HER BEST PITCH
Claire Eccles, the new Cat in town, throws a wicked knuckleball. She’s the first female player to compete in the West Coast League.
Claire Eccles just became the first woman to sign with a team in baseball’s West Coast League, joining the Victoria HarbourCats, but she’s taking a wider view.
“I never thought about myself with this move. It’s about the bigger picture,” said the 19-year-old pitcher from White Rock. “There are a lot of girls out there who want to play baseball.”
HarbourCats general manager Brad Norris-Jones saw four scouting reports on the five-foot-eight southpaw, with her knuckleball — an unpredictable pitch that moves in and out of the strike zone — the main reason he believes she can succeed.
“If we strictly went on her velocity, I don’t think she could compete at this level,” he said. “But her knuckleball definitely competes at this level.
“That’s what we were very excited about.”
Eccles’ fastball tops out at about 76 miles per hour — for comparison, top pitchers in the league throw in the mid-90s — but the knuckleball isn’t about maximizing speed. The pitch is tricky for batters to read because of the ball’s erratic movement.
A member of the University of B.C. Thunderbirds softball team, where she patrols the outfield, not the mound, and the Canadian women’s baseball team, Eccles won silver medals at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto and the 2016 World Cup in South Korea.
“There’s a little bit of pressure [in playing WCL], but my teammates have always been guys in baseball,” said Eccles, who was on boys’ teams from age five to 18 in the White Rock Baseball Association.
Response to her joining the HarbourCats — the league features university and college players from Canada and the U.S., including some who have been drafted by major league clubs — has been positive, Eccles said.
“Some people might have issues with this signing, thinking that baseball is a man’s sport,” she said. “But nobody I have talked to thinks this is a bad idea. Everybody has been so supportive.”
The HarbourCats know they might be accused of conjuring up a gimmicky to sell tickets.
Norris-Jones’s answer: Just watch her pitch.
“To those who think this is just about media attention, I say this is 2017,” he said. “This is going to be the norm in five to seven years. It is going to happen in baseball. We think forward.”
In fact, Eccles will not be the first female pitcher to take the mound with a men’s team at Royal Athletic Park. Eri Yoshida, known as the Knuckleball Princess, started for the Chico Outlaws in a loss against the Victoria Seals in a pro Golden Baseball League game in 2010. And the minor-pro baseball Sonoma Stompers of the Pacific Association last year had two signed female players on the roster — Kelsie Whitmore and Stacy Piagno, members of the U.S. team that won gold at the 2015 Pan Am Games.
Norris-Jones said the HarbourCats will use Eccles, who also throws a two-seam fastball and a curve, out of the bullpen. Because of her women’s Canadian national team commitments, she will miss the first five games of the WCL season and join the HarbourCats on June 6 for a home date at Royal Athletic Park against the Wenatchee AppleSox.
“I am not going to be the fastest pitcher in the league, but I have good off-speed stuff and good movement,” said Eccles, who will get her own hotel room on the road and own dressing room at Royal Athletic Park.
“Obviously, guys are a lot stronger at the plate. Maybe I can get in their heads. I’m hoping I’ll keep them on their toes.”