Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball

admin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:38:00 +0000

Stolen Bases is as intelligent and powerful as any professional U.S. women’s baseball team would be, should be, and could be...if any were supported enough to exist. The book is a concise 180 pages, an assertive objection to the current status of baseball in the United States in its exclusion of women, and a worthwhile read for those who find themselves in the middle of the Venn diagram of athletes, spectators, and feminists.

Judging a book by its cover, it’s serious: red, white, and blue varsity-style lettering covers an action photograph of real women playing real baseball. I like that casual bookstore browsers may take in this positive representation as they walk by, and I’d encourage readers to pick it up.

The book’s subject matter is framed by author and political science professor Jennifer Ring’s personal love of baseball, and she uses the prologue and epilogue to recount her family’s attempts to make baseball more inclusive for her daughter. This, in turn, makes the issues feel more urgent and tangible. The reader is also drawn in by the humor inherent in the chapter headings, and even by small details like the author’s parenthetical inclusion of her friends’ and mentors’ favorite baseball teams in the acknowledgments.

The heart of the book, though, is a harder read. It is well-paced, informative, and is evidently well researched and supported. Baseball’s history is explained, almost decade by decade, and then systematically deconstructed to identify the choices, conditions, and decisions that have almost always led to the exclusion of women on all but the most amateur levels.

The book’s pace eerily echoes the history of baseball’s treatment of women. Again and again, Ring’s narrative excites and includes the reader, only for another obstacle to interrupt what could have been an amazing victory for female players and fans of what is culturally asserted to be a “national pastime.” Stark facts and their interpretations could make for depressing reading, but Ring’s skill as a storyteller is to weave her own wry asides into the account, acting as a guide the reader can identify with during the bleaker eras in women’s baseball history, and as a comrade when celebrating women’s baseball successes.

Stolen Bases most certainly supports feminist values, and is also particularly inclusive of race and class in its arguments. It does not, however, go into any depth regarding lesbian players (other than a cursory mention of ‘lesbianism’ being one of the feared outcomes offered up by those who opposed pro-ball for women). It also assumes the reader defines gender as a binary concept for the purposes of the arguments contained in the book.

By the end of Stolen Bases, many readers will feel spurred into action. Ring would have done well to include a model for grassroots supporters and a practical outline for baseball professionals and governing bodies, perhaps in appendices.

A few weeks ago, a girl named Mackenzie Brown in Bayonne, New Jersey hit a perfect little league game. Thanks to Stolen Bases, I’m much more able to appreciate what a fantastic achievement this is, and how much work still needs to be done to further promote women’s inclusion in baseball.

Written by: Chella Quint, June 26th 2009

No Girls in the Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women from Baseball

admin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:40:00 +0000

By Marilyn Cohen

MacFarland & Company

The premise of No Girls in the Clubhouse is that baseball could be successfully gender-integrated at all levels with no disadvantage to either side, but social expectations—not biological deficiency—exclude women from full participation in the sport. Feminists won't be surprised to learn how, in anthropologist Marilyn Cohen's analysis, the historical achievements of female baseball players have been obscured. Cohen writes that harassment, stereotyping, and social isolation have pressured women to stay out of baseball, while stigmatizing those women who do play. It is an old story, repeated in every designated male realm women have dared to enter.

Yet it is heartening to see this story told by a scholar as sharp as Cohen, and to find that the book's premise—intuitively felt by radical feminists—has the support of history and baseball professionals. No less than Hank Aaron, quoted by Cohen, asserts, "there is no logical reason why [women] shouldn't play baseball," a game that relies on timing and coordination, not pure physical strength.

Part I of the book tackles the history of female professional baseball players. These include Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game; Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, and Connie Morgan, who played major league baseball in the Negro American League (NAL); and Julie Croteau, the first woman to coach men's college baseball, who played on a winter league team. Cohen also devotes a chapter to the WWII-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL)—popularly known from the film A League of Their Own—as well as a chapter to the barnstorming Bloomer Girl teams of the decades before. These working-class teams, usually all-female except for male pitchers and catchers, played against male teams. Cohen cites male supporters of female baseball, like promoter Bob Hope (not the comedian), who in the '80s and '90s attempted to field an all-female minor league team that would play in the men's leagues.

Rather than chronicling an alternative herstory, the book's goal is to analyze the social world of female players—relationships to teammates, coaches, fans, opponents, and the media—and the construction of gender identity. Cohen is sensitive to race and class as well, factors that allowed some women to play while excluding others. The all-white AAGPBL did draft fair-skinned Latinas, but ignored black prospects like Stone, Johnson, and Morgan. Racial integration temporarily opened doors to these women, as black male players signed with Major League Baseball, and Negro American League teams sought new ticket draws. But both the AAGPBL and the NAL folded in the '50s, effectively closing professional baseball for women—the unfortunate outcome of dividing marginalized groups.

Part II is devoted to amateur baseball, inextricably linked to professional, as Cohen shows. Today, Little League teams are often gender-mixed—legally required by Title IX—but with puberty girls meet social pressure to switch to softball. Differences in field dimensions, ball size, and pitching mean that softball demands different skills. The result is that young women who want professional careers, groomed as softball players in their formative years, are disadvantaged beside young men who have had five to ten more years playing baseball. This deficit in skill-development, Cohen writes, accounts for a lack of qualified professional female baseball players. With the same training, some women surely could play co-ed baseball at every level—a provocative suggestion in a book well-worth reading.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, June 8th 2009