{"id":5572,"date":"2026-07-27T13:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5572"},"modified":"2026-07-27T13:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:10:44","slug":"why-baseball-pioneer-olivia-pichardo-picked-cal-and-softball-after-graduating-from-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5572","title":{"rendered":"Why baseball pioneer Olivia Pichardo picked Cal — and softball — after graduating from Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Olivia Pichardo was deciding where to begin her softball career, Cal was quickly on her radar. After four years of baseball with Brown, she knew getting a strong master\u2019s degree mattered, and she needed a coach who would believe in her as she took up a new sport.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018I was a child\u2019: How a bomb threat revealed alleged sex abuse scandal at East Bay juvenile hall<\/a><\/p>\n

Steve Singleton, Cal\u2019s new softball coach, had just seen her name in the transfer portal when he noticed she had sent him a direct message. She wanted to join the Bears, and she wanted to work with a coach who had operated in both baseball and softball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was drawn to their confidence in me,\u201d Pichardo told the Bay Area News Group. \u201cI\u2019m an extremely stubborn person\u2026 I always played with the guys, and I feel like maybe it made me feel special, like in some kind of way that I knew that there weren\u2019t many other girls playing baseball on guys\u2019 teams, and I happened to be really good at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I want to be the best softball player I can be, and Cal thinks I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a few minutes, Singleton thought about getting back to her later. But after several coaching friends reached out and he watched her baseball tape, he asked Pichardo to talk.<\/p>\n

They both thought there was a chance to build something great at Berkeley.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched her video and I was blown away,\u201d Singleton told the Bay Area News Group. \u201cI realized, this is not a background issue, this is a player I have to prioritize right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pichardo, coming off a two-home run game for the U.S. women\u2019s national baseball team in a 22-2 win over Korea in the World Cup on Wednesday, will be the centerpiece of a rebuilt Cal softball program next year.<\/p>\n

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Singleton is entering his first year as the head coach after six years as an assistant with Texas, including helping the Longhorns to three consecutive Women\u2019s College World Series appearances. In addition to their new coach, the Bears will have a new, renovated home field and seven transfers added to the roster.<\/p>\n

No name is bigger than Pichardo, though, who at age 22 will be playing softball for the first time in her life after graduating from Brown University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was strongly opposed to playing softball in high school. I wanted to go to a high academic school and play baseball, no matter what division or level it was,\u201d she said. \u201cIn hindsight, that was a crazy thing for me to do, to immediately not even think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Queens, New York native played baseball throughout her childhood as the only girl on almost all of her teams. When she began being scouted by USA Baseball, she realized there might be a future in the sport beyond being the only girl on her youth teams.<\/p>\n

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After playing varsity baseball at Jackson Heights\u2019 Garden School, Pichardo got offers to play Division I softball, including from some SEC schools. Instead, she was admitted to Brown and was determined to walk onto the baseball team.<\/p>\n

As an Ivy League trailblazer, she garnered national attention for small feats, including her pinch-hit debut in 2023, which broke the Division I gender barrier, and her first appearance on the mound this spring as a senior, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally threw two pitches, got a ground out to end it, and it made like ESPN,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting it to get very much attention at all, but I was like, all right, sure, I\u2019m just gonna go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Bay Area events calendar for July 31 through Aug. 6 weekly editions<\/a><\/p>\n

After graduating with a degree in business economics, Pichardo learned that NCAA athletes can compete in a different sport after exhausting their initial four years of eligibility. Instead of trying to join the pro baseball ranks this August as the Women\u2019s Pro Baseball League starts up, she decided to head west.<\/p>\n

She tagged along for batting practice on the Brown softball diamond late this spring with Maggie Foxx, a USA Baseball teammate and Brown softball player, when she realized she could make the transition for one year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never hit a BP home run, and I hit so many, so I was immediately drawn to it,\u201d Pichardo said. \u201cAnd then I thought, well, why not give this a real shot?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cal was the first team to respond to Pichardo once she entered the transfer portal in April.<\/p>\n

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\u201c(Singleton) told me how much he believed my skills could translate to softball,\u201d Pichardo said. \u201cI was immediately drawn to that confidence in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pichardo, who originally joined the USA Baseball girls development pipeline at age 14, has competed with the USWNT for the past four years after participating in the 2017 MLB girls baseball Trailblazer Series and MLB GRIT, a girls baseball showcase event.<\/p>\n

Singleton projects her as a top-of-the-order hitter who will likely spend most of her time with the Bears in the outfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is very explosive, very strong, very fast,\u201d Singleton said. \u201c(Baseball) is a crowd that she\u2019s had to keep up with for the past eight years in college and high school. She\u2019s had to keep up with a male wolf pack essentially\u2026. She\u2019s swung a minus-3 bat for the last eight years. That a 34-inch bat would be a 31-ounce bat. In our game, the heaviest bat was 26, so I think she can dominate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pichardo hopes that a year from now, she is preparing for a chance to make a team in the upstart WPBL. The new league opens its inaugural six-week season in Springfield, Illinois, at the beginning of August, and she will have her eye on it following the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Pichardo has already navigated unique circumstances as the only woman to compete at the Division I level, dealing with the attention that comes with that history in addition to an Ivy League courseload.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s picking up an entirely different sport with just one offseason of notice for a Cal team looking to start competing on the national scene?<\/p>\n

Read more 49ers \u2018can\u2019t even tell\u2019 Nick Bosa is coming off another ACL tear<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI just think, why not give it a try?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pichardo, the first woman to appear in a Division I baseball game, is picking up softball for the first time after smacking batting practice home runs this spring with a friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy baseball pioneer Olivia Pichardo picked Cal — and softball — after graduating from Brown - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5572\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why baseball pioneer Olivia Pichardo picked Cal — and softball — after graduating from Brown - 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