Advice from the doctor: Baseball girls to get tips on dealing with adversity
How Amanda Asay handles a title tacked in front of her name should be a fun, lighthearted sidebar for Friday’s Baseball B.C. online seminar for girls.
Asay is among the guest speakers for the event. The 32-year-old Prince George native has been a right-handed pitcher and an infielder/catcher with the Canadian women’s baseball team for the past 14 years, and over that time, has also played NCAA hockey at Brown University and earned a PhD in forestry.
“I was asked for this, ‘Do we call you doctor now?’ and said, ‘I guess you can, but you don’t have to,’ ” said Asay, who wrapped up her lengthy post-secondary schooling last fall and was part of UBC’s virtual graduation ceremonies this spring.
“I saw it on the poster and it feels weird.”
The seminar, which costs $25, starts at 5:30 p.m. and is expected to finish around 10 p.m. Check out baseball.bc.ca for registration details.
Alexis Brudnicki, a Toronto-based baseball development and special projects reporter for mlb.com, is the host.
Asay is scheduled to talk about handling adversity, as is 19-yearold Marika Lyszczyk, the Tsawwassen native who became the first female position player in men’s baseball at the NCAA level this spring when she suited up as a catcher for the Division 3 Rivier University Raiders of Nashua, N.H. Other speakers include: Leah Pells, the three-time Olympic middle distance runner
■ National women’s coach Aaron Myette
■ UBC Thunderbirds men’s coach Chris Pritchett
■ Strength and conditioning coach Khyl Orser
■ Cav Whitely, the former Douglas College men’s coach and Baseball Canada’s 2018 elite coach of the year.
Whitely is also a Prince George product, so there’s a built-in kinship with Asay.
There’s also a hot stove segment on Friday featuring national team level players Asay, Lyszczyk, Claire Eccles, Stacy Fournier, Liz Gilder, Allison Schroder and Katie Reyes.
Some may remember Eccles, a 22-year-old left-hander from Surrey, from her two stints with the Victoria HarbourCats, who play in a men’s collegiate all-star summer league.
“With the roundtable, there’s a lot of different experiences. Everyone didn’t follow the same path, but we’ve all gotten basically to the same spot, so it’s going to be interesting to see what everyone has to say,” said Asay.
“It would have been pretty cool to listen to something like this when I was a young player. I think it would have been really exciting. Growing up, when there was an opportunity for me to do something, I was always ready. I was like, ‘Is there a place for me?’ I was going to try to fit in.
“I think one of the biggest things I want to tell young players is that, if this is what you love to do and you’re willing to just work hard, you can find a way. More places are opening up all the time if baseball is your passion. I want to encourage you to keep going.”
Asay made the national team in 2005 as a 17-year-old. The following season, she was named the squad’s most valuable player, after making the all-star team at the World Cup in Taiwan that summer.
She’s kept pushing, both in sport and academically. It took her 11 years to complete her education.
“I’ve been a competitive person in more than one aspect of my life,” said Asay, who currently is working on a forestry project in Nelson.
“I didn’t take stereotypical paths. I think I pushed myself in that way.”
Last August, she was part of a Canadian national team with an average age of 20 that competed in a World Cup qualifying tournament.
This year’s World Cup was slated for Monterrey, Mexico from Sept. 11-20, but was pushed back to Nov. 12-21 in Tijuana, Mexico due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Assuming the tournament is played, and assuming Asay participates, it will be her eighth World Cup.
“This has been hard. There isn’t a lot of people playing baseball this summer. Baseball wise, it feels like February,” Asay said.