Over the course of her long career, Kate Psota has been one of the defining figures of the Canadian Women’s National Baseball team, both as a player and a coach. Born April 30, 1986 in Burlington, Ontario, Psota has been a trailblazer for Canadian baseball and female ballplayers.
Despite coming from a family that didn’t play baseball, Psota has been enthralled with the game since childhood. Inspired by the Blue Jays teams of her youth, Psota began playing T-ball at age four and quickly stood out as an exceptional player. At age nine, she made the roster of the Burlington Organized Minor Baseball Association’s boys Triple-A rep team, and by fourteen she was a member of Team Ontario, a squadron composed of the top female players in the province. Then in 2001 at the age of fifteen, Psota was recruited to play for Canada at the inaugural Women’s World Series, hosted in Toronto (Item 1.1). One year later, she became the first woman to win Baseball Ontario’s Junior Player of the Year Award. Before the first Women’s World Cup of Baseball in 2004 (the first official international women’s baseball championship), Baseball Canada formed its first true Women’s National Team, having previously used altered versions of Team Ontario at unofficial tournaments like the Women’s World Series. A then eighteen-year-old Psota was one of forty invitees to the inaugural training camp. She made the final cut, thus beginning her storied career with the Women’s National Team (Item 1.2).
(Item 1.1) A programme for the 2001 Women’s World Series (a precursor to the Women’s Baseball World Cup), held in Toronto. The roster sheet for Canada has signed photos of the players, including Psota, who was 15 at the time. She pitched an 8-2 victory over Australia in the tournament.
(Item 1.2) A photo of the Women’s National team for the 2004 Women’s Baseball World Cup. Psota is seated in the front row, fourth from the left.
(Item 2.1) A lineup card from Canada’s first game of the 2004 Women’s Baseball World Cup against Japan on July 30. Psota is listed at second base, batting sixth in the lineup, and listed as a potential pitcher.
(Item 2.2) The game ball from Canada’s bronze medal victory during the 2004 Women’s Baseball World Cup. Canada won 8-3 over Australia to secure the medal.
(Item 2.3) A silver medal from the 2016 Women’s Baseball World Cup when Canada fell to Japan in the finals. Psota was named to the tournament’s All-Star team after recording a .438 batting average and 1.000 fielding percentage.
(Item 3.1) A Canadian Women’s National team jersey worn by Kate Psota at international tournaments from the 2015 Pan Am Games onwards. The jersey has a number 7, which Psota wore later in her career, initially wearing number 15 prior to 2008.
With the Women’s National Team, Psota became a star player. Alternatively occupying the pitcher’s mound and first base, and hitting at the top of the order, she was named the Women’s National Team MVP in back-to-back years (2009 & 2010). She also won the Jimmy Rattlesnake Award in 2008, an honour given “to a women’s team member to recognize their on-field accomplishments, team spirit and leadership.” Psota showed incredible longevity on the Women’s National Team as one of only two players to participate in each of the first eight Women’s Baseball World Cups (along with Ashley Stephenson, CBHFM Class of 2024) (Item 2.1). During this stretch with the national team, Psota won two silver medals (2008, 2016) and four bronze medals (2004, 2006, 2012, 2018), while her individual performances were rewarded with a place on the World Cup’s All-Star team four times (2010, 2012, 2016, 2018) (Items 2.2 & 2.3). Psota’s play in 2012 and 2018 in particular stand out as examples of the batting prowess she brought to Team Canada, recording an astonishing .552 and .440 batting average respectively. When women’s baseball appeared at the Pan American Games for the first time in 2015, Psota was on the Women’s National Team roster as Canada took home silver. After the Pan Ams, Psota ranked the experience as a highlight of her career, noting the number of young girls and their parents who told her that watching the Canadian women play had inspired them to take up the sport (Item 3.1).
Psota retired from baseball in 2019 after 15 years with the Women’s National Team. Since then she returned to Team Canada as a coach for the 2024 Women’s World Cup, collecting her seventh medal when the Women’s National Team captured bronze. The work of Psota, both as a player and a coach, has left an indelible impact on women’s baseball in Canada, helping the Women’s National Team to excel for decades, and inspiring Canadian women and girls to take up the game and try to follow in her cleats.