Baseball may not be the first sport that comes to mind when people think of Canada. But Alli Schroder caught the bug early growing up in British Columbia and never looked back.
So when she first heard whispers of a professional women’s league, she had to be part of it.
“I never thought there would be an opportunity for myself to play professional baseball,” Schroder said.
The pitcher was drafted with fifth overall pick of the Women’s Pro Baseball League’s draft in November.
Only problem? The WPBL’s inaugural season is right in the heart of some of the busiest months of the year for Schroder’s main job as a wildland firefighter in Canada.
“I would say baseball, honestly — kind of funny — is like a hobby to me, and firefighting is my full-time job,” she said.
The 24-year-old already has an enviable resume both in and out of the ballpark. Schroder was the first woman to ever sign and play in the Canadian Collegiate Baseball Conference. And she’s been a member of Canada’s national team nine times. Now, she’s taking the mound for the Boston Hunters. But her job back home is never too far from her mind.
Growing up in British Columbia, the realities of wildfire and climate change became impossible for Schroder to ignore.
“I saw it, around the time that I was graduating high school, escalate very, very fast. Every summer was worse than the one before,” Schroder said. “You see it impacting your friends, your family — people that you know in very real ways.”
According to the Canadian Climate Institute, the last three fire seasons have been among the 10 worst on record. To date, 2023 was the single most destructive season with fires consuming 16.5 million hectares of land in Canada.
Schroder considered becoming a paramedic or a structure firefighter in a city. She also thought about a career as a police officer.
But she loves the outdoors and natural beauty of her home. So at just 17 years old, she did her first year of firefighting — serving on active fire lines in Canada.
It helps that firefighting is something of a family business for the Schroders.
Alli’s mom, Kandy, is a planning officer and logistics chief for the BC Wildfire Service.
It wasn’t difficult for her to see Alli choose a line of work like firefighting, she said. Still, she knows it’s difficult for her daughter to take time away from one passion to pursue another.
“She’s a wildland firefighter. So, she has a season,” Kandy said.
But like any good baseball mom, Kandy always makes time to watch Alli play with the Hunters.
“We even had [a game on] at the fire camp that I was at here recently,” she said. “We were all watching the kid play ball.”
Schroder is already a crew leader as a firefighter in Canada. And she’s a leader in the baseball clubhouse in Springfield, Illinois, where the WPBL is playing all of its first season.
Beth Greenwood is a catcher and player-coach for the Hunters. She said Schroder isn’t the loudest person in the room, but she’s helped to take on responsibilities of leading the team. And having a firefighter on the squad helps put playing a game of failure in perspective.
“In her profession, if something goes wrong, that could be it, you know?” Greenwood said. “And so I think kind of having that perspective of like, ‘Hey, maybe it’s frustrating, maybe you feel like it’s the end of the world, but it’s not. There’s gonna be another baseball game, there’s gonna be another pitch, there’s gonna be another swing.’”
In a league where just about every player takes on a second job to pay the bills, Schroder is lucky enough to have a profession that brings her the same passion the game does.
Because one day, baseball will end for Alli Schroder. But the life of service — which she says is a calling — will continue once she eventually steps down from the mound.
“For me, I think that if the opportunity came I would absolutely love to just play baseball,” Schroder said. “But I think that firefighting filled something in me that I’ll always come back to it.”
