Danielle Cortez’s amazing journey brought her to Cooperstown
Danielle Cortez is unabashedly a baseball fan. She can’t imagine her life with the game not being a major part of it. But not too long ago, she thought she’d have to leave the sport behind forever.
Today, her work is a part of history in Cooperstown.
A transgender woman who came out in 2020, Cortez was an accomplished ballplayer –mostly a second baseman with a strong bat – who was able to stay involved in the game she loves as a photographer for her favorite team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. There was a period, though, during her transition when she was unsure if it was possible to continue returning to the diamond. She, in fact, quit baseball as a teen due to anxiety over her identity.
On Feb. 14, Cortez visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to speak to the staff about her decision to transition, her gender expression and identity and her passion for baseball and photography. The event, held at the Hall of Fame’s Grandstand Theater, was sponsored by the Hall of Fame’s DEAI (Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion) Committee and was a part of its continuing educational initiative.
During her visit, Cortez donated several of her photographs from the 2023 postseason to the Hall of Fame.
“It doesn’t even seem real,” Cortez said. “It’s amazing. Even in the smallest fraction of a way I can contribute to this game has given me everything in my life. The more I try to give back the more I feel like I’m indebted to it, this incredible game of ours. It’s given me my entire life. Everything I have in this life is because of baseball.”
For the 31-year-old Cortez, the trip to Cooperstown was exciting on a number of levels. It was her first time east of Chicago and her first time seeing snow fall from the sky.
“I’m at the Hall of Fame. This is crazy,” she said when introduced to the crowd. “If you were to go back in time and tell me that I will be here in Cooperstown, I would be very disappointed that this is the speech that I would be giving. But to be here it’s an honor. And baseball is just my life. It’s everything to me.”
Later, she recalled, her eyes sometimes welling up, the important role her late father played in her life.
“Having lost my dad in the middle of the D-backs run last year and having gone to over 700 games with him it’s really emotional because he gave me this game. I owe everything to baseball and if I owe everything to baseball, I owe everything to the man who gave me this game and that was my dad,” Cortez said. “And I owe so much to him. He was the best dad that I could have ever asked for.
“Fortunately, I was able to tell him before he passed that I was going to be able to come to the Hall of Fame and I’ll never forget his face. He was pretty out of it at that point after the stroke, but he knew. And he knew what it meant to me. He was struggling to talk at that point, but he was like, ‘I’m going to be there with you.’”
Cortez’s love of photography came after one class during her last semester at ASU. Previously, she had been an education major but eventually told her academic advisor she wanted to work for the D-backs. Cortez was given the choice between copy editing and photography.
“I fell in love with it,” she said. “It’s the only discipline that I found that you can show the world through your eyes with no context and nothing else. I took the first job at the D-backs and I told myself I was going to keep walking until they told me to stop. And so here we are 10 years later and I’m still working for the D-backs and I’m taking pictures. I love it.”
Interviewed on the Grandstand Theater’s stage by Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch, an early mentor and friend from his time working with the D-backs, Cortez often joked, was sometimes emotional, but always upfront about her life’s trek.
According to Cortez, she was nervous when she walked back inside Chase Field as a trans female in 2020. D-backs media relations director Casey Wilcox put her at ease right away.
“Casey Wilcox saw I was nervous and he was like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you so nervous? You know we love you here. We’re always here for you.’ And from then on, I’ve never been nervous walking into a baseball field. It’s been amazing. This whole time that I didn’t think that I could be myself, but I’m here at a baseball game. That’s when I feel most like myself,” Cortez. “People have been so amazing. Unconditional support and love from every direction that I could never even imagine. And to think that I walked away from this thinking that I couldn’t do it is a little surreal.”
Cortez initially worked for Major League Baseball as a live content creator where she would shoot anything that happened at Arizona's Chase Field. Then she left that last year due to an opportunity to freelance specifically with the D-backs.
“I’m a good photographer, I’ll admit that,” Cortez said, “but I’m a better baseball player.”
Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum