Shortly after undergoing breast cancer treatment, filmmaker Sarah Strauss looks back with regret on her decades-old decision to abandon her childhood dream of playing professional baseball. Acting on impulse, Strauss hits the road to make a documentary about a handful of girls pursuing their love of America’s National Pastime by playing in all-girls tournaments sponsored by Baseball for All (BFA), which advocates for girls in the sport. Together, they seek respite from the sport’s bruising “boy’s club” in an all-girls baseball community.
When Sarah begins filming baseball players Maddy, 10, Darby, 11, Gigi, 12, and Sabrina, 15, at first they are buoyed by the efforts of BFA and hopeful about their futures in the sport. Maddy wants women to play in the Major Leagues and Darby and envisions a professional women’s league coming into existence. Gigi has her sights set, initially, on making her high school team. But the girls face obstacles that look all too familiar to Sarah, and she fears they will be disappointed when trying to reach their goals. Sabrina tries out for her high school team and is told “she’s good enough, but they just can’t have her on the team.” Parents of opposing teams’ players harass Gigi, but her mother, Barb, nudges her onward by asking, “How badly do you want it?”
While documenting these coming of age stories, the filmmaker reconnects to her first love of baseball–and to the father who taught her how to play the game–when she meets some of the barrier-breaking women who paved the way for girls today. When Sarah gets the chance to coach an all-girls tournament baseball team, this renewed connection intensifies.Through their parallel journeys, Sarah and the players try to reconcile their passion for the National Pastime with a society unwilling to accept that they belong.