If it’s late August, it must be Little League World Series time – and our annual reminder of why Title IX is needed, but not enough.

The disparities in treatment, support, and attention for male and female athletes begins early, and nowhere is it more obvious than in Little League.

Just consider the annual baseball and softball World Series playoff events. The Little League Softball World Series, which just wrapped up, featured 27 games, with semi-finals and the championship aired on ESPN2. That’s THREE games.

Now multiply that by 11 and you’ll have the number of Little League Baseball World Series games broadcast – and many on ESPN HD (for those keeping track, that’s every single game played in the series).

Oh, and the August 27 finals are on CBS in –– HD.

Nearly every element of these two marquis events reveals institutional and cultural sexism (yes, girls are allowed to play Little League Baseball but it is rare and in many places are discouraged from doing so). One has only to glance at the websites (here and here)  for the two World Series events to spot vastly different levels of support.

Curious about the players? The Little League Softball World Series site features team photos. The Little League Baseball World Series site lets you click down to individual players – and watch video of them in action. The level of information (want souvenir tickets?) and polish between the two sites is absurdly disparate.

This is not meant as a criticism of the softball effort (May we remember that these are 12-year-olds?), but of the blatant institutional gap. The matter is, frankly, puzzling. Why doesn’t Little League at least try – a little?

Granted, right there in the media guide, the organizational timeline points out that in 1972 after the passage of Title IX that, “Little League resists the entry of girls into the program.” In 1974, the organization decides “to allow participation by girls” (after a New Jersey Court ordered them to), but immediately creates Little League Softball – which helps to keep girls from joining baseball.

Many years have passed, but not enough has changed.

As the girls and boys of summer play out their Little League World Series dreams — dreams structured by an organization that portrays itself as a gift to youth development – isn’t it time to make gender fairness a goal?

It would be as important for the boys as it would be for the girls.

http://www.softballworldseries.com/schedule.htm

Photo is for illustration only. Credit: Walla Walla University

By Rachael Goldenberg

Who would have thought that one call — way back on opening day — could determine the outcome of a collegiate softball season?

Wednesday, March 17 was the start of the season for Wellesley College’s Varsity Softball team. We had a strong team, and my teammates and I were excited, panting out our nerves as we finished our warm-up sprints. I could feel the brisk air enter my lungs as I tried to catch my breath. Our first double header was at DIII nationally-ranked Brandeis University and we were ready.

In game one we hit our way to a terrific 9-7 victory. In the second game, we were battling back and forth. At the end of five innings Brandeis led 6-3.  As we slipped on our batting gloves to launch our comeback, the umpire raised his hands. He was calling the game for darkness.

It was only after I dropped my helmet and muttered “good game” that I noticed our surroundings: We were the only ones in the dark.  Stadium lighting bathed the entire Brandeis athletics complex in bright light — except for the patch of darkness which enveloped the women’s softball diamond. The adjacent baseball field, abandoned an hour earlier by the men’s team, was completely illuminated along with the deserted track.

Clearly, someone had decided that although there were numerous lighting poles installed and electrical power sources run in order to install the men’s lights, it was not worth including fixtures and bulbs facing the women’s softball field.

Now, three months later, I enter my coach’s office to discuss why our season ended three weeks early. Turns out, that opening day 5-inning loss against Brandeis eliminated our chance at a regional bid. One college official’s call that female athletics did not deserve lighting (but the men did) had the ripple effect of ending my collegiate season early.

Softball is a sport decided by calls — the coaches’, the umpires’, the players’. As the sun went down at 6:56 pm on March 17, my teammates and I experienced the fallout of a college official’s call that the softball field didn’t need lights. I can’t help but see this as a deeper failure.

Discriminatory decisions have far reaching effects. This is not just about prematurely ending a softball game (and season), but perpetuating the belief that females don’t deserve — or won’t notice or don’t really need — equal facilities. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine the reverse happening: A men’s college baseball game called for darkness while a fully-lit women’s softball field right beside it glowed, unused?

News of Judge Sylvia Pressler’s death last week – at 75 at a family home in Sparta, NJ – drew a few paragraphs in the newspaper, but hardly attracted huge attention.

And yet, as spring training gets underway and kids prepare for Little League tryouts (now a winter affair), we should remember Pressler’s contribution — and not just her 1973 finding allowing Maria Pepe of the Hoboken Democrats to play Little League — but the way she framed the issue.

Pressler made clear the connection between sports – in this case, Little League Baseball – and political equality. “The institution of Little League is as American as the hot dog and apple pie,” she wrote in her findings. “There’s no reason that part of Americana should be withheld from girls.”

When the National Organization for Women filed a grievance on behalf of Pepe with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, the debate focused chiefly on concerns that girls would get hurt if they played baseball with boys – a notion that if you look at the size of many 9 and 10-year-old girls compared with boys, appears downright silly (note the size of the girl vs. the boys in the Times story photo below, published after Pressler’s findings and amid widespread debate).

