ABOUT ME, Amy.

G’day and welcome! Thank you for dropping in to the Women’s Baseball - The Inside Pitch (WBIP) website.

I’m Amy McCann, the founder of WBIP. If you’ve stumbled this far, you might be keen to learn a bit more about who I am and why I do what I do.

So how does an Aussie teenage girl in the 1990s start playing baseball? Well, I always wanted to play a sport that involved hitting a ball, but tennis and softball never quite grabbed my attention. And girls playing cricket wasn’t really as much of a thing as it is now.

But when a 13-year-old me went to the movies with her mates to see A League of Their Own, a movie about women playing pro baseball with other women, I was hooked.

They were my first role models, my inspiration to start playing.

A few weeks later, I started my baseball career at the Kissing Point Angels in Sydney. I spent most of my teenage years playing as the only girl on my team, and sometimes the only girl in the league. There were no girls' or women’s leagues or teams, so I played with the boys and the men. I just wanted to play, no matter how hard it was or how isolated I felt at times.

I took a break from baseball for four years while completing Uni, before moving to Melbourne where I was floored when I not only learned there was a stand alone women’s league, but a Victorian team, a National Championships, and in that year 2001, they named the inaugural Australian women’s team!

So I started playing ball at Melbourne University, the next year I was at Nationals and in the Australian squad. That’s when baseball truly took over my life.

I had the privilege of being guided by some of the best coaches in the game over the next 10-15 year including Grant Weir, Matthew Sheldon-Collins, Dom Ruggiero, Garry Bitmead, Kane Longstaff, John Gaynor and Samantha Hamilton, to name a few. Their belief in me and our program, and quite a bit of hard work at my end, allowed me to experience amazing things, meet some incredible people, and travel the world all for baseball!

I'm honoured to forever be part of A AMAZING FAMILY, the Australian Women's Baseball Team alumni.

For more than a decade, I lived a dream, repping the green and gold at six Women’s Baseball World Cups (2004-2014) with it all beginning at the 2002 World Series in Florida when a group of Aussie chicks beat the world to win gold!

My heart is so full from those years, with our silver (2010) and bronze (2014) medals at the top of my highlight reel. It’s pretty awesome to think that over ten years, Australia—a little country at the bottom of the world—medalled twice, finished fourth four times, and recorded wins against Japan, the USA, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, Chinese Taipei, India, Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Korea, and the Netherlands.

While we don’t play this great team sport for individual glory, it was an honour to be named to dual All-World Teams (2004 and 2006) and to be Baseball Australia Female Baseballer of the Year in 2006. And to be one of only six players in the world who played in all of the first six World Cups was pretty cool too.

One of the coolest things this sport allowed me to do was take a giant leap and live in Japan for a season playing semi-pro ball with Taiken Wellness of Tokyo College in 2005. Wow, what an experience! It made me the baseballer I am today because of the discipline, the intensity, the respect for the game—everything!

IF YOU DIDN’t KNOW, Aussie CHICK baseballers slay hard.

Back home, where we have one of the best domestic programs in the world, it’s pretty cool to be Team Victoria cap #33. For twelve years, every Easter was spent at a baseball field somewhere in Australia, being part of seven Big V Championship-winning sides, including a three-peat in 2007-08-09.

All that international and state stuff is pretty cool, but no baseball player would be where they are without their home club. Everyone knows I bleed green and gold as a proud member of Melbourne’s Doncaster Dragons Baseball Club, with 350 games played (and still going) in Victoria’s Summer League since 2002. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of this club and women’s baseball over the last 25 years.

It hasn’t always been about playing. I’ve balanced playing with coaching for most of the last two decades, across all levels, including junior and senior teams. But one of my proudest baseball moments was starting a Melbourne junior girls league in 2004, which led to me being the Head Coach for the first-ever Baseball Victoria Under 15 team in 2005, a precursor to the current Youth State team.

Elevating the visibility + raising the profile of women’s baseball has really filled my cup.

I’ve always felt a need to highlight the stories and news from across the world of women’s baseball and women in baseball—stories that just aren’t told. Perhaps it came from playing the first part of my international career without social media, having few games streamed online or featuring commentary, or because for many of us in the first generation, we struggle to find decent images of us playing!

There are so many great stories in our sport that aren’t being told, and you can’t be what you can’t see, right?

Over the years, I did whatever I could: creating and sending sponsorship proposals for Team Australia, compiling game reports, and editing photos at World Cups. After retiring, I started my own blog and even made a mini web doco on our 2010 silver medal win.

Then in 2021, I launched the ”Women’s Baseball - The Inside Pitch” Podcast to share the untold stories of players, coaches, scorers, umpires, and administrators in our game. At the same time, I started commentating on a bunch of women’s games broadcast internationally. It’s been SO MUCH FUN to be in both play-by-play and colour roles for the Australian Women’s Showcase Series, Women and Youth National Championships, the world’s first Little League National Championships, and the Barclay Cup.

But, as anyone who knows me will attest, just doing a Podcast and some commentating was never going to be enough. For me, or our sport.

I felt we needed of a home, A LOUDER VOICE, with more stuff, so I decided to do more!

In addition to continuing the WBIP Podcast, I will be adding new blog where I will aim to connect the community with more news and stories on women’s baseball. While there will be a particular focus on Australian baseball, I’ll also continue to touch base with women’s baseball communities worldwide.

And, for what most are here for, there will be merch! I am pleased to unveil a new range of merchandise which features the WBIP logo and our new WMNS BSBLL design. You can get these on our signature range of t-shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers, bags, shoe charms and more.

But why the merch? Like the podcast and blog, it is about connecting the community through a shared brand, something we can wear proudly across our chest, on our head, or on our shoes! ;) It is an opportunity to own our game!

But it is also about giving back. One thing I didn’t mention while recounting my career highlights is that it was all fully self-funded. I worked a full-time job and spent well well over six figures for the privilege of playing the sport I love for my country and state.

While I wouldn’t trade any of my memories and experiences for some money back in my pocket, financial pressures continue to make it hard for many to stay in sport.

I’m proud to be contributing a percentage of WBIP PROFITS straight back into women’s baseball.

I am not out to make a profit, in fat, I will be reinvesting into the sport through a range of initiatives that will support our game such as player and team sponsorships, development clinics, and more.

This will come through the sales of WBIP original items such as the range of shirts, hoodies, hats, shoe charms, stickers and more. But it will also come via speciality and limited-edition items so keep an eye out for our regular product launches!

Finally, I would like to acknowledge that as girls and women already spend a lot to play baseball, I didn’t want this to be just another cost. While I will be giving back, I want to make sure I keep as much money in players’ pockets as possible in the first place so I will be keeping item prices as low, while making sure they are the best quality.

Thank you for sticking around to learn my story.

I hope you join us on the WBIP journey!