It may have been surprising to see applause erupting from the dugout of a Rose-Hulman baseball team that was trailing 16-7 in a recent game.

However, the players were happy after fellow Fightin’ Engineer Jamie Baum managed to get a hit in her first at-bat in a college game – a two-run single to center field – against Webster University on April 17 at the Terre Haute college’s Art Nehf Field.

 
Success in athletics and baseball is nothing new for the junior who is a backup second baseman. The California native has been a two-year member of the USA Baseball Women’s National Team that has competed in World Baseball Softball Confederation Women’s Baseball World Cup group stage tournaments. She is among 40 of the nation’s elite women’s baseball players invited to try out for this year’s team that will compete in the 2024 World Cup from July 28 through August 3 in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Baum also has earned first-team Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference honors as a guard on Rose-Hulman’s women’s basketball team. She averaged 13.6 points per game and led all HCAC players by playing an average of 34 minutes per game during the 2023-24 season. She was among the league’s top five players in points and blocked shots and was among the top 10 in assists.

“I’m a competitive person who just likes to help my team in any way possible,” said the civil engineering student during a recent interview.

Baum spent her first two years as a student manager for the Rose-Hulman baseball team. However, after making the USA Baseball Women’s National Team once again last summer (and hitting a home run in a World Cup qualifying game), she asked Rose-Hulman Baseball Coach Adam Rosen for an opportunity to try out for the NCAA Division III team last fall. Her performance as a walk-on infielder made her the first woman in school history to play for the varsity baseball team. After getting two hits in a recent junior varsity game, Baum earned the opportunity to bat in a varsity game.

She took advantage of it.

“I have always been a strong hitter. I worked the count (with two strikes) and looked for the best pitch to hit. It came and I gave it my best shot. I was just glad that I brought in two runs for my team. That’s what I was there to do,” said Baum, the daughter of an engineer who came to Rose-Hulman so that she could earn an engineering degree while continuing her athletic endeavors. 

She is planning for a career in structural engineering and has an internship this summer with San Francisco-based Maffei Structural Engineering – before and after her playing for Team USA in the World Cup tournament.