Sports

The Ohio University Cherry Bombs are paving the way for women in baseball 

By: Darayus Sethna
Posted on: Thursday, March 27, 2025

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — “Baseball isn’t just for dudes.” 

That is what Taylor Connelly, a first-year player for Ohio University’s Cherry Bombs, exclaimed after a practice at Walter Fieldhouse.  

“Anyone can do any sport,” Connelly stated. “It’s fun to do a new thing. Especially a thing that people don’t usually expect.” 

Connelly is just one of multiple players for the Cherry Bombs, which is the only club women’s baseball team in the state.  

Akisa Fukuzawa, a Ph.D. student at O.U., founded the program in 2021. She has over 30 years of experience in the sport – dating back to her college days at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The Cherry Bombs spent two years as a student organization before officially joining Bobcat Club Sports last year. 

“I’m just so happy to have players coming in,” Fukuzawa said. “I’m ready to coach them.” 

Fukuzawa has researched topics like gender and sports along with the history of women’s baseball – which goes back as far as the 1860s.  

But little progress has been made since. 

“It’s just the fact that women are not used to playing baseball and [don’t] even have opportunities as youngsters, like most boys,” Fukuzawa explained. “Softball is more of the norm [for women] and that narrative is still pushing.” 

Today, baseball is still thought of as a sport only for men. But Fukuzawa is challenging that notion with her unbreakable passion for the sport. 

“Challenging those narratives [is] important. I really applaud [the] girls who join us.” 

One of those players is Vada Hackbush, a junior at Ohio University. She has been on the team since the fall of 2023 and aspires to show that she belongs on the mound. 

“Being a part of this team has shown me how important it is for women to try new things outside of their comfort level,” Hackbush said. “I think you can be a women playing baseball – and you can show your strength [and] skill. Being able to hit that ball super far is not something just a man can do. Women can do it, too.” 

Women have yet to get a fair shake in the baseball world. But Fukuzawa is using her work with the Cherry Bombs to break a social barrier that has hindered female athletes for generations. 

Her goal is clear. 

“[It] is to make women playing baseball a norm. Just like [how] women play soccer, women play basketball, women do other sports,” Fukuzawa explained. “It’s just [a] small number, but we do play baseball.” 

Although Women’s History Month comes to an end, Fukuzawa and the Cherry Bombs are just getting started in showing that America’s pastime can be everyone’s pastime.