Fourth-year History PhD student Melissa Armstrong recently represented Team Canada at the World Baseball Confederation’s World Cup in Gijang City, South Korea and earned a silver medal at the event.
Born and raised in Saskatoon, Sask., Armstrong said she grew up playing baseball and loved it. She got involved in playing on a senior women’s team in Alberta and made it to the nationals. At age 16, she was able to join Team Canada and has been playing for the past nine years.
In addition to her baseball career, she completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Saskatchewan, and went on to get a master’s degree for African Studies at the University of Oxford.
The Charlatan spoke with Armstrong about her experiences playing baseball, and the challenges of balancing academics and athletics.
The Charlatan: Can you tell me about your role on Team Canada during the World Cup in South Korea?
MA: I’m now a veteran player on the team. This is my fifth World Cup this year, and we played at the Pan Am Games last year, so lots of exposure on the world scene . . . my job is to come in long relief, so if one of our starters is struggling or if something happens, I can come in and calm things down, and pitch a lot of innings in the middle of a game, so that somebody can come in and close. Or, I come in at the end of games that we are either up a lot or down a lot, and I close the games. I pitch more innings, essentially, and create a little bit of stability [for] our team. I used to be more a starter, and then I moved to being a closer, and now I’m in this long relief position. So that’s what I was doing in South Korea.
TC: Was there a highlight during [the World Cup]?
MA: Yeah. We played against Japan in the final. We won the silver this year, and that increased our ranking to second in the world, which was lovely. I got put in against Japan, we weren’t doing very well. We were [going to] be beaten—it was 9-0. I came in in the fifth and sixth [inning], and unless a miracle happened, we weren’t [going to] win. But I have a catcher that I normally catch with in the west, and she hasn’t caught for me now in five years. They gave me a gift and put her in to catch so I got to pitch this inning with her catching in a final, and we had a lot of fun.
TC: How do you find balance between sports and academics?
MA: It’s funny, a lot of people say balance, but I think they complement each other and they work really well . . . I find that you strike a balance because it’s necessary, and for mental health it’s necessary . . . I think doing sports is key . . . I don’t succeed in school if I’m not working out and being active, [so I] might as well channel it into something I really like.
TC: What was the greatest challenge you’ve faced so far, in academics or sports?
MA: One of the biggest challenges I had was [when] I herniated a disc in my low back and I was in the hospital for five days. I really wasn’t able to sit down or walk, which was devastating because we had a World Cup in 2014 in Japan, and I really wanted to be at that. [I went] from all of a sudden training full-time, to doing nothing and laying on [my] back for six weeks . . . It was [also] tough because it was my comprehensive exam year, and I was expected to do a lot of work, and I really wasn’t able to do any work. I was very lucky in the recovery. I was able to play baseball that summer, which was a miracle. I ended up playing in Japan. I didn’t play well, but I think it was really important for my psyche, to play at that game knowing I could play and then come back out and play subsequently, post-injury.
TC: Do you have any advice for aspiring baseball players?
MA: It’s an exciting time to be doing baseball . . . especially for women, there’s opportunities. It’s up and coming. We’re pioneering a new sport into being with the Pan Am Games happening in three years, which is a big deal, and women’s baseball is coming up. So for women, I would say, stay in baseball. You don’t need to be in softball. But if you love softball, play softball. And for everyone else, keep playing until you don’t like it. And play it because you like it. Play because it’s fun.
