First-Name Mixup Put Her in the Game : Solo: Australian Heather Rutherford finally got a tryout, now she’s holding her own as the only female player among 17 Thousand Oaks teams.

If only the name hadn’t been written quite so sloppily, perhaps no one would have given the new second baseman for the Thousand Oaks Black Sox a chance to play.

When Black Sox player-manager Steve Ortiz needed players for his National Adult Baseball Assn. 18-and-older team, he started down the league’s list of “free agents.” Ortiz found the name Heath Rutherford and called the number.

A woman with an Australian accent answered.

Heath?

Nope, Heather.

“I said, ‘Are you sure you want to play baseball and not softball?’ ” Ortiz said. “She said yes, so I figured, ‘What the hell? You never know.’ ”

Ortiz invited Heather Rutherford, a 27-year-old Australian, to a tryout. She was the only woman there. One of the men guessed she was someone’s girlfriend, just watching.

“(The men) were shocked at first,” Ortiz said. “But she let her glove do the talking. She came out and impressed the hell out of me. She can play ball.”

Baseball, not softball.

Rutherford, the only woman playing on any of the 17 teams in the Thousand Oaks chapter of the NABA, moved to Studio City last October with a strong softball background. In Australia, she played for Victoria, her home state, in the 19-and-younger national fast-pitch championships.

Her job with a company that makes management training films takes her around the world, and on trips to Los Angeles, she fell in love with baseball at Dodger games. When her company moved her here, she looked in vain for a women’s baseball league.

Rutherford said she inquired about joining a San Fernando Valley-based men’s team, but she couldn’t even get a tryout. She read about the NABA forming in Ventura County and added her name to the list of unattached players.

In three games with the Black Sox, who play in the lower of the two divisions in the 18-and-older age group, Rutherford is three for 10, without much power. On defense, she plays second because she doesn’t have a strong enough arm for third base, her softball position. She handles ground balls well and turns double plays dependably, Ortiz said.

Other than still being “grossed out by the tobacco spitting,” Rutherford said the transition from softball to baseball has been smooth. Opponents now respect her ability, too, Ortiz said.

“At first some of them were surprised, but once they see her play, they shake her hand and treat her just like any other player,” he said.

She has proven herself so well on the field that her teammates don’t seem to give too much thought to her gender.

Players make no effort to censor their language on her account. And that’s fine with her. Boys will be boys, she said.

“(Men) are more abusive (than women) to each other,” she said. “They poke fun at each other, but then turn around and give a high-five. Girls are much more offended by that sort of thing. The emotions are more honest and the affections are more honest (with men).”

Honest affections, huh? What about those affections?

She said her teammates were taken aback at a team barbecue because “I rolled up looking like a girl. They had only seen me in uniform.”

Yes, she said, a couple of teammates have asked her for dates, but she politely declined.

It all might make a great movie. In fact, it might someday be a movie. Rutherford said she has sold the concept to an Australian producer, who is working on a film about an Australian woman who moves to the United States, joins a men’s baseball team, falls in love with a player, then has to play against him.

“It’s going to be a comedy, like Crocodile Dundee,” she said.”