A Man's World

Photo from http://www.ericenders.com/wib.htm

This evening, I was checking one of my favorite baseball sites to see if I could find inspiration for a post. I didn't find it there, exactly, but was led to a bit of wikipedia surfing by my curiosity about the Baseball World Cup. At the bottom of the page, I found a link to the Women's Baseball World Cup.

I am shocked I haven't heard of or found out about this before!

This then led me to something even more exciting: The American Women's Baseball Federation.

Will you look at that? A national baseball league for women.

This is so exciting for me to see. When I was a kid, there was a period when I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player - like many other baseball fans.

Girls who want to play baseball, however, cannot simply play on the girls team - there is no girls team. It's not like soccer or basketball, where you can just sign up and play in a "safe" environment. No, it's more like girls playing football or ice hockey: you have to fight for the right to play.

When I was 12, I went to Baseball Camp at the University of Portland. It was one week, half-day. I was very shy and quiet, and there were about 100 participants.

I was the only girl.

The head coach, and older guy who I remember seeming always grumpy, was not happy to have me there, I think. The other main coach, who is now the head coach of the Portland Pilots, was much kinder, and much more welcoming. In addition to these two, there were several players that took part in the coaching. I only remember one had a shaved head. Most of them were nice.

By the end of the week, I had a position (outfield, which I later realized probably should have been infield), slightly improved batting skills (some is better than none), and a little respect from most of the others. The last day we split into teams for a tournament, and some of the kids on my team suggested we named ourselves the Red Sox. I was the only Sox fan in the group, and the Yankee fan protested, but was ignored.

So I considered it a success.

The following spring I played Little League. Once again, I was the only girl on my team. This time, though, the coach thought it was great that I was playing. The team was split, but it wasn't so bad - half just kinda ignored me, and I had two or three real pals. Unfortunately, my season was cut short by conflicting extracurriculars, a month-long trip to Europe, and injury (just don't ask what). I went 0 for 7 (or 8?) with 7 (or 8?) Ks and one walk. I also reached base once on a passed 3rd strike, and scored one run.

Many people asked why I didn't play softball. The reason, plain and simple, was that I didn't want to! Try telling a 12-year-old whose favorite player is a pitcher to go play softball.

But I wasn't good enough batter. All my childhood, my siblings and I played tennisball in the front yard. This meant baseball, but with tennis equipment, and you didn't stop once you kept going, but often scored 7-run homers. Your fielding skills got good, but hitting a tennis ball with a tennis racket won't make the transition to bats and hardballs easy.

So I gave up the dream of playing a few years into high school. Instead, I wrote history papers on women in baseball, and how Kenesaw Mountain Landis had ruined their chances (also those of African-Americans). I researched great women ballplayers like Toni Stone and Lizzie Murphy. I knew things, for example that Billie Jean King was big on baseball, but since she couldn't play, turned to tennis. (Her brother played in the MLB for 12 years, though.) And how could I forget Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

So I'm excited that I can now look at the present and the future for amazing women in baseball, and not only to the rather distant past. Because there is a lot more to women and professional baseball than "A League of Their Own".

Stankee Yankees

It's been a long time since I've experienced much American baseball culture. Although the last time I was here during baseball season was only two years ago, it seems like a mighty long time since I've come into contact with many other baseball fans.

So I still love the sport, and I still keep tabs on my Red Sox, and I still hate the Yankees, and I still get a thrill when I walk into a ballpark or hear the quickened, excited voice of an announcer calling an amazing play.

But I had forgotten how MUCH I hate the Yankees. I even forgot a big part of WHY I hate the Yankees.

There's that annoyingly high payroll, which we Sox fans can't complain about since we're nearly as bad as they are. (Although we still don't get all the big names the way they do, just picking up whoever happens to be hot. The Red Sox are a more crafted team, thought out in terms of chemistry and specific talent and where we can sacrifice offense for a better fielder and vice-versa, while the Yankees just grab whatever name will take the money.)