In researching Playing with the Boys, N.O.W granted me access to their papers, including details of the 1973 proceedings and Pressler’s findings. During six days of testimony in the case, Little League officials tried every argument they could muster to bar girls from the game. One of the most amusing points came from Dr. Creighton J. Hale, physiologist and Little League VP, who argued that “the possibility of cosmetic injury is more ‘socially damaging’ for a girl than it is for a boy.” Another LL representative, Dr. Thomas Johnson, a San Diego psychiatrist, argued that forced integration of the sexes was bad for children’s mental development. “Boys like to be with boys and girls like to be with girls,” he said.

Give Pressler credit at a time when it was not easy to stand up to male tradition for insisting that integration of the sexes (and, yes, even in the male sport of baseball) mattered. “I have no doubt that there are many reputable psychologists who would agree with the ‘birds of a feather’ theory,” Pressler wrote. “But the extension of that is that whites like to be with whites, blacks like to be with blacks and Jews likes to be with Jews; and that whole theory is a contradiction to the laws of this state and this country.”

Further, she said, “the sooner little boys begin to realize that little girls are equal and that there will be many opportunities for a boy to be bested by a girl, the closer they will be to better mental health.”

Her ruling created an uproar. But it stood.

Imagine if someone who lacked her clarity of vision had decided the case? When I learned of her passing, I had one thought: Thank you, Sylvia Pressler.

The New York Times, April 2, 1974

By Laura Pappano

The visual is stunning.

Click here to see the Little League Softball World Series championship TV schedule.  You’ll find ESPN2 (the channel broadcasting women’s college hoops unless there is a men’s game that can’t fit the ESPN or network schedule) is showing two semi-final games on Tues., Aug. 18 and the championship on Wed., Aug. 19 (7 p.m. EST)

Reasonable airtime given that this is Little League. Kids. Right?

Mistake. That is the Little League Softball World Series. Click here for Little League Baseball’s World Series broadcast schedule.

Softball games may be limited to three on TV, but from Fri., Aug. 21 to Sun. Aug. 30, you can basically watch 12-year-olds play baseball all day long (and into the night).

Between the three channels — ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC – broadcasters will bring you 36 – yep, THIRTY-SIX!! – Little League games (including consolation play).

The disparity in prestige and attention might be chalked up to the American passion for baseball over softball, if Little League didn’t have such a troublesome record on gender issues. Sure, it now “celebrates” the move to allow girls (following a successful civil complaint by N.O.W. on behalf of Maria Pepe of New Jersey in 1973).

But the move in early 1974 to start a Little League softball program has been seen by some, including Jennifer Ring author of Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball (Illinois, 2009) as a strategy to steer girls into softball and keep baseball for boys. Today, there are few girls on Little League teams. (see post)

It may be unfair to blame Little League for what is a larger cultural truth: baseball is not merely a terrific game, but an institution that celebrates male power. But it surely is not an accident that Little League dugouts are loaded with Dads re-living their youth and it’s a rarity to see a ponytail on the field.

I am the mother of a boy smitten with baseball and Little League. I love the game and played as a kid. But as an organization (and an effective one  – is there a better brand in youth sports?) Little League is missing an important opportunity. This is not just about allowing girls to play, but encouraging them.

And if there is a Little League Softball World Series, make it as big a deal as Little League Baseball. Otherwise the message is that 12-year-old boys are just more worth watching than 12-year-old girls. And, as one who has attended my share of games, I certainly don’t think that’s the case.

Justine Siegal is billed by her team, The Brockton Rox, as the first woman to coach men’s professional baseball (they play in the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball or Can-Am League). She is also founder of BaseBall for All, which supports female players and provides baseball instruction around the world (Siegal coached last year in India and Hong Kong). Siegal coaches for the Springfield College Baseball team – and is a Ph.D. candidate in sports psychology. She spoke during her daily commute from Campanelli Stadium in Brockton, MA.

FGN: How long have you been playing baseball?

JS: I started playing when I was five. I played men’s baseball until I was 22.

FGN: You coach for a men’s professional team, the Brockton Rox. What do you do?

JS: I’m a rookie coach. I just started. I’ve been throwing a lot of batting practice.

FGN: How have the players reacted?

JS: So far, everyone who has spoken to me has been very supportive. I tell them I am there to help them become better baseball players and help the team win a championship – just like every coach there.

FGN: What are your career ambitions?

JS: One of my goals is to be a college baseball coach. No woman has ever been a head college baseball coach.

FGN: Why do so few girls try baseball?

JS: There is a lot of pressure on girls to play softball. I played baseball a long time – I played through high school – and I felt like every day someone was asking me to play softball instead. And I was on the baseball team! In my mind, it’s because those in power don’t want girls to play baseball. It’s considered a boy’s game.

