When I was in second grade I signed up for the local little league team. All the girls played softball, but I was like, fuck that noise, I want to play BASEBALL. I was the only girl in the entire league. Each game, the first time our team ran out to our positions I could hear the other team whispering to each other "Hey look, is that...? OMG it's a GIRL!" It made me horribly uncomfortable. I even got shit about it from a few of the guys on my own team (luckily the majority were very gracious about it though).
Also, who's read that YA book "There's a Girl in My Hammerlock" by Jerry Spinelli? Wonderfully written story about a girl who tries out for the wrestling team to get closer to a boy she likes, then realizes that what she really likes is wrestling. :)
@Helen Valentine: This is not the first time I've seen trash talked on softball on this site. What is it that makes Little League superior? I'm genuinely curious. Is fastpitch softball an inferior sport because it is typically played by girls and women? Furthermore, have you watched any NCAA or international/Olympic fastpitch lately? No reasonable person would consider it baseball's poor relation any longer. Those girls and women practice and play just as hard as the men do. They hit home runs, they turn double plays, they dive for catches and slide into bases. They get hurt, they play through pain. They are gladiators and I would have KILLED to play collegiate softball. It's not some girlie sport played by girlie girls who couldn't hack it in a "real" (aka "played by men and boys") sport like baseball. You don't even have to stay up until 2am to catch a softball game on ESPNU anymore, either--the Women's College World Series is being broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2 in HD during the day and even primetime this year, as it was last year. On the collegiate level, baseball doesn't draw any bigger crowds than softball does, either.
Stop pretending that playing little league makes a girl a badass because she doesn't play stupid girlie softball. It just means that yet again, women's sports are being denigrated in favor of a sport traditionally played by men. We have a site for that, it's called Deadspin.
@Juliekins: Hey, I was 8, okay? I had just moved from another town that had a co-ed baseball league & had never played softball in my life. I was familiar with baseball and didn't understand the sex-segregated world of team sports yet.
Not knocking softball. Softball is just as badass.
@Helen Valentine: I knew I came off sounding like I was ripping you a new asshole, and for that I apologize. I stand by my statement, though, that I've heard softball denigrated on Jezebel more than a few times by more than a few people and it gets frustrating. It's a badass game played by badass women and deserves all the attention and talent it can attract.
I'm a big fan of the game, played fastpitch up until I graduated from high school, and now play tons of coed and women's slowpitch in my free time. I've encountered plenty of discrimination playing slowpitch softball. There are a lot of men out there who play men's slowpitch and are Very Very Serious about it. (There's a lot of baseball glory day reliving going on. It's sad and hilarious to observe.) They openly discuss playing coed "just to get to look at more pitches" and regard women as filler in the lineup and not much else. I played in a tournament two weeks ago with a left-center fielder (slowpitch has four outfielders) who wouldn't help out or call the ball because "he had trouble playing with and yelling at women." Dude, yelling is part of the game. It's a fucking safety issue, because I'm going to be going after those hit balls as hard as you are and you'd better call me off if you've got a better line on the play. He then told me I should arrange the lineup with a man leading off so that "we'd know we could get somebody on base." Our offense proceeded to fall apart and we got beat by a team we shouldn't have. Fortunately, I've found a new coed team to play for. The male manager regards the women on his team as equal contributors and not stand-ins. It's amazing how much better the women play when they know they're valued.
@Juliekins: I think softball is badass. End of story. But I really resented being told I HAD to play, and quit baseball. Like Helen, I had never played before, and I just really resented being told that nope, your baseball playing is done, now you have to go play softball. If I had picked it, I would have felt differently about it. And I LOVE watching it on TV.
@Juliekins: Just out of curiosity, what is the difference? Underhanded pitching, a different ball size, and possibly slightly different bats was all I could ever figure. Never got why they were supposed to be sooooo different (but then again, I sucked at any sports that involved throwing...)
@SunburnedCounsel: Therein lies the rub, I think. Little girls are basically made to play softball a lot of the time while simultaneously being led to believe it is a sport for lesser athletes (which could not be farther from the truth). Of course it makes girls feel like they should not actively want to play softball! It's like being told that you suck automatically, and therefore you have to play a "weak" version of the sport, when in fact you probably could beat the butts of a lot of boys and it isn't weak at all!
@Atomic Bowling: Shorter base paths (60' to baseball's 90') shorter pitching distance (high school pitches at 40', NCAA and Olympic/international are now at 43' IIRC), and different rules about base stealing (runner can't leave the bag until the pitcher releases the ball) are some of the other main differences I can think of. Fastpitch appears to have pretty much standardized on an optic yellow (as opposed to white) ball as well, although there are differences between the Mizuno ball used in international play and the Worth ball used in NCAA play. Michele Smith explained it while she was calling a WCWS game the other night. The Worth ball has lower seams, a more tightly wound core, and is slightly lighter. This allows the pitcher to put a lot more spin on the ball, which is great for junk pitchers. The tighter core also means the ball gets more "pop" off the bat, which means more exciting offense--faster hits, more homers, etc. That change was made with the intent of attracting more fans to the game, and according to what I've read/seen, it has worked.