There's the stupid clean-cut look of the team, and Evil Steinbrenner. There's the obnoxious way they sing Sinatra's "New York, New York" after all the games. There's the fact that the got a new stadium with a non-commercial name, payed for by the city, while the Mets got Citi Field.

But the thing I forgot about was the fans.

I mean, I knew I hated that part, too. But I forgot just how obnoxious they can be.

Yesterday, we got in line to get some autographs at PGE Park, and who should be in line behind my sister and I, but a Yankees fan.

This guy was a real genuine New Yorker, too.

What's the first thing he did?

"Are you real Red Sox fans?" he asked.
"uh, yes", we said, already on our guard.
He immediately asked us if we'd heard of two old Sox players. We hadn't.

The Sox fan in front of us had, though, and told us when they had played (in the 60's). We protested that we were Sox fans before they won. (Even though we weren't there to see '86, we did experience the heartache of the 2003 ALCS and Aaron Boone, and that's really all you can expect of this generation of Sox fans. That moment, and stories of expectation, hope, and heartache gone by.) We also explained that we had lived in Boston, and surprisingly, he did back off a little.

But a little isn't much when you're talking about a Yankee fan.

As my mom pointed out, there's nothing you can do about them. No matter what you say, they'll have a retort. "You won on luck. That doesn't count." "Oh, so 2007 was also just luck?" "Wait till you win four, five years in a row. Then you can talk." Or, "You only won because of Manny, and he was on steroids." You can bring up A-Roid, but it won't make a difference. He'll find something else to throw back at you.

Now I remember why I hate the Yankees.

About 6 or 7 years ago, my siblings and I would give a relentless evil eye to anyone we saw with a Yankees hat. Of course, in Portland, a lot of people wearing Yankee hats are not the kind of people who care all that much, so they must have gotten really startled. I think it's time to brush up that Evil Eye and start using it on the Evil Empire again.

Foulweather Fans

When I was a young girl, in 1970s Berkeley, the Oakland A's were my team. They were an exciting and entertaining team (perhaps especially to a young fan, learning baseball), with their waxed mustaches and colorful players.

In 1975 they were swept in the ALCS by the Red Sox. I started watching the World Series that year rooting for the Cincinnati Reds. My older brother tried to reason with me. "If the Reds win, that means there are two teams better than the A's. If the Red Sox win, only one team is better." This 12-year-old wasn't interested in logic; revenge was ruling my heart.

But during the series, something changed. I suppose it was hearing the announcers recount the Red Sox hard luck story. Fenway's beauty and the exciting Game 6 surely helped sway me. I was sad when they lost, and not because it meant two teams were better than my A's. But I remained an A's fan.

In 1999 my family was living outside Boston for a year. We'd come from Portland, a city without any major league baseball. My three kids were 6, 10, and 12--and hadn't yet fallen for baseball, which saddened me. I needn't have worried--being in Boston that October took care of turning the kids into fans. For that I will always be glad.

And it gave me something as well. The A's hadn't been my team for a while, really. The Bash Brothers of the late 80's didn't do it for me, and I left the Bay Area around then anyhow. Call me a fair-weather fan, but the A's just didn't keep their hold on me. But being in Boston in 1999 brought back those stories I'd heard during the 1975 series. I was converted.

We weren't lucky enough to be in Fenway for any of the 1999 post-season games, but that didn't matter. We could see the blimps circling Fenway, and the excitement in the air was as palpable as the crisp New England fall. Kids and adults alike were moving through their daytime routines sluggishly, sleep-deprived from watching late games. All conversation began and ended with Sox talk. True, the season didn't end as we'd have liked, but it made us all fans.

The problem now, of course, is that people are starting to accuse the Red Sox of being as bad as the Yankees. A friend messaged me this morning on Facebook: "Sox, sox, sox. It's getting to be a dynasty - at least from a Cubs' fan perspective." I don't think he was being complimentary.

But I ask you. If we stood by the Sox during their heartbreaking collapses (and we weren't fans for long enough to have to go through too many of them), what kind of fans would we be for abandoning them when they're winning? Foulweather fans?