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- [00:00]
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Koosha Navadar
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Koosha Navadar and tomorrow is opening day of the Major League Baseball season. The Yankees host the brewers in the Bronx. The Mets play in Houston at the Astros. Every opening day is a reminder of how baseball prides itself as America's pastime. But for one section of fans, the relationship with that pastime is complicated. Historically and in the present, women and girls have been discouraged, even banned from playing baseball. It's even a classic trope in movies. As Tom Hanks famously says, in A League of Their Own. Are you crying?
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Caitlin Tiffany
No. Are you crying?
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Koosha Navadar
Are you crying?
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Caitlin Tiffany
There's no crying.
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Koosha Navadar
There's no crying in baseball. Caitlin Tiffany is a staff writer for the Atlantic. She's a big Mets fan, and recently she participated in a women's mini fantasy camp put on by the Yankees, one of only three major league teams, according to Caitlin, that offer the camp for women. Caitlin wrote an article about the experience, trying to answer this question, why aren't women allowed to play baseball? Caitlin Tiffany is with me now in the studio right across the desk to wrestle with that question and take your calls. Caitlin, welcome back to wnyc.
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Caitlin Tiffany
Hi. Thanks for having me.
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Koosha Navadar
It's such a pleasure to have you here. I enjoyed reading the article and I'm excited to hear your perspective as well as the listeners that are going to call in. You write in your article that for generations, women playing baseball hasn't even been a conversation, let alone a reality, especially compared to other sports. Why do you think ever as a conversation, women in baseball isn't discussed?
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, I mean, certainly it's a conversation amongst women who want to play baseball, but I guess in terms of, like, its cultural salience to people, I think a lot of people just accept the fiction, really, that softball is a suitable alternative for women and girls who want to play baseball, which, you know, some of the experts I spoke to in my story who are more familiar with the technical aspects of both games, refuted pretty strenuously. But it's also just, it's refuted by the evidence of your eyes and the reality of how the game works in other cultures. Australia has a pretty significant culture of girls playing Baseball Japan has a really strong culture of girls playing baseball, and it's a different sport than softball. It's just, I think something that's been ingrained is boys play baseball, girls play softball. Everybody's happy. La di da.
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Koosha Navadar
That's right. Well, for our listeners out there who are women and who are baseball fans, what's your relationship with the sport? How is your fandom affected by the fact that historically baseball has been so exclusive of women? Call or text us now. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Or you can also share. How did you first become a baseball fan? Are you a diehard fan of the Yankees or Mets? And did you ever try to play baseball growing up but were denied and you had to play softball instead, as Kaitlyn was alluding to? What's your story? Give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. That's. Or you can DM us on Instagram. We're lnyc. So, Caitlin, the crux of your article, what I really enjoyed reading about was how you attended a women's mini fantasy camp put on by the Yankees, even if you're a Mets fan. Gasp. How did you first hear about this camp and why did you want to attend?
