Alex Hugo and Ashton Lansdell are bashing homers for the future of women's baseball

When FTX MLB Home Run Derby X star Alex Hugo arrived at the U.S. Women's National Team tryout camp in 2018, she had never played organized baseball before. Sure, she'd played some pickup games with neighborhood kids, and she certainly wasn't a stranger to swinging a bat. After all, Hugo was a superstar softball player. She led all college softball players with 25 home runs for Georgia in 2014, finishing her career with 71 jacks -- tied for 25th-best in history. She was then picked 10th overall by the Akron Racers in the now-defunct National Pro Fastpitch league.

So, when Hugo headed to the tryout camp on the recommendation of one of her Racers teammates, she didn't know what the future might hold.

"I didn't even know that this existed," Hugo told MLB.com. "I always wanted to play for my country. I was like, 'This is perfect.' And so I go to this tryout, and there's over 100 people here and they all look like they know what's going on. The craziest thing was, honestly, that was the first time I had been on a baseball field -- like a true one. So, throwing and seeing pitching from all different dimensions, it was wild."

• See Hugo and Lansdell smash home runs in FTX MLB Home Run Derby X on Oct. 15 in Mexico City. Get your tickets now!

Still, when one makes the switch to a much different sport, well, you're expected to struggle. Hugo did not.

"From the first moment, just seeing her, I was like, 'Oh, OK,'" Veronica Alvarez, the current USWNT manager and Spring Training coach for the Oakland A's, said. "Just the way she carried herself, the way she moved on the field. I mean, some of the basic stuff, right? The intention that she took to every practice and every game -- just that focus of attention on wanting to be great at this. She didn't care that it was her first time there. She was like, 'I want to be great at this. I want to make the team and I want to be a factor on the team.'

It didn't take long for that to come true.

At the 2019 Pan-American Games, Hugo immediately crushed everything thrown her way. Thrust into the starting lineup at second base, Hugo did everything her coaches could have asked for and more. She hit .652 with 5 doubles, 4 home runs and 18 RBIs to help the U.S. win gold. She was named to the all-tournament team, and given awards for best batter, the MVP of the tournament and later the 2019 USA Baseball Sportswoman of the Year.

"It was so much fun," Hugo said. "We were just rolling through those games. I wasn't pressuring myself to do anything. It was all just about us and just our goal, too. In our manager's words, 'Conquer the entire world.'"

Hugo's experience could not be more different from power-hitting two-way player Ashton Lansdell. Lansdell got her call to the USWNT when she was just 17 years old.

She vividly remembers seeing her name pop up online when the rosters were posted.

"Me and my mom were sitting in my garage actually, refreshing the page, refresh, refresh, like, 'When is it coming out?'" Lansdell said. "At the time, I was the youngest person to make the team. And when we hit that refresh button the last time and my name was on there -- I mean, the only thing I can really remember is my mom freaking out. She started crying. It was definitely surreal, like 'Oh my gosh, I actually did this.'"

"It was a wonderful surprise to find such a great athlete at such a young age," Alvarez remembers about Lansdell at her first Breakthrough Series. "She was a standout from the beginning at that event."

Though USA Baseball took a few teenagers to its most recent friendly series against Canada earlier this summer, that's far from the norm.

"Ashton was one of our young ones. It wasn't normal to make the team at 16 and be be such a standout athlete to at the same time. It's not normal," Alvarez said.

Naturally, Lansdell's first performance with the team wasn't normal: At the Pan-American Games, Lansdell played infield, outfield and pitched while even pulling off her first career cycle in a game against Cuba.

"Hitting for the cycle was definitely awesome," Lansdell said. "Never done that before. Definitely will try to do that again."

Recently, in the USWNT's friendly series against Canada, Lansdell went 7-for-17 with a double and an unbelievable four triples.

"Ashton is actually an infielder, but we use her a lot in the outfield just because I love how much ground she can cover," Alvarez said. "She's an athlete, like a pure athlete, probably one of the most athletic women I have come across."

Lansdell -- a Braves superfan, who got a tattoo of the team's throwback 'A' logo after they won the 2021 World Series -- wasn't new to baseball, though. She had starred at Wheeler High School, a strong baseball program with former big leaguer Jeremy Hermida among its alumni, in Georgia's Cobb County. She was the only girl to play baseball in the county, and was the first woman in Georgia history to start a game on the mound.

While many young girls leave baseball early on because of pressure they feel from coaches and teammates, Lansdell says that wasn't the case for her.

"Honestly, it was normal to me," Lansdell said. "I grew up with all the kids on the team, so I played travel baseball with them, summer baseball, rec ball, anything. It just felt like home, like just playing another day with with all my guys. It was a lot of fun."

The expectation that a young girl will need to stop playing baseball at some point is something that Alvarez wants to change.

"Right now, everyone is brainwashed to think that men play baseball and women, they play softball. I think it's just getting people to know that women can also play baseball as an option. Little girls can play baseball and they should be supported if that's what they want to do."

That's part of what Home Run Derby X is trying to showcase. The teams are mixed between men and women, baseball and softball. Some are baseball stars like Hugo and Lansdell. Others made their name on the softball circuit like Erika Piancastelli, who won the MVP Award at the London event, or NCAA career home run leader Jocelyn Alo, who hit the longest home run among all players in Seoul. It's a way to celebrate women athletes and show that you can play baseball or softball.

"I think they're two very different entities in and of themselves. I have a very big love for softball, but baseball is a whole different love," Hugo said.

The two USWNT stars have certainly proven they belong. Hugo has displayed her broad range of skills -- she's third among all players in catches on defense and 7th in home runs. Meanwhile, Lansdell -- who said she loves "hitting bombs" with a big smile on her face -- is tied for fourth in home runs with former Yankees slugger Nick Swisher. The only players ahead of her are all former big leaguers.

While HRDX puts men and women, baseball and softball on equal footing, that's unfortunately not how the world works. There are still large gaps between the sports with enormous financial differences between the two. A women's baseball player may not get a scholarship to play baseball, but she may to play softball. Lansdell has recently switched to softball in college as she looks to finish her degree.

"I've had this conversation with some teens, where I think people love baseball, and they kind of view softball as maybe a negative. Like they can't play baseball, so they have to play softball. I try to tell them all the time: They're two separate things, and you could potentially use softball to get your education."

With the continued growth of the U.S. Women's National Team and more interest being given to women's sports, the future of women's baseball is bright. But there's still a big wall to run through.

"Something that I tell the players is, 'Make sure your coaches have high expectations of you, not just have you there to have you there, or [tell you], 'You're good enough for a girl.' I want you to be the best, and we want them to want to be the best."

"I said in a recent interview, 'Be hard headed,' and I'm going to stick by that," Lansdell said. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, do what you believe in, believe in yourself and you can do anything you set your mind to."