‘The world is watching’: Japan’s Ayami Sato becomes 1st woman to play for a Canadian pro men’s baseball league

History was made today in Toronto as one of the best female baseball players in the history of the sport became the first woman to play for a professional men’s baseball league in Canada.

On Sunday, 35-year-old Ayami Sato, of Japan, pitched her first game as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Club. She was the starting pitcher for the team’s 2025 home opener at Christie Pits Park.

The Leafs, one of nine teams in the Intercounty Baseball League of Southern Ontario, lost 6-5 to the Kitchener Panthers.

”I can’t believe the best woman to play the game in history is now making history in Canada, right here with the Maple Leafs,” the team’s CEO Keith Stein told CTV News Toronto.

Sato is a star in the international baseball community, a legend who has led Japan’s women’s national team to six World Cup medals. She’s also the only woman to win three consecutive MVP awards in 2014, 2016, and 2018, and was selected as an All-Star twice at the Women’s Baseball World Cup.

Standing five-foot-five, Sato is a right hander who throws almost 80 miles an hour.

She was signed to the team last December, and arrived in Toronto on April 29. Sato started practicing with her new teammates on May 4.

“The world is watching. It’s been amazing the excitement she has brought and brought to Toronto and brought to this league,” Maple Leafs manager Rob Butler said.

“Nothing has been seen like this in this league before and for her to be the first person to try to do it it’s a beautiful story.”

Butler, a World Series winning ex-Toronto Bue Jay who joined the club in the spring of 2023, added that Sato has shown a lot of courage and tenacity and has been teaching her new teammates “a few things about work ethic.”

Kerri Sherbinsky’s husband Jeremy Newton also pitches for the team and is thrilled with the Maple Leafs’ new addition.

“[Jeremy’s] on the team so she’s stealing his spotlight and I’m okay with it. … I’m here for her,” Sherbinsky said.

Speaking through an interpreter, Sato described why she decided to join the team.

“I got an offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs and as long as I got the chance for such a great opportunity, I want to contribute to the baseball world,” she said.

“Also, I want to show the girls and the boys the hope through playing baseball.”

Several young baseball players told CTV News Toronto that they see Sato as a role model.

“I think really cool female pitcher on an all-boys team and we are a girls team on an all-boys league and I find it really inspiring,” said one young player.

“It’s cool cuz I also play on an all-boys team, so it’s nice to see it’s not just me,” another added.

Mayor Olivia Chow also attended the game to show her support, saying that Sato broke the gender barrier today and has blazed a trail for other women in the sport.

“In this year and a half, we have a professional women’s hockey league, basketball, soccer league -- we just need to wait for a professional baseball league and the time -- I know will come,” Chow said.

With files from CTV News Toronto’s Janice Golding