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Caitlin Tiffany
You know, it probably just came up when I was, whatever, surfing the Internet after becoming interested in this topic. I actually, the story idea came from last year. I was on book leave and was this is like a very long, roundabout story, but I went to a bookstore in like, pretty deep Queens that ended up being, which I did not know before I got there, ended up being predominantly a baseball bookstore and has like hundreds upon hundreds of baseball books, one of which was a collection of women writers on baseball that was published in the 90s. And it was really kind of surprising and striking to me while reading it. Something I hadn't thought about before was back when baseball really was kind of central, like, truly central to American culture, there were so many girls who had this experience of enjoying playing baseball in the street or in the schoolyard or whatever with their friends and then having this realization of, you know, not the typical realization of turning 14 or 15 and realizing, hey, I'm actually not good enough to play professional baseball. But earlier than that, at age like 7, 8, 9, having the realization of, oh, I can't play baseball because they won't let me play it. So after I read that collection, I was just looking into the subject more generally and I Think just stumbled across the fantasy camp and thought, you know, this is so interesting that in a lot of ways like this, this camp that you have to pay for is quite expensive, that is very gimmicky and primarily, like, a fan experience more so than actually, like, a true athletic arrangement is, like, the main opportunity that a woman in this country would have to feel, like, welcome in the sport of baseball and, like, that they were participating in, you know, not just in, like, a pickup game, but, you know, there is something really magical and mystical in the American imagination about, like, being a New York Yankee, like, stepping up to bat in that uniform. And it just had this sort of, like, unique dramatic tension of, like, most of these women are older, retired, you know, kind of finding themselves in a stage of their life where they have, like, maybe the time or the resources to commit to doing something like this. So they're ending up in this strange position of, like, revisiting this dream that was squashed for them 40 years ago with little ceremony, and now they get to make this kind of big ceremony out of it.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. Listeners, we're talking to Caitlin Tiffany, a staff writer at the Atlantic. We're speaking about her recent article, why Aren't Women Allowed to Play Baseball? And Caitlin writes about why there are so few opportunities for girls and women to play baseball. Baseball, not softball. And we're also taking your calls. So for our female listeners who are baseball fans, what's your relationship with the sport? Do you have a similar experience as Caitlin or another story you want to share? How did you first become a baseball fan? And how is your relationship affected by the fact that historically, baseball has been so exclusive of women? Call or text us now. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Got a few texts coming in that I wanted to read the reads. I hate softball. I can't hit a softball 10ft, but I can hit a baseball a few feet further. Another text says, we're a big baseball family. Go Yankees. And my fiance played baseball until 18 years old. She was very good and pretty upset in high school that she was forced to play softball instead. It's definitely not the same. So kind of what you were alluding to, Caitlin. Let's talk about that a little bit. Softball seems to be the thing that people in the United States say, oh, well, there's that sport, but they're different. Can you tell us more about that?
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, I think the most obvious visible differences would be the ball is significantly Larger. And the text that you just read kind of allude to that. I think a lot of people say that a softball is harder to hit just because its motion is less predictable, because it is so unwieldy. It's also, you know, it's harder to field in some ways as well, for that reason. So I think softball is. It's played in a smaller space, in moves a little bit quicker in some aspects, a little bit slower in others. The other most visible difference is the underhand pitching, which is kind of. Kind of interesting because of the sort of separate issue of, like, overhanded pitching in Major League Baseball leading to this, like, injury crisis at the moment. But. But it's just different. It's a different style of pitching. It's a different style of play. One of the essays in the essay collection I was talking about was actually an excerpt from Annie Dillard's memoir, Childhood. And she has this, like, really, really beautiful passage where she's talking about, like, being a kid and feeling like, the perfect size of a baseball, which is, like, hard and, like, fits in your palm, and it's just like, kind of like skin on bone. And then she compares it to, like, when. When she was forced to switch to softball. She's like. She's kind of holding the softball, being, like, gross. Like, this feels like a melon. And, like, when you hit it with a bat, it's just like. It's like a splat instead of, like, the beautiful, you know, cracking sound of a wooden bat on a baseball. So some of it. I mean, it's just, like, aesthetic and emotional as well. But yeah.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. Let's take a caller. We've got Eleanor in Manhattan. Hey, Eleanor, welcome to the show.
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Eleanor
Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to tell a story about my daughter who loved baseball. And she and another friend of hers, a girl, were the first women girls to play on a Little League team. And they were very excited. They were made to wear cups. That was the rule. Even though they didn't need them. They had to wear them just because the regulations, which I thought was funny.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah.
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Eleanor
Yes.
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Koosha Navadar
Yes. Did your daughter go on to play more baseball after Little League?
