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ELISE BERGER ’28 BARD: A PLACE TO PITCH
ELISE BERGER ’28 BARD: A PLACE TO PITCH
Incoming first years have been known to spend a few weeks traveling before starting classes in Annandale. Some go with family, others with friends, but Elise Berger ’28 is certainly the only Bardian who went to Thunder Bay, Canada, last summer to play on the USA Baseball Women’s National Team at the Women’s Baseball World Cup.
As a five-year-old T-ball player in Shelburne, Vermont, Berger wasn’t thinking about how to pitch to players from Taiwan, but when she took the mound on July 31, 2024, that was her focus. She pitched four shutout innings, striking out four, to earn the win. (The record books will show that Berger beat “Chinese Taipei”; Taiwan is not allowed to use its name in international sports competition.)
Many of Berger’s USA Baseball teammates play softball in college, but the 5’ 11” righthander has had her sights set on playing college baseball from early on. In 2022, Berger came to the Bard College Baseball Prospect Camp at the invitation of the coaches, who’d seen her pitch at a tournament organized by Baseball for All, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding opportunities for women in the sport. She impressed the coaches with her command of several pitches and ability to keep hitters off-balance.
The recruiting process was not without its ups and downs for Berger, but the choice ended up being pretty straightforward. “Most coaches I talked to said as long as you can contribute, we don’t care about your gender,” says Berger. “But there were also coaches who said no when they found out I was a girl. The big thing that set the Bard coaches apart was that that was something they wanted to promote.”
Though the jump from high school to college sports is a big one, physically and mentally, Berger has made those leaps successfully before. And she has some distinct advantages over her male counterparts: Few will have had the kind of high-pressure experience she has had against top international competition. Unlike men, who continue to get bigger and stronger, Berger keeps getting smarter, and baseball is the most cerebral team sport. And Berger plays not only for herself, not only for the team—not even only for her country—Berger wants girls everywhere to have more opportunities to play baseball. She has a lot to play for.
bardathletics.com
