Pressure on the mound? Nothing compared to Alli Schroder's day job

THUNDER BAY, Ontario -- Alli Schroder was just 16 years old when Team Canada trusted her with the most important innings possible. Facing the United States in the bronze medal game in 2018's WBSC Women's Baseball World Cup, then-manager André Lachance summoned the teenage right-hander from his bullpen in the top of the sixth while Canada was nursing a one-run lead and the United States had a runner at third.

After getting Samantha Cobb to strike out to end the threat, Schroder surrendered the lead in the next inning to force the game into extras (Women's Baseball World Cup games are seven innings). But Lachance wasn't going to another arm -- Schroder was going to see this out. After all, she had previously pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings against the U.S. earlier in the tournament.

It was the right call: The teenage phenom pitched the rest of the game until Canada broke out for five runs in the top of the 10th inning to secure the victory.

Admitting that she "functions" better on the field when she's not thinking about it, Schroder -- who also plays right field -- doesn't remember much from that game.

"I remember Aaron Myette, our pitching coach at the time, sending me to the pen as a 16-year-old in this huge game," Schroder told MLB.com. "I remember leaving the pen and then everything else is blackout adrenaline rush. I remember the last pitch, rolled the double play and won the game, but I'm the kind person that can't be thinking about it. Just ride the adrenaline high and work through the pressure that way."

Given that answer, perhaps it's not a surprise what Schroder's day job is: She fights forest fires with the British Columbia Wildfire Service. Attracted to the job as a teenager given her love of the outdoors and that her mother also worked in the service, the choice was easy -- even if the job isn't.

"People always ask me how do you balance [playing baseball and being a firefighter]?" Schroder, whose job entails 16-hour shifts for 14-day stints before getting two days off, said. "It's not a balance at all. I just say it's like riding one adrenaline high to the next. Go in a big wildfire, a lot of adrenaline, I perform well. A big adrenaline high in a big game usually helps me perform a little bit better. But it's more just coming back to the basics, like making sure I'm stretching, make sure I'm rolling out not really building strength just maintaining when I'm in fire camp."

Of course, it's also important to give your baseball skills some work, too.

"It's more or less bringing a baseball glove and some J-Bands to a fire camp and finding a fence," she told CBC. "I have one ball and I'll throw it against a fence to mimic long toss."

Unfortunately, this summer has been far worse than most. Almost 52,000 square miles have burned with nearly 168,000 people having been forced to evacuate. Nearly 400 fires continue to burn in British Columbia alone, making this season one of the more difficult that Schroder and her fellow firefighters have ever had to face. It makes pitching with the game on the line seem a whole more routine.

"It's been hard for everybody that works for B.C. Wildfire Service and wildfire services across the province," Schroder said. "We're on our fourth or fifth deployment, so there's a lot of fatigue, a lot of burnout happens. It's just important that we're taking the rest time when we can."

It makes the time on the baseball field with her teammates all the more important.

"Some of my best memories are playing baseball in small town USA," Schroder, a veteran of MLB's GRIT program designed to help identify female athletes 18-and-under, said. Growing up near the border meant that Schroder's American Legion teams often traveled south into the United States for baseball games on magical summer evenings. "Hot, dry summer nights. Country music blasting and I'm playing with all my best friends from school. It's good baseball, too. The crowd is packed for an American Legion game because that's just what you do: You go and watch baseball. That's the vibe that I really like in baseball."

While that sounds positively idyllic, there's another side to Schroder's background that is all-too-similar to many other women in the game. While baseball was always her favorite activity -- turning her dad into a full-time bullpen catcher until her fastball got into the upper-70s and it was too much for his palms -- growing up in a small town made that a little more difficult. There were no women's baseball teams, so the option was either softball or play with the boys.

"I just always had in my head like, 'No, I don't want to play softball. I want to play baseball,'" Schroder said. "I'm playing with all my buddies that I go to school with and ride dirt bikes with, so why wouldn't I just keep playing? It was never a question of what sport do I play."

While her friends and teammates were always supportive, she couldn't always count on that from the opposition. It wouldn't just be the players, either, but parents and fans in the stands that took umbrage with a woman daring to play baseball.

"Other teams aren't receptive, [they're] heckling, [there's] discrimination, the whole nine yards of it that you got to deal with when you're 12 years old, which is not OK. But I know that I had it a lot better than other girls did for sure," Schroder said.

Just a child herself at the time, there was no option but to pretend like it wasn't bothering her.

"I was really poker face to it all. It was never a matter of, 'Shoot, do you want to be playing baseball?' Schroder said. "My dad would always say, 'Don't react, just keep playing. We know you love the game, just keep playing.' My coaches and my parents just pushed on me a young age, 'Don't react to it or it's going to get way worse."

Knowing how it felt to be on the receiving end of such abuse, Schroder hopes that one day girls in the sport won't be subjected to the same kind of harassment. She realizes that young girls see her run out onto the field and look up to her as inspiration.

"I think for any girl my age or younger than me playing on the field tonight, that's all of our goals," Schroder said. "We're just paving pathways for the girls that come below us. Hopefully they have an easier time playing the sport they love."