The pantheon of left-handed pitchers in the history of Athletes Unlimited reads like a who’s who of the southpaw sorority.
Cat Osterman was the first superstar of AU from its inception in 2020.
Haylie Wagner exuded style, grace and leadership.
Danielle O’Toole brought a thoughtful approach to the game that she took with her in her role as a coach and instructor.
Those three lefties have retired from playing, but one of their peers continues to carry the torch with her left hand.
Taylor McQuillin, also a member of the 2020 inaugural Championship Season (now known as the All-Star Cup), continues to toil away with the Bandits as pitcher and mentor to younger players.
The 28-year-old McQuillin has a record of 2-0 with two saves in eight games.
“Her skill set speaks for itself,” said Bandits Head Coach Stacey Nuveman Deniz. “You watch her for an inning or two, and you can see the things she is capable of. But I think the true mark for her is what she does bring to our staff. We have a pretty young staff from top to bottom. She’s our vet. She’s confident. She knows this league. She understands the dynamics of a staff and even just how to approach a batter, and she knows the opposing hitters. When we’re in scouting meetings, she’s very vocal in terms of what this hitter likes to do, what they’re looking for, what type of swing path they might have.
“I’ve been really impressed as I’ve gotten to know her. I’ve been really impressed, just how she communicates. She sets the tone for our staff, and I think that’s really huge. She’s been in this league a long time. She’s had great success in this league and before, but specifically as an AU player and a professional.”
Rough start and a bounce-back
McQuillin, a four-year letterman at the University of Arizona, joined AU in 2020 for the inaugural Championship Season (now known as the All-Star Cup), when the games in Rosemont were played in an empty stadium because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The All-Star Cup is a four-week season in which 60 professional softball players compete utilizing Athletes Unlimited’s innovative format.
Although McQuillin had great expectations, the season did not go as planned. She went 1-2 with an 8.61 ERA.
“I had a lot of health problems going into that year and obviously with COVID on top of that,” she said. “Just like the whole COVID year, getting used to a whole lot of uncertainty in the world and uncertainty in professional softball and even uncertainty at the Olympic level, too, just everything being postponed.
“Coming back in that first year, I went from very prepared and very ready to a lot of health problems, spending two weeks in the hospital to having one month to get back to being a top-tier performance level, and clearly in that first year I was not. I think that was a lot for me to handle, a lot of adversity that I had to be able to overcome.”
Better days were ahead. McQuillin pitched for Team Mexico in 2021 as part of the COVID-delayed 2020 Olympic Games. She returned to Athletes Unlimited a new person, posting a record of 3-3 with a 3.92 ERA, and rising from 51st to 44th on the AU leaderboard.
She improved to 36th on the leaderboard in 2022 before turning in a stellar 2023 Championship Season, finishing 16th on the individual leaderboard with a 3-1 record and a 2.15 ERA.
“I’m just grateful that there were people in the league who saw me for not just the value of the performance that I put up,” McQuillin said. “They got to see me go through that and continue to rebound in the Olympic year. For the PEC (Player Executive Committee) at that time and the league at that time to say, ‘We want to give you another opportunity to show who you really are in this moment. I’m just grateful for that because without that, I wouldn’t be playing anywhere. I wouldn’t be here. I’m just grateful for the people who bought into me, who supported me on the back end.”
Although she’s on that Mount Rushmore of AU lefties, McQuillin often found herself opposing the likes of Osterman, Wagner and O’Toole, mainly because good left-handed pitching is hard to come by and each AU captain – charged with draftig their team each week – back then wanted to make sure their team had at least one.
“I think at one point in time I had been on a team with all of them,” McQuillin said. “And they had been on teams with each other. But it was really rare to have teams that didn’t have a lefty on their staff just for the purpose of what those captains were trying to accomplish, what that team was trying to be built around and toward.
“I played with Tooly (O’Toole) at Arizona for two years, so we knew that we really worked well together. Even though we were lefties, we brought something completely different to the table. And we knew how to work with each other. So I think that in that sense that’s why we got paired up more so than Haylie and me or Cat and me. We all knew we existed, but we all expected not to be on the same team for the same reasons.’’
Being a leader
Not only is McQuillin a tireless worker capable of taking the ball day after day – thus leading by example – she also is at the stage of her career where she can pass wisdom to the team’s younger pitchers, whether it’s fellow lefty Emiley Kennedy or rookie right-hander Devyn Netz, who also stars on the offensive side.
“She is someone who just knows the game as far as from the pitcher’s perspective,” Netz said. “She’ll tell me, ‘Dev, they’re pitching like this,’ or, ‘They’re pitching you this way, so you need to look at this pitcher in that way.’ So it’s more like she’s telling me how to read spin, or if I see a certain pitch, I’ve just got to go for it or spray the field a certain way. She’s been pretty helpful. Even though she doesn’t hit, she is someone who reads the game as a pitcher. So it’s really helpful.”
For McQuillin, it’s all in a day’s work, as she continues to learn while she is teaching.
“I think just having the maturity, having the depth in the league to understand what to expect and what to anticipate, I think I can bring that to younger athletes and say, ‘Hey, this is what I can provide for you. I can be here for you as that type of mentor, mentally in the game in that aspect.’ But I think that my role hasn’t really changed. I still want to learn from everybody.
“I definitely like talking to Emiley Kennedy. I’ve known Devyn Netz for a really long time since she got to her freshman year at Arizona. I’ve always had a really good relationship with her and just being able to ebb and flow through that. Anyway that I can help them learn and grow in this league, that’s my goal and to be able to know that they’re really good at what they do physically. ‘What can I do to help you? What can I do to help mentally? What can I do to help you with the transition to this league?’ That’s where I feel like I can help them a little bit more.”
Nuveman Deniz has also noticed what McQuillin brings.
“The buy-in is huge because if you have a bunch of players who are, ‘Me, me, me, I want more, I want more innings,’ it doesn’t work. But I feel right now everybody’s really bought into it, and it helps when we’re winning,” Nuveman Deniz said. “Let’s be honest. It helps when we’re getting ‘W’s’ because it’s easier to buy in when you see the results paying off. I’d like to think that’s part of it, too.
“A lot of that I truly believe comes from Taylor and just her setting the tone that way and the younger pitchers kind of following suit and buying in as well.”
Although there are still many pitches left in McQuillin’s valuable and durable left arm, she also shares her knowledge as an assistant coach at Southern Utah University. A charter member of Athletes Unlimited, she appreciates what the organization has meant to her and the game.
“Athletes Unlimited has been amazing,” she said. “I don’t think that I would have seen myself continuing to play professional softball without Athletes Unlimited, without (co-founders) Jon (Patricof) and Jonathan (Soros) taking a chance on us and taking a chance on women in sports and giving us a platform to be successful. I don’t think that the AUSL would be here today without Jon and Jonathan and everything that they’ve done for us.
“Just being able to have the opportunities, just being able to provide a space for us to feel comfortable to feel like professionals at the highest level and then continuing to build their connections and taking their connections to give us a platform to grow and give the game of softball a space to grow for years to come. It’s really exciting. But it’s meant a lot to me. Now I’m happy to be here and hopefully be a pioneer for the game to keep moving forward.”
Bruce Miles has covered sports in the Chicago area for 46 years, including baseball, hockey, football and Athletes Unlimited Pro Softball. He covered the Chicago Cubs in their historic run to the World Series title in 2016. He has written stories for Athletes Unlimited since 2020.
Follow Bruce on Bluesky @brucemiles2112.bsky.social and on X @brucemiles2112
