12-05-2025
‘It's a beautiful story.' Maple Leafs pitcher Ayami Sato throws two hitless innings in her historic debut
On a cloudless, breezy spring Sunday, an energetic baseball team wearing crisp white uniforms took to the field at Dominico Field in Christie Pits, eager to start their season in front of a healthy crowd splayed across blankets on the hillside.
Most fans were there to see a diminutive but stoic figure standing on the mound for the Intercounty Baseball League's Toronto Maple Leafs. Ayami Sato, the flame-throwing right-hander from the Japanese island of Amami Ōshima, became the first woman to play professional baseball in Canada on Sunday when she fired a pitch to the Kitchener Panthers' Nick Parsons, who weakly tapped it back to Sato. She threw him out with ease.
