Where Are Women In Baseball?

We have seen it in soccer and in basketball and even in football where women have had success in professional leagues but why not baseball too?  There is no shortage of great women athletes who love to play baseball but they are told to go play softball instead. Well women are not so soft when it comes to baseball. They want to hit all the bases and hit it hard. lol

Why is baseball remaining as an all boys club? Why are women being excluded in a sport that is considered America's pastime? Why aren't we seeing girls at any level, in any school, on any athletic field in any place in America? It is not like girls can't play the game. They can. The last time we saw any leagues for girls or women was way back in World War II times in the 1940's and that is only because most of the men went to go fight in the war. 

We are in an age where gender lines are being stripped away but not in baseball. Even after the war, it went back to be only men competing on the fields. Now we have Rugby, Hockey and wrestling for women.  Yet not one school at any level in America has a baseball team for girls. The worst thing is that no  one seems to care either. In 1970 a girl, Maria Pepe from Hoboken, New Jersey  wanted to play baseball in little league and after she was told she couldn't play, the National Organization for Women filed suit on her behalf. Little League Baseball fought back saying the boys only rule kept girls from the dangers of the game. Nowadays it is the fans in major stadiums who are in danger from being hit with foul balls in the stands. 

They claimed that girls can receive dental problems and breast cancer from being hit with balls. There were debates in Town Halls over the issue. Little League fought in court for two years. Some leagues shut down completely rather than have girls play on teams. In the end the courts ruled that girls have the right to play so, where are the professional teams? In 1975 the Little Leagues decided to promote Softball big time and haven't stopped since for women. They still funnel girls into Softball instead of Baseball.

Softball is a weak knockoff of Baseball. The girls are given shorts, visors, given too big a ball to be played on too small a field. Even on the college level they play on the same size field as 9 year old boys. Yet in Japan girls playing baseball is a career path. Across Japan some 30, 000 girls play the game. Japenese women have a League of their own. A professional league. The games are on TV. The players are paid based on performance. The best even have endorsements. In America this year we have Quarterback Manning on the Giants team getting paid $13 million to stand on the sidelines while their new rookie gets paid $500 thousand to play and run in touchdowns to win the game. Yeah women don't play with the guys on the football field here either. It is time to allow women to play professional baseball too.