Ginny Baker is about to be the first woman in Major League Baseball and tonight her journey begins. Watch a sneak peek of Pitch‘s premiere episode!
Pitch is one of the shows I’m most looking forward to this Fall season, and I’m *super* excited for tonight’s series premiere.
I’m incredibly intrigued by the show’s premise, following the experiences of the first woman to break into Major League Baseball.
The fact that she’s an African-American woman also hearkens back to Jackie Robinson, the first Black athlete to play in the Major League the modern era (for the Brooklyn Dodgers).
I can’t imagine the pressure and adversity in being “the first”, and to do it in front of the whole world has to be even more difficult.
In tonight’s pilot, we meet Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury) as she’s about to embark on that journey:
From executive producers Dan Fogelman and Rick Singer, PITCH is the dramatic and inspirational story of a young pitcher who becomes the first woman to play Major League Baseball.
A beautiful, tough and gifted athlete, GINNY BAKER (Kylie Bunbury) is vaulted into instant fame when she’s called up by the San Diego Padres to make her Major League debut.
Like any rookie, Ginny must prove herself to her teammates. Foremost among them is MIKE LAWSON (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), the team’s ruggedly handsome star catcher. There’s instant chemistry between them, although neither dares admit it. After all, Mike is captain of the team and a few of his players don’t even want Ginny on the field. One of the players watching Ginny’s back is center fielder BLIP SANDERS (Mo McRae), an old friend from the minor leagues and his wife EVELYN (Meagan Holder).
Guiding her is her agent/confidante, AMELIA SLATER (Ali Larter). Amelia saw Ginny’s star potential early on and left her previous job as a Hollywood publicist to concentrate on the young phenom, bringing along her young assistant ELIOT (Tim Jo).
Although groomed for this moment by her demanding father, BILL BAKER (Michael Beach), the end of Ginny’s improbable journey is the beginning of an almost impossible one: representing her gender as she embarks on a successful baseball career under the glare of the white-hot media spotlight.
The team’s manager, AL LUONGO (Dan Lauria), and general manager, OSCAR ARGUELLA (Mark Consuelos), bicker over whether Ginny’s presence on the field is in the team’s best interests.
Playing in the major leagues is a goal hard enough for anyone to achieve – except this player is also a woman, who happens to be the most important historical figure in sports since Jackie Robinson.
This season, Ginny Baker will be the other woman trying to break into one of the oldest, most exclusive men’s clubs in the country.
Check out a season preview and sneak peeks from tonight’s episode. We meet Ginny in childhood and watch her develop as a baseball pitcher over time (with a lot of tough love from her Dad). We also see Ginny meeting her Padres team mates (which is an initially antagonistic dynamic, but seems to become more positive), and her first game.
*EXCITE* Make sure to tune into the Pitch premiere tonight at 9:00pm ET|PT on FOX. And come live tweet with me (@WeSoNerdy) during the East Coast showing… it’s going to be good!