There are also equipment differences in slowpitch too, depending on if you're playing ASA, USSSA, or ISF rules. I prefer the "cooler" bats and balls of ASA if I'm playing infield, because I am not fast enough to effectively field screaming grounders.
It's a tough issue when kids get older. My husband flat out refuses to play physical sports with women because he has to tone it down for fear of injuring a woman. Part of me is upset by that, and the other part understands. I think that girls should have the option to play with boys, just as boys should have the option to refuse to play.
There was a girl on the wrestling team at the high school i went to. She ended up quiting after about two years because despite being ligitimately good she would just about always end up winning her matches because the other wrestler would just flat out refuse to compete, or would be so timid about it to the point that they might as well have not been there. I always felt bad for her because of that.
@whats_in_a_name: I don't know if I can put all of the blame on the boys there. Wrestling just looks like an ultimate violation of personal space, and with moves like "the butt drag" maybe it's just one of the sports I think should steer away from coed, and let boys just butt drag the crap out of each other.
@IrockIroll: I can understand how you feel that way, and personaly even as a guy I felt that it was more violation of personal space than i was comfortable with so i never did it, but despite all of that she wanted to be there and to be a member of the team but for all intents and purposes wasn't able to because of the attitudes of the other compeditors.
Can someone please explain to me how "winning when you're supposed to win" makes one of the two "loses" in a lose-lose situation? Because if you actually lose by winning when you're supposed to win... Tiger Woods is a HUGE loser.
This sounds very much like the whining from the boys' club about Danica Patrick: "Oh, she has less body mass, she's cheating, it's so unfair..." and so on, the obvious subtext of which was OH NOES, I LOST TO A GIRL, MY BALLS HAVE SHRUNK THREE SIZES!
After one of her wins, the opposing coach claimed that the game was unfair "because her gender unnerved her opponents." The coach said that for a boy, playing Berner is "a lose-lose situation. If he wins, he's supposed to win. If he loses, he lost to a girl."
This dude sounds like he just came from a Men in Power meeting.
It's to expose them to girl players more often, so that they understand that girls can be athletes in their own right, and not just wimpier versions of boys.
And most importantly, it teaches boys there's nothing wrong with losing to girls that are better.
06/01/09
Also, who's read that YA book "There's a Girl in My Hammerlock" by Jerry Spinelli? Wonderfully written story about a girl who tries out for the wrestling team to get closer to a boy she likes, then realizes that what she really likes is wrestling. :)
06/01/09
Stop pretending that playing little league makes a girl a badass because she doesn't play stupid girlie softball. It just means that yet again, women's sports are being denigrated in favor of a sport traditionally played by men. We have a site for that, it's called Deadspin.
06/01/09
Not knocking softball. Softball is just as badass.
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I'm a big fan of the game, played fastpitch up until I graduated from high school, and now play tons of coed and women's slowpitch in my free time. I've encountered plenty of discrimination playing slowpitch softball. There are a lot of men out there who play men's slowpitch and are Very Very Serious about it. (There's a lot of baseball glory day reliving going on. It's sad and hilarious to observe.) They openly discuss playing coed "just to get to look at more pitches" and regard women as filler in the lineup and not much else. I played in a tournament two weeks ago with a left-center fielder (slowpitch has four outfielders) who wouldn't help out or call the ball because "he had trouble playing with and yelling at women." Dude, yelling is part of the game. It's a fucking safety issue, because I'm going to be going after those hit balls as hard as you are and you'd better call me off if you've got a better line on the play. He then told me I should arrange the lineup with a man leading off so that "we'd know we could get somebody on base." Our offense proceeded to fall apart and we got beat by a team we shouldn't have. Fortunately, I've found a new coed team to play for. The male manager regards the women on his team as equal contributors and not stand-ins. It's amazing how much better the women play when they know they're valued.
06/01/09
But I really resented being told I HAD to play, and quit baseball. Like Helen, I had never played before, and I just really resented being told that nope, your baseball playing is done, now you have to go play softball. If I had picked it, I would have felt differently about it. And I LOVE watching it on TV.
06/01/09
@SunburnedCounsel: Therein lies the rub, I think. Little girls are basically made to play softball a lot of the time while simultaneously being led to believe it is a sport for lesser athletes (which could not be farther from the truth). Of course it makes girls feel like they should not actively want to play softball! It's like being told that you suck automatically, and therefore you have to play a "weak" version of the sport, when in fact you probably could beat the butts of a lot of boys and it isn't weak at all!
06/01/09
There are also equipment differences in slowpitch too, depending on if you're playing ASA, USSSA, or ISF rules. I prefer the "cooler" bats and balls of ASA if I'm playing infield, because I am not fast enough to effectively field screaming grounders.
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I mean, I know culturally it's kind of implied, historical, etc, it shouldn't be official. Have both teams, or have one co-ed group.
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Also, wtf is up with this "girls aren't as good as Tennis" shit. I thought Billy Jean King took care of this a few decades ago.
06/01/09
Grow up and get a grip, lads.
06/01/09
This dude sounds like he just came from a Men in Power meeting.
06/01/09
And most importantly, it teaches boys there's nothing wrong with losing to girls that are better.