’s baseball and to help create more opportunities for female players.
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The film features Hall of Famers Cal Ripken, Jr., Tony Pérez and Ferguson Jenkins, as well as retired major-league stars Ichiro Suzuki, Chan Ho Park and Jimmy Rollins, who have all been vocal in their support of women playing baseball.
“It seems like a real logical evolution that there should be a league,” said Ripken in the film. The Iron Man comes from a baseball family: His father, Cal Ripken, Sr. was the manager of the Orioles, and his brother Billy also played in the big leagues. Ripken Jr. told Fruth and Idelson, who collected nearly 400 hours of footage, that his sister, Elly, was a terrific baseball player — as good as any of them — but given the era they grew up in, she had to play softball.
Suzuki has twice hosted an exhibition game against women’s high school players at the Tokyo Dome to encourage more women to get involved. Last year’s event also featured former Red Sox star Daisuke Matsuzaka.
“He believes they need a platform to be exposed and feel what it’s like to be in a packed stadium on a national stage,” said Idelson, who was the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s president before formally starting Grassroots Baseball with Fruth in 2019. “He takes it so seriously. I was there … you can tell he cares. He brought one player to the batting cage and showed them how to hit.”
Japan has the top women’s baseball program in the world, though there is still a push to get more young girls involved. The documentary closely follows Japan’s Ayami Sato — considered the best female pitcher in the world; Kelsie Whitmore (U.S.); Alli Schroder (Canada); Libia Duarte (Cuba); Soyeon Park (South Korea); and Gabby Vélez (Puerto Rico) as they battle for the World Cup. Lillian Nayiga of Uganda, who hopes for her home country to play in 2027, is also spotlighted. The women aren’t shy about the backlash and discrimination that still exist. They are pushing both to normalize women playing baseball, and to have something beyond the World Cup to aspire to.
“These women are culturally very different, but they share very similar traits: determination, courage; these are trailblazing women,” said Fruth, a sports photographer who directed and co-produced the film with Idelson. “Ichiro said it so well (in the documentary). The conversation shouldn’t be, ‘How good are they? How high of a level can they play?’ The conversation should be to create opportunities and watch them rise.”
will have a companion photography book available in October with a foreword by former tennis great and social justice advocate Billie Jean King. The book will include images from the seven territories and three continents where Fruth and Idelson traveled for the documentary over three years, gathering more than 100 interviews and 400 hours of footage.
The pair hope the initial airing on MLB Network will be a springboard for other companies.
“We realized quickly, it wasn’t just a U.S. story, it was an international story,” Fruth said. “It’s about more than baseball, it’s about gender equality, and the more people who see this film, we hope it inspires change. (During production) people kept saying, ‘Oh you mean it’s (about) softball?’ No, we mean baseball. There are so many people who don’t even know women play baseball.”
The makers of want to spark that conversation.
“As minds become more open and the gender gap narrows,” said Hall of Famer Ken Griffey, Jr., “women will continue to change the game for the better and for good.”
