The Paris Summer Olympic games are almost upon us, and what you won’t see might surprise you. There will be no baseball or softball teams taking the field.
For baseball, the primary issue involves scheduling. Almost 28% of players in the big leagues are from other countries. The league would struggle should all of them, as well as those slated for the U.S. team, skip over to Paris in the middle of the season.
As for softball, well…the game just isn’t that popular worldwide.
So here’s where I make my plea. Isn’t it time, finally, to do away with girls interscholastic softball? Girls should be playing baseball. The outdated idea that women can’t handle the game is ridiculous.
It’s not like women playing baseball is a new idea. If you’ve seen the iconic movie A League of Their Own, you know the story. In the 1940s, when the men shipped off to World War II leaving the professional game in shambles, 600 women stepped up to try out for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 280 of which made the final cut. While the players were forced to wear short skirts and encouraged to play up their femininity, it was their skills as players that drew fans to ballparks. But when the men came home, the women were destined to be housewives and mothers, their well-oiled mitts and favorite bats stashed in an attic, leaving nothing but memories.
Somewhere along the line, it was decided that women were too “girly” and weak to play on a full-scale baseball diamond, so softball seemed the perfect fix. A softball field is considerably smaller than its baseball counterpart, with bases just 60 feet apart as opposed to 90. Girls play with an oversized bat and a significantly larger ball.
Now please don’t get all puffed up and point out that softball is not easy to play—I’m looking at you 40+ league players. And I’m in no way denigrating the skills of the girls and women who excell at softball. It’s just that I’ve seen both games from what you might call the best seat in the house. While I primarily umpired amateur baseball for 25 years—from youth to high school to adult leagues—I was occasionally asked to take the plate in softball games, where I quickly learned that softball is not baseball.
And never will be.
As to women being too weak to handle baseball, well, that just makes me laugh. I learned a few decades back that there are plenty of women tough enough to hurl themselves headlong into bases and fly flat out to catch a line drive. I met some of those players in the Women’s National Adult Baseball Association, a short-lived pro league in which I served as an umpire.
Today, there are no girls high school teams. The reason, we’re told, is that there aren’t enough girls who want to play the game. Those few who do must try out for boys teams, an inequitable solution all around.
What’s the answer? Maybe, if we encourage girls to play baseball in Little League, like we do with boys, more would become interested early on. And here I mean all-girls teams, where there would be no unfair comparisons to boys. They’d learn those specific and difficult skills the game requires—hitting, catching, throwing, pitching—while they’re still young, and will be better prepared to succeed on the diamond than if they tried to learn the game in high school.
All they need is a little encouragement. And if girls come out to play baseball in force, what excuse will those in charge have to deny them the opportunity?
YOUR FORGOTTEN SONS
INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY
ANNE MONTGOMERY
Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?
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Author Anne Montgomery 