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Eleanor
Well, not professionally, but, yes, she does play softball now and then.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. Eleanor, thank you so much for that call. It's a funny story, trying to fit people into situations that might not make total sense. We're gonna take a quick break. We are talking to Caitlin Tiffany, who's a staff writer at the Atlantic. We're talking about her recent article, why Aren't women allowed to play baseball. And for our listeners out there who are women and who are baseball fans, we want to hear from you. What's your relationship with the sport? How did you first become a baseball fan? Were you someone who wanted to playing but was either pushed towards softball or just ended up stopping altogether? Give us a call or a text. We're at 212-433-9692. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, I want to pick up on Eleanor's point and talk a little bit about Little League. So stay with us. This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar and we are talking to Caitlin Tiffan, staff writer at the Atlantic. We're talking about her recent article. It's called why Aren't Women Allowed to Play Baseball? And in the article, Caitlin writes about why there are so few opportunities for girls and women to play baseball, not softball. We're also taking your calls and your texts for our female listeners who are baseball fans. What's your relationship like with the sport? How did you first become a baseball fan? Has your relationship with the sport been affected by the fact that historically baseball has been exclusive of women? Give us a call or send us a text. We're at 212-4-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. We had a text come through during the break that I'd like to read Caitlin. It says women's baseball. I recommend movie about the topic See Her Be her on Amazon prime. And from Amazon it's described as See Her Be her celebrates the girls and women of baseball. Do you have any familiarity with this Caitlin?
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, I actually watched a screener of See Her Be her on the day of the so it was a nice distraction from all of that. But no, it's a really, really great documentary. I'm so glad that it's streaming now. It's primarily about the World cup tournament that happens every few years. There are, I think, 25 countries with women's national teams. They play qualifying rounds and then there's 12 in the tournament. So it's about like players from different national teams, but they also mix in like some history about women playing baseball and, you know, commentary from like really, really big baseball stars. Cal Ripken Jr. Is in it. Ichiro Suzuki is in it. It's really cool. I would highly recommend. And the personalities of the women are like so fascinating. They have really interesting stories.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. I want to go back to the caller, Eleanor, who we heard from before the break, she was talking about Little League. And you write about just how involved Little League has been in ensuring that baseball remains a sport only played by boys. Little League is the organ runs youth baseball around the country. What has Little League done historically to try to keep baseball for boys?
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, I interviewed in the story Maria Pepe, who. She was a young girl in New Jersey in the early 70s who had grown up playing baseball, stickball, Wiffle ball, whatever, with the boys in her apartment building, signed up for Little League, got assigned to a team, pitched a few games, and then angry parents contacted Little League to complain about a girl being on the team. So it was kind of their policy at the time to basically threaten to revoke the charter of the league, the local league, if they allowed girls to play. So it's kind of. You know, it was kind of just holding everyone's opportunity to play hostage over this one little girl. So when that happened, Maria Pepe's coach came and took her uniform back and said, like, sorry, you can keep your cap as a souvenir of your three games of baseball. So that issue was taken up by the National Organization of Women. They filed a civil rights complaint with New Jersey courts and went through this whole process of arguing about whether it was specifically. I mean, at the time, it was specifically about Maria Pepe. Obviously, the intention was to open the game to girls in general. But just because of the parameters of the case, it was the situation that, you know, the president of Little League was getting up in court, like, making these arguments about this little girl saying, like, her bones aren't as strong as boys bones. If she gets hit by a ball, she could get breast cancer. All of these kind of, like, zany medical arguments that he even admitted in his testimony he really didn't have, like, solid foundation for. And then the most notable part about it to me was the very circular reasoning they used of, like, well, Little League can't admit girls because Little League is for boys. And like our.
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Koosha Navadar
It's a tautology right there.
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, exactly. Like, our description of our mission is to, like, foster sportsmanship and, like, qualities of manhood or whatever. So we couldn't possibly adjust that and admit girls. And also, there's, like, no point in admitting girls because they won't be allowed to play baseball later. That's a waste of our professional resources. As if every boy who was playing Little League was, like, maybe gonna play in Major League Baseball.
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Koosha Navadar
So did Little League tell you about how they're trying to improve access for girls to play