The Pregnant Pitcher : Coach Suspected, but Northridge Player Said She Wasn’t and Played Into 8th Month

Gary Torgeson, the softball coach at Cal State Northridge, saw the indications before the 1992 season even began.

And by the time the Matadors suited up for their first game in February, it was clear to him that his ace pitcher, Heather Lindstrom, was pregnant.

He could see it in her appearance and more so in her performance.

Lindstrom’s pitches had slowed considerably, and movement on the ball was barely detectable. She clearly was not the pitcher she had been in her first three years of collegiate competition.

Torgeson, 50, was in a quandary. Should he let her continue to play? Should he drop her from the team? Should he quietly ask her to quit? What if she were seriously injured on the field? What was the right thing to do?

Lindstrom tried to convince Torgeson that she was not pregnant and that everything was fine. He was unconvinced but, at first, didn’t want to drop her from the team, so he played her sparingly.

Lindstrom, a senior right-hander, lost her first three outings, then had one decision over the next 19 games.

And as the weeks passed, her softball ability deteriorated. At one point, Torgeson said, even bending over to field a ground ball was too strenuous.

Most of the team recognized Lindstrom’s condition, although she continued to deny it whenever Torgeson or assistant coach Janet Sherman asked about it.

About two weeks before Lindstrom quit the team, she was hit in the thigh with a line drive while pitching batting practice.

“Janet (Sherman) came to me and said, ‘Coach, you gotta do something. She got hit and couldn’t bend down. We’re gonna lose somebody out there. Something is gonna happen that we don’t want to see happen,’ ” Torgeson recalled.

Torgeson said he had sought advice from Associate Athletic Director Judith Brame, and softball coaches at several other colleges. No one had answers for him. Neither the NCAA nor Northridge has stated guidelines regarding pregnant athletes.

By mid-March, Lindstrom had become infuriated by the coaches’ constant inquiries as well as her teammates’ flippant remarks. But the lack of playing time got to her most.

And on March 28, she quit.

Two weeks later, Lindstrom gave birth to Lauren Riley, a 7-pound 1-ounce girl.

“It was very surprising,” she said of the birth of her daughter.

The Matadors were on the road when Lindstrom gave birth, and that made one former teammate happy that Lindstrom had quit when she did: “If (Lindstrom) would have gone to Utah with us, she would have had the baby on the road in the van.”

By Torgeson’s estimation, the situation went too far. Lindstrom last pitched against Oregon on March 25. Eighteen days later, she gave birth.

“I was in total shock when I found out she was eight to 8 1/2 months pregnant and was still pitching,” Torgeson said.

Lindstrom, who is single and caring for Lauren, says that she did not know she was pregnant until after she had left the team.

“It had nothing to do with why I quit the team,” she said. “If I thought I was pregnant, I wouldn’t have been out there.”

Lack of playing time prompted Lindstrom’s exit, she said. She pitched 12 times in 45 games.

Lindstrom had been the Matadors’ top pitcher in 1991 with a record of 16-10 and a 1.47 earned-run average. She was 3-5 in 1992 with a 1.98 ERA. In 56 2/3 innings, she gave up 59 hits, 13 walks and 16 earned runs, striking out 17.

“Physically she had changed,” Torgeson said. “Her performance level was not up to what it used to be.”

There was room for error, though, in Torgeson’s assessment. Lindstrom’s pregnancy was not as obvious as it can be with some women. She said she added only 10 pounds to her slender 5-foot-8 frame.

Sherman, 27, in her first season as Torgeson’s top assistant, was the first to ask Lindstrom about her possible pregnancy, a week after the team’s first game.

“She said she wasn’t (pregnant) and that she was having some medical problems, and that she was in the doctor’s care,” Sherman said. “She said she was taking care of it, and that she was just bloated because of the medication.”

Sherman also talked with Lindstrom’s mother, Sue, who believed her daughter might be pregnant, according to Sherman. Lindstrom assured her mother that she was not.

“The way Heather talked to me, she honestly didn’t believe she was pregnant,” Sherman said. “Maybe she didn’t believe she was pregnant. . . . She didn’t want to be pregnant in her mind, so therefore she didn’t let herself be pregnant. The mind is an incredible machine.”

Pregnancy is an uncharted area in the NCAA. There are no regulations governing the issue, and it will probably remain that way, according to Steve Mallonee, director of legislative services for the NCAA.

“I don’t think we would ever get into that issue,” Mallonee said. “The schools are in the best situation to handle this themselves.”

Torgeson disagrees.

“I think the NCAA really needs to address the issue,” he said. “It has nothing to do with being moral or ethical. It has to do with life and death. That’s what we’re talking about here--life and death.”

One player remembers seeing the line drive that struck Lindstrom in the thigh. At first, everyone thought Lindstrom had been hit in the stomach.

“No one would bat off her after that,” the former teammate said. “I was so scared for her. That was like the last thing I’d ever want to happen to someone.

“We were just looking out for her, but she doesn’t see it that way. She thinks we were all against her.”

Torgeson added: “There are differences between men and women, and it’s time we address that. I’m concerned a little bit about the feminist movement, and I bring it up because I think they are going to say it was her right to do it.

“But I’m going to say that as a coach--male or female--we have the right to protect our players’ health. If we suspect something is wrong, we should be able to get help.”

Brame, Northridge’s primary women’s sports administrator, has reservations about what the NCAA should sanction. Drug testing, yes. Pregnancy testing, no.

Torgeson, though, says it’s time for a change. Coaches do not have the right to send a player to a doctor, which leaves them vulnerable, he said. For example, if Lindstrom had had an accident on the field and lost the baby, he said, everyone would have asked how Torgeson could have been so blind to her obvious pregnancy.

“I would hope that future athletes in any of these situations would be honest with their coach,” he said. “Because it puts the school, the coach and the team in a tense situation.”