FGN: Why do many girls switch from baseball to softball when they reach middle school?

JS: The girls who play baseball are great athletes so a college scholarship in softball is a real possibility; a scholarship in baseball is a possibility, but the [chances] are lower. It’s sad to me when girls switch when they don’t want to. One of my goals is to help them over the hump. I tell the girls, “Why can’t it be you? Why can’t you make it?” We keep taking ourselves out of the game.

FGN: What is the role of the coach in all this?

JS:  The coach is key. The girls who have a really good time on their [baseball] teams, it is coach-directed. If coaches from junior high would say, “I’d like you to try out,” that would be huge. The problem is that everyone says to girls, “Oh baseball is fun when you’re just a kid, now it’s time to move over.” That is a lesson we are teaching girls. And we are teaching boys the same lesson: Gender rules.

FGN: What about females as umpires?

JS: There are a few female umpires in the minor leagues. There is no reason women can’t be umpires and Major League Baseball knows that. There are just so many men who want to be umpires it is a matter of numbers. You need to get more girls umpiring.

FGN: Why does matter to have women in baseball?

JS: It’s important for two reasons. Without pioneers we don’t see any progress. Second, it’s important for each of us to find out what we’re made of. If we just give up playing for a reason that doesn’t make sense, it’s wrong. Some people are told they are to short or their skin’s the wrong color. We are told that just because of our gender we shouldn’t play – I don’t think that’s a good enough reason.

In our insta-age, everything you hear about is old the second you’re in on it. But one big secret isn’t out: Girls are allowed to play baseball. (Well, kind of).

It’s 35 years since President Gerald Ford signed legislation opening Little League to girls, but it remains a shocker to actually find one on a baseball diamond. OK, of course, there are girls in Little League. But there are so few that everyone notices when they see one.

Parent antennae emit an alert signal the second they scan the field before a game. Their folding chairs may not be fully positioned when the buzz starts: Hey, did you see there’s a girl on that team? It’s not said with any malice, but rather like the way kids spot advertising vehicles on the highway. Hey did you see that truck shaped like a hot dog?

It’s a curiosity, and that’s the point. That this many years later so few girls play baseball suggests nothing less than A Great Baseball Conspiracy. This is one of those open secrets that’s as embarrassing to women as to guys because it speaks to the thousand subtle ways young children get messages about who they are and what they should – and shouldn’t — do.

In 2009, it remains scary for girls to play baseball, even at young ages when it most surely is not about physical prowess. Having watched my share of coach-pitch, it’s concerning to see the level of self-censorship girls apply to joining up for baseball. Why might that be?

Maybe thanks to ordinary encounters like one last spring in which each time two girls in a first grade (first grade!!!) Little League game reached second base they got the treatment from boys in the field: “Girls don’t belong in baseball,” “You cannot play defense,” There shouldn’t be girls in this league,” and, my favorite, “You cannot hit and we will easily get you out!” (Weren’t they already on second?)

This is not just another episode of kids-say-mean-things, but a window into the way we are raising our children. It is not helpful for girls – or boys – to have baseball serve as the vessel of American Manhood. Yet, somehow, from young ages the message gets embedded that baseball is for boys and softball is for girls. Any girl who plays baseball past fourth grade gets asked when she is going to “switch over” (read: stop making trouble and go where she belongs).

It doesn’t help that some states legally consider baseball and softball to be the same sport – which means for Title IX purposes that having softball means they are providing females an equivalent opportunity. As a female baseball player pointed out recently in The New York Times, “It’s like saying Ping-Pong and tennis are the same sport. ”

That was the issue last year when Indiana high schooler Logan Young and her parents filed suit against the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Public Justice and its cooperating lawyers succeeded in getting the association to pass an emergency rule allowing girls to tryout for baseball teams (good luck finding that key vote on their web site). Victoria Ni, a Public Justice staff attorney, says the association is expected to pass a permanent rule change when the full board meets in May.

Ni, who says the baseball-softball definition is just one of several problematic rules in Indiana school sports, says other states may be just as guilty but how to know? There is no master list of all the states that classify baseball and softball as the same sport, legally, speaking. “It’s a state by state fight,” she told me. “To research these rules is extraordinarily hard because you have to get in touch with each high school athletic association.”

One good move: After a nudge from The Women’s Sports Foundation, in December the NCAA’s Legislative Council “determined that baseball and softball are considered separate sports.” According to a February 2009 NCAA “talking points” memo, “previous interpretations of NCAA legislation stated baseball and softball were the same sport for NCAA amateurism and outside competition.”  Now college softball players can join baseball leagues in the off-season and vice versa.

While clearly a change meant to give players more flexibility without sinking their eligibility, this is a technical change which deserves some notice at the high school level – and younger. Baseball season is starting, it’s time for little girls to grab their mits and loosen up those arms.