In 'Pitch,' Fox is confident it has the right woman on the mound

It was a metaphorical two-strike count for the creators of Pitch, then a proposed fictional TV series about the first woman to pitch in the major leagues.

Fox had bought the show, but after 2 1/2 months and hundreds of auditions, the search for a woman who could play the part had turned futile.

“We were really banging our heads against the wall,” Rick Singer, co-creator of Pitch told Paste BN Sports. “We found some terrific actresses that you wouldn’t buy in a million years as a pitcher. We found some terrific athletes who couldn’t act. And we really had gotten to the point where we just didn’t think we were going to find her.

“And then…”

In walked Kylie Bunbury, a 28-year-old actress who ended the search and takes the mound when the show premieres Thursday.

The show has a big-league look due to Fox and Major League Baseball’s close working relationship, which helped enable the use of the San Diego Padres’ stadium, Petco Park, the Padres’ clubhouse and the team’s uniforms. The announcers, Joe Buck and John Smoltz, add to the authenticity. But the creators said they know the show’s success hinges in large part on its pitcher, and to portray right-hander Ginny Baker they handed the ball to a woman who never played the sport.

Growing up, Bunbury said, she played basketball, ran track and played soccer. But no baseball. At all.

“I think I stuck my hand in a mitt a couple of times,” she told Paste BN Sports. “But, no, I never really had thrown a baseball. And if I had, it was the wrong way.”

But she knew competition. Bunbury’s brother, Teal, plays for Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution and her father, Alex, played for Canada’s national soccer team and in the English Premier League.

So when Bunbury headed to baseball boot camp and trained with Gregg Olson, a 14-year major league reliever and 1988 American League rookie of the year, she had an idea what she was in for, even if she quit playing soccer when she was 13, saying she “wanted a social life.”

Olson said Bunbury’s fastball reached 60 mph. Bunbury paid the physical cost, developing forearm soreness, icing down like a real pitcher and using Epsom salt baths to get over the aches and pains of playing Baker.

“Is it picture perfect? I would leave that to the experts,” Kevin Falls, an executive producer, said of Bunbury’s pitching. “But it certainly works dramatically, and we couldn’t be more excited about her.”

The show might seem particularly timely given the recent influx of women in baseball, most notably the successful appearances of Kelcie Whitmore and Stacy Piagno with the independent league Sonoma Stompers this summer.

Its roots, however, run deeper.

Rick Singer wrote the script in the late 1990s, inspired by the independent league pitching stint of Ila Borders, who pitched in the Northern League, and he hoped to see his project become a movie.

It sat unproduced for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, the sporting landscape, or at least the perception of women within it, changed.

Singer found a more receptive audience recently during a Hollywood lunch with 20th Century Fox executive Dan Fogelman, who saw the script’s potential and also its natural tie-in with Fox, which holds over-the-air rights to Major League Baseball games.

So Singer tabled his movie dreams and brought his idea to the small screen.

“At the time, it seemed much more fantasy,” Singer says. “But then, when (Little League World Series star) Mo’ne Davis, even Danica Patrick and those things come along, Serena Williams dominating the way she did, if you can figure out a way that a woman can compete without throwing 95 mph — we were intent upon making it believable and as authentic as possible.

“The whole idea for me was, I’m a huge baseball fan. Who would be the Jackie Robinson of today’s sports world? That’s where I came up with the idea for a woman.”

Bunbury calls the story “important” and “empowering, but knows that critics – or Average Joe Sports Fans stumbling across the show – may pan it for what might be perceived an unrealistic scenario.

“We’re going to get haters,” says Bunbury. “Obviously. But when you have haters, you’re doing something right. And what people need to remember is, this is a television show. Let’s use our imaginations.

“I really hope people give it a chance. It’s not just about baseball.”