When Ayami Sato takes the mound as the starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Queens on Saturday, it will be the culmination of a professional career that has spanned 16 years and three countries. The right-handed hurler is largely considered the best pitcher in the history of women’s baseball. She has the awards and experience to prove it, and now she’s taking on America when she makes her debut in the Women’s Professional Baseball League, the first pro women’s baseball league in the United States since the 1950s.
Even though most Americans tuning into the WPBL may not have heard of her, Sato’s resume speaks for itself. Sato’s fastball has been clocked at nearly 80mph and her curveball has a devastating spin rate that is higher than many Major League Baseball pitchers. As a member of the Japan National Team since 2010, Sato has won six gold medals. She is the only player in Women’s Baseball World Cup history to win three consecutive MVP awards. As a member of the now-defunct Japan’s Women’s Baseball League, Sato led the league in strikeouts in three of the last four seasons. And most recently, in 2024 she became the first woman to play pro baseball in Canada as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Intercounty Baseball League.
Now, she is bringing her talent to the US and the WPBL. “This is a brand new league for all of us,” Sato tells the Guardian through a translator. “So I also want to approach it with the mindset of a rookie –staying curious, paying attention to everything around me, and embracing this new challenge with an open mind.”
The league will play all its games in a centralized location for its first season, at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. There are four teams – the Queens, the New York Heights, the San Francisco Firebells and the Boston Hunters. And the best players from all over the world will take the field together for the first time as one league, including at least nine players from the US women’s national baseball team. On the Queens, Sato will play alongside USA star third baseman Ashton Lansdell and Little League World Series star Mo’ne Davis.
WPBL co-founder and commissioner Justine Seigel says it was always the plan to recruit internationally for the league. “We want many of the best players, and to have many of the best players, you have to go out into the world and find the best shortstop in Venezuela, and who’s pitching in Japan,” Seigel says. “It’s also fun because baseball is baseball, but it’s also got its own little nuances country-to-country, and it’s kind of fun to see in a game, as well.”
Sato is from Amami Ōshima island in Kagoshima prefecture. She began playing baseball as a girl, at first as a way to hang out with her older brother, but by third grade she was taking the sport seriously. She took to pitching almost immediately, after the manager of the boys’ baseball team she was on noticed that she liked to throw and told her that she had a strong shoulder.
In Japan, Sato explains that there is a strong emphasis on mastering the fundamentals like proper throwing mechanics and learning to move your body the right way. While it’s something that Sato has always liked about the way she was trained, she’s gained even more appreciation for her country’s emphasis on the fundamentals because she believes they have contributed to the longevity of her career.
“One thing that I hope fans recognize is that great performances don’t just happen, they come from a lot of preparation,” Sato says. “I spend a great deal of time getting ready, physically and mentally, before I ever step onto the field, so I’ll be very happy if people notice not only how I play, but also the preparation that I do and mindset behind it.”
“I got to catch her bullpen, which was surreal,” New York Heights and USA catcher Denae Benites said at one of the WPBL tryout sessions. “She’s a legend in the game and last year I got to face her as a hitter in a World Cup and I think she did get me twice. So now I’m learning her secrets, I’m learning her pitches. But that was a truly incredible moment.”
Despite all the accolades and stats that Sato has racked up over the course of her career, she’s humble. For as excited as the other players are to play alongside her, she is just as excited to play with (and against) them.
“I’ve always considered the American players to be the biggest rivals against Japan,” Sato says. “They constantly challenged me and made things very difficult for me, but because they were such strong opponents, they also pushed me to improve and made me want to become a better player.”
She says after watching the documentary See Her, Be Her about women who played baseball (including Sato herself), she stopped seeing the USA players just as opponent-athletes and more as people who had had many of the same experiences that she has faced.
“Now I’ll have the chance to play in the same league with the players I’ve come to understand on a deeper level and we will be fellow players building something together,” she says. “I feel nothing but excitement, and I really cannot wait.”
And because Sato is such an experienced player, she can bring that veteran leadership to the Queens. She hopes she can teach her teammates how to slow down and never let the game get away from them, to take the game pitch-by-pitch, and to work hard so that they can be the best version of themselves that they can be.”
Sato is so hyperfocused on baseball that sometimes it can be hard for her to think of herself outside of that. When asked what she wanted fans to know about her off-the field, she regularly came back to her baseball training or philosophy. She found it to be a difficult question to answer, describing herself as a person. Her partner and translator, Mayo Hirano, was happy to offer insight into Sato’s personality.
“She has a unique ability to take control of the game and set the tone for everyone around her,” Hirano says. “Once she steps onto the mound, she creates an atmosphere that only Ayami can create – calm, focused, and quietly powerful.
Off the field, though, she is completely different. She is one of the purest and most genuine people I know. She lives life at her own pace, and it’s a very slow one – sometimes it even tests my patience! She loves drawing and singing, and she finds joy in the simple things.”
In many ways, Sato has been building towards the WPBL through her entire career. That this league has come to be at a time when Japan’s women’s league no longer exists and while Sato is still playing is, in some ways, kismet. Sato will have yet another opportunity to show the world why she is the best at what she does. And she’ll get to do it on her own terms, bringing all the lessons she’s learned throughout her career to the mound in Springfield.
“I think the combination of bringing together the American style of enjoying the game and having fun with the Japanese approach of building a strong foundation – if you could combine those two, I think you have the base of the best of both worlds.”
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