When Jessica Mendoza considered writing a book for young softball players, she did not think she had the time. Her career with ESPN was ramping up, and she was slated to join the “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast team as a full-time analyst.

Her original plan was to work on the book with a ghostwriter, but that changed after almost a year and a half of delay. Pretty Tough, the company that first approached Mendoza about the book, suggested that she work with her sister Alana Dusan; Pretty Tough had discovered that Dusan was a high school English teacher.

“It was the best thing they could have done,” Mendoza, 37, said last week during a visit with Dusan in Bend, where she teaches at Mountain View High School. “For me, there was so much going on, but when I called Alana, she was really excited about it. As soon as I heard her excitement, I was all in.”

The sisters worked together on the book, in person and over the phone, and Dusan shouldered most of the writing duties. The idea for the book — titled “There’s No Base Like Home” — came from their childhood (and, later, collegiate) experiences as softball players.

Dusan played softball at Oregon State, while Mendoza starred for Stanford, the U.S. Olympic team and National Pro Fastpitch, a professional softball league.

Their book, a novel for young adults, tells the story of 12-year-old softball player Sophia Garcia’s first year of middle school. It highlights the joys and challenges of playing sports and growing up, encouraging readers to be confident and not fear being different.

“Stand apart, find yourself, and whatever your passion is, don’t let anything get in the way of it,” Dusan, 34, said, explaining the novel’s message.

“These days with social media, peer pressure and cliques, I see those pressures and how it changes kids. It takes them away from the person they really want to be.”

The sisters — born in Camarillo, California, near Los Angeles — said they felt pressure growing up to fit into a box.

The idea that a girl had to act or dress a certain way was a social construct, one that Dusan and Mendoza broke through by playing softball and learning to be themselves. Mendoza took it a step further in her professional career, breaking barriers as the first female baseball commentator in ESPN’s history.

“Being in a male sport, I’d always be questioning, ‘Who am I?’” Mendoza explained. “And I’d tell people, ‘This is who I am. I am different.’ Whether you’re 12 years old or 37, you should make choices that are true to the core of who you are.”

Sports gave the sisters much of the confidence they carry with them today, but they insist that strong values instilled by their parents, Gil and Karen, were crucial in their development. Many of their best memories with their dad — who played baseball and football at Fresno State — are included in the book, and so is his signature Fu Manchu mustache. “There’s No Base Like Home” also celebrates the Hispanic culture that the two sisters and their siblings — older brother Walt and older sister Elena — grew up in. Mendoza said Hispanic representation was not common in books she read as a kid.

Recently, Mendoza and Dusan promoted the book on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and plans are in place for Mendoza to do book signings at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, later this month, and at softball tournaments around the country. In September, she wants to come back to Bend and do promotional events at local middle schools.

Mendoza is planning to move to Bend next year with her husband and their two sons. She said being closer to Dusan, who is also married with two sons, will be nice, but the natural beauty and welcoming atmosphere of Central Oregon are enough to draw her from her native Southern California.

“I’m a California girl. I love California,” Mendoza said. “But there’s something that’s different here. I feel like the mindset here in Bend has been to encourage kids to be different, and that ties right into the book.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, rclarke@bendbulletin.com