Please contact IJBBaseball@Gmail.com for speaking engagements and appearances.
BIOGRAPHIES
Jean Ardell
Jean has worked in Orange County, California, as a freelance writer since 1988. Her features, profiles, baseball writing, travel, and essays have appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. She is the co-chair of the NINE Spring Training Conference, held each March in Arizona for baseball historians.
Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime, was published in 2005 (University of Southern Illinois Press) and continues to be used as a text in sports history courses around the country. Making My Pitch: A Woman’s Baseball Odyssey, co-authored with Ila Jane Borders, is forthcoming in March 2017 from the University of Nebraska Press.
Jean graduated with honors in English from the University of California at Irvine and holds a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California. She lives with her husband, Dan (who played briefly for the Angels when they really were located in Los Angeles) in Laguna Beach, California, where she works as a writer, editor, and memoir writing instructor.
Ila Borders
First female to get a scholarship to play men’s collegiate baseball. First female to get a win in men’s collegiate baseball and have a complete game victory. The First female to play in the Canadian Collegiate Wooden Bat League. First female to get a win in men’s professional baseball. Played 4 years of men’s professional baseball in the minor leagues. Ila's college and professional memorabilia is displayed in the "Women in Baseball" exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Ila has also been included in the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals. Ila works as an international baseball coach, is a part time scout for the MLB Association, is a pitching coach for the US Women's National Team and is a speaker for the Fun Is Good Team. Ila is also a Captain/Paramedic for a fire department in the greater Portland area.
Please contact IJBBaseball@Gmail.com for speaking engagements and appearances.