I stood at the entrance of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ontario, watching as Mary Thompson adjusted her glasses and smoothed the creases in her navy blazer. The 72-year-old from Swift Current, Saskatchewan, took a deep breath before walking toward the podium. The June sunshine filtered through the tall windows, illuminating her silver hair as she became the ninth woman ever inducted into this hallowed institution.
“I never played for recognition,” Thompson told me later, her voice soft but steady as we sat on a bench overlooking the museum grounds. “Baseball was just something that lived in my bones since I was a little girl throwing a ball against the side of our barn.”
Thompson’s journey to the Hall began in 1965 when, at age 12, she joined Saskatchewan’s first organized girls’ baseball league. By 17, she was pitching for the Canadian women’s national team, helping secure a bronze medal at the 1970 Women’s Baseball World Championship in Japan—a fact largely forgotten in Canadian sports history.
Her induction represents more than personal achievement; it highlights the often-overlooked history of women’s baseball in Canada. According to Baseball Canada, female participation in the sport has increased 31% since 2015, with more than 8,000 girls and women now registered in organized leagues across the country.
“Mary didn’t just excel as a player,” explained Scott Crawford, the Hall’s director of operations. “After her playing career, she coached three generations of Saskatchewan pitchers and founded the Prairie Women’s Baseball Foundation, which has provided equipment and training to over 4,000 girls from rural and Indigenous communities.”
When I visited Thompson’s hometown last spring, I found evidence of her legacy everywhere. At Swift Current Comprehensive High School, a display case holds her worn leather glove and the ball from her perfect game pitched against Cuba in 1972. The school’s baseball diamond was renamed in her honor in 2019.
Elder Wilma Cardinal from the nearby Nekaneet First Nation shared how Thompson’s foundation had transformed opportunities for girls on the reserve. “Before Mary started bringing coaches and equipment here in the 1990s, our girls had no chance to play organized sports,” Cardinal told me as we watched a practice session. “Now we’ve sent three players to provincial championships.”
Thompson’s induction comes amid growing recognition of women’s contributions to Canadian baseball. Statistics Canada reports that girls’ participation in baseball grew faster than any other team sport between 2018 and 2023. This growth follows initiatives like MLB’s “Baseball For All” program and the creation of women’s baseball development centers in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.
Dr. Janice Forsyth, Director of Indigenous Studies at Western University, sees Thompson’s recognition as particularly significant for Indigenous women in sport. “When Indigenous girls see someone like Mary—who worked closely with First Nations communities—honored at this level, it creates powerful possibility models,” Forsyth explained.
The path wasn’t always smooth. Thompson faced significant barriers throughout her career. Baseball Canada’s archives contain rejection letters from the 1960s denying her requests to play in boys’ leagues. Tournament programs from the era often listed her as “M. Thompson” to avoid drawing attention to her gender.
“There were tournaments where I’d warm up with my hair tucked under my cap,” Thompson recalled. “The looks on batters’ faces when I took the mound still make me laugh.”
Her pitching statistics remain impressive by any standard: a career 1.89 ERA over 15 years of national competition, 112 complete games, and 28 shutouts. Baseball historian Dorothy Seymour Mills has called Thompson “possibly the most talented pitcher Canada has produced who never had the opportunity to compete at her true potential level.”
At the induction ceremony, Thompson stood surrounded by family, former teammates, and dozens of young female players who had traveled from across Saskatchewan to witness her moment. Her speech focused less on personal achievements and more on the future of women’s baseball.
“This plaque doesn’t belong to me alone,” she said, gesturing toward her Hall of Fame marker. “It belongs to every girl who’s been told baseball isn’t for her, every woman who’s had to fight for field time, and every coach who’s believed in female athletes.”
Later, as families toured the exhibits, I watched Thompson kneel down to sign a baseball for a young Indigenous girl in a Swift Current Broncos cap. “You throw like you mean it,” she told the wide-eyed child. “The mound is waiting for you.”
As the sun began to set over the grounds of the Hall of Fame, Thompson walked with me to the parking lot. “You know what I’m most proud of?” she asked, pausing to look back at the building. “Not the medals or this induction. It’s that girls today don’t have to be baseball pioneers. They can just be baseball players.”
The Saskatchewan pitcher’s plaque now hangs alongside those of baseball legends like Ferguson Jenkins and Larry Walker—a permanent reminder that Canada’s baseball story has always included women who, like Thompson, simply played because the game lived in their bones.
