In a city outside of Amsterdam, Valerie Cagle took the field in front of only a handful of fans.

She was playing for Onze Gezellen in Haarlem, Netherlands, spending three months competing in the Dutch National Softball League. It was the first time she’d solely been a position player since playing travel ball as a kid.

This was nothing like when she took the field as a founding member of Clemson’s budding softball program. She was no longer pitching. And there was hardly anyone at the games.

“Playing over there allowed me to get back to just playing because the sport is fun. There weren’t a ton of people at games, and there wasn’t all the excitement around it… It forced me to focus on playing the game because it’s fun.”

Some days she’d head out to first base, others she’d trot out to the grass to play outfield. It may seem strange for the 2023 USA Softball Player of the Year to no longer be in the circle, but Cagle has always thought of herself as more of a hitter than a pitcher. And it was either going to be that she stopped pitching or she stopped playing altogether.

Identity

Cagle was eight years old when she first started pitching. It wasn’t something that clicked immediately.

“I was absolutely terrible,” she said. “So bad, couldn’t throw strikes.”

She was 12 years old when she could finally get through an inning in the circle. But she could track balls well and made her first travel ball team as an outfielder. She even spent some time behind the plate as a catcher.

As the pitching came along, Cagle still kept hitting and catching fly balls. By the time she started her recruiting journey, she decided to be selective with programs that would allow her to hit and pitch. If they said no to both, she wasn’t interested.

The Yorktown, Virginia, native settled on a school that didn’t yet have a softball program. She committed in 2018 to be on Clemson’s first-ever team in school history. The inaugural season was cut short due to COVID-19, but Cagle made up for it in her four years as a Tiger, collecting many firsts for the program and setting records for future athletes to beat.

She holds 11 different offensive records and nine in the circle. Cagle was the ACC Player and Freshman of the Year in 2021. Her work as a two-way player culminated in 2023 with one of the highest honors in college softball: USA Softball Player of the Year.

Her time as a Tiger wasn’t without its challenges. In her third year, she had issues with her shoulder, and she couldn’t make the overhand throw from the outfield. That’s when she started training at first base.

“In the middle of the season, middle of a conference weekend, my coach is just like, ‘Hey, you’re starting at first base.’ And I was like, ‘But I’ve never practiced there?’ So this should be fun.”

The team needed Cagle’s bat in the lineup while also finding a way to take some strain off of her arm.

“So first base just kind of became a thing.”

She played through excruciating pain in her 2022 season and ultimately had to have biceps tenodesis surgery. Before that, she’d had surgery on her throwing wrist for tendinitis.

By the end of her college career, pitching no longer equated to pain after surgeries to correct issues and plenty of physical therapy. But the body keeps the score.

Questions

New place, another dugout. This time, Cagle was in Rosemont, Ill., playing her rookie season with AU Pro Softball. In a quiet moment at practice, Cagle shared with me that she was thinking of not pitching anymore. I didn’t know her well at the time; she’d just started playing in the professional league a few weeks prior.

She asked me not to share that with anyone – it wasn’t public yet. She hadn’t even told her parents it was something she was considering. I remember thinking it sounded like she was trying to convince herself that she could solely be a hitter.

When we reflected on that conversation this week, she told me there was a bigger battle than that going on.

“I was trying to convince myself not to quit softball,” Cagle said.

Cagle competed in what’s now known as the All-Star Cup, but at that time was a five-week season; there were no coaches or general managers, and the teams changed every week. She only threw a handful of innings and had just four at-bats.

She left with uncertainty about what her next chapter would look like.

“I think for me, because I was always that two-way player, it felt like if I took away one part of the game, then I have to be done,” she said. “You are known as someone who does everything, so therefore you have to keep doing everything.”

She decided to keep playing, but it would have to look different.

“That was the part of the game that I was so burned out on and just didn’t enjoy anymore. The thought of throwing a bullpen, I just didn’t want to.”

No more pitching. Committing to being a true position player and hitting. Once she convinced herself that was what she would do, the next hardest people to persuade were her parents and college pitching coach.

“I had this career in college, where pitching was such a big part of that. And so it’s like, you’re just going to hang it up and not do it again? Why?”

She knew they would question her decision. And she still had her own that creeped in. Would she still get opportunities as a utility player?

Answers, delayed

Cagle declared for the 2025 AUSL Inaugural Draft along with 60 other athletes in hopes of being drafted to one of the four teams last season. She even spoke to Blaze General Manager Dana Sorensen ahead of the draft about no longer pitching.

Cagle’s name wasn’t called. But a call did come to play in the Netherlands.

Cagle headed to the other side of the world for a new experience and to discover if she made the right decision. She wondered in game situations, when her competitive nature amped up, and it was time for a pitching change – would she have the urge to go in the circle?

That feeling never came. Not only did she make the right decision, but she was at peace with it.

Over the past year, new feelings about softball emerged. Feelings she hadn’t felt in a long time. At Clemson, she was either zoning in to make a start or the pressure to get warmed up was in the back of her mind because the team could call on her at any time.

“I feel like I can just be way more loose and free and just enjoy the game because I’m not worried about, okay, well, what if I have to go in?”

Now, an assistant coach at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., Cagle isn’t working with the pitchers on that staff either – she’s solely dedicated to the infielders. Through training her players, she can “get nerdy” about the infield and hitting.

It’s the same reason she enjoyed playing in the first place.

“Something that made me fall in love with the game was always having a challenge and always trying to learn something new. And it’s not that I’ve mastered pitching by any means, but because I’m now able to focus more on the defensive side, it feels kind of like it’s something new again. That exploration and development is back.”

The drills and intricacies they go through at practice feel like an indulgence. Even spending 20 minutes just playing wall ball at Furman’s indoor facility seems like spoiled excess to Cagle. In a career where time was spent sprinting from the cage to the bullpen, out to the grass for fly balls, then back on dirt at first base, this dedication to defense is a treat.

She trains with the AUSL season in her sights. At the AUSL Draft earlier this month, when rosters were shuffled and players were added as two new teams entered the league, Cagle was drafted to the Blaze as a utility player.

“I’ve always thought of myself more as a hitter than a pitcher. Hitting is the thing that I can go out and do for hours. I love trying to tweak every little thing… [I’m] able to fall in love with the game again.”

Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on X @savannaecollins.