Child’s play

Jordy Frahm was to college softball what Shohei Ohtani is to Major League Baseball: a transcendent superstar who is both a dominant pitcher and a prolific home run hitter with two championships to her name.

But the former University of Nebraska star can claim as part of her legend something her Los Angeles Dodgers counterpart can’t: She competed—and excelled—on her sport’s grandest stage while pregnant.

ESPN even invoked Ohtani’s name in reporting on Frahm’s success this season. USA Softball’s Collegiate Player of the Year hit .403 with 20 home runs and drove in 51 runs. In the pitcher’s circle, Frahm went 21-6 with 251 strikeouts and a sparkling 1.37 earned run average, becoming the first pitcher in NCAA history to belt 20 homers and record 20 wins in back-to-back seasons.

“And … she did it all while pregnant,” ESPN wrote on X, the social media platform once known as Twitter.

“Shohei Ohtani, the bar has been raised!”

Under normal circumstances, the former Jordy Bahl—she married former Nebraska baseball player Trey Frahm before her final season as a Cornhusker—likely would have turned pro directly and joined the fledgling Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL), whose season concluded in late July.

However, the pitcher/first baseman announced in April, well before college softball’s postseason began, that she would not compete professionally in 2026.

Only after Nebraska bowed out of the Women’s College World Series (WCWS) in Oklahoma City did Frahm reveal why: She and her husband are expecting their first child in December.

“Our greatest blessing is on the way,” Frahm, a devout Christian, wrote in an Instagram post featuring a photo with three pairs of boots—one male, one female, and a child’s pair—with a brown farmhouse in the background. “Baby Frahm coming December 2026.”

Frahm—who won two WCWS titles at the University of Oklahoma before transferring home to Nebraska—isn’t the only high-profile female athlete to compete at an elite level while expecting: Golfer Amy Olson was nearly seven months along when she played in the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach in California. Tennis’ Serena Williams was expecting when she won the 2017 Australian Open. And beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings was five weeks into pregnancy with her third child when she captured gold at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Still, softball’s inherent risks—­especially for pitchers—make Frahm’s achievement unique: Imagine an opposing hitter smashing an 85-mph line drive right toward Frahm’s stomach and the right-hander being unable to raise her glove in the less than half a second it takes the ball to travel 43 feet to the center of the pitcher’s circle. She might also have needed to slide on her backside, rather than on her stomach, to reach bases safely and be careful to avoid a collision while manning first base.

Given her pro-life views, Frahm likely would not have competed this season if it meant endangering her child. In 2024 she and four Cornhusker softball teammates, along with Husker volleyball player Rebekah Allick, appeared in a television commercial promoting a pro-life initiative in Nebraska.

It is unclear whether Frahm will play in the AUSL after giving birth or compete for Team USA in the 2028 Olympics.

In the meantime, she is the latest proof that motherhood need not necessarily be a barrier to athletic achievement.