Letter From Cooperstown Stuns Borders : Hall of Fame: SCC pitcher’s artifacts will be added to the Women in Baseball exhibit.

Ila Borders was flattered when the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame approached her about setting up an exhibit to commemorate her status as the first woman to start and win a college baseball game.

But Borders was unprepared for the letter from Cooperstown, inviting her to send items for an exhibit in the baseball Hall of Fame.

“I opened the letter and I had to read it again to make sure that I read it right,” said Borders, a sophomore at Southern California College.

“I think of Nolan Ryan. I think about all my heroes and to know I’m going to be in the same building. . . .

“I can’t get over it. I try to explain it in words but I just can’t.”

Borders’ artifacts--she plans to send a jersey, hat, glove, shoes and ball to Cooperstown--will be added to the hall’s Women in Baseball exhibit, curator Ted Spencer said Tuesday.

The exhibit, which opened in 1988 and features women who played professional baseball during World War II, helped to inspire director Penny Marshall’s 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”

By including Borders and Julie Croteau, believed to be the first women to play college baseball, and the Silver Bullets all-female minor league team, the exhibit will recognize more current developments. Spencer said he expects the additions to be completed by May.

“We’re going to bring the modern end of the exhibit up to date,” Spencer said.

Since Borders made history last February with a complete-game victory over Claremont-Mudd, she has appeared on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and in a television commercial for a Japanese sporting goods company, been featured in Sports Illustrated and traveled to Japan with a group of former major league players.

Borders was brought along slowly last season. She was 2-4 with a 2.92 earned-run average in 49 1/3 innings.

This season, she is the No. 3 starter for the Vanguards, who open their season today at Cal Poly Pomona.

Visiting Cooperstown, a lifelong dream for Borders, will have to wait until after the season.

“Hopefully, when I go there in the summer (the exhibit) can be up, so I can see it,” she said. “I’ve saved up my whole life to go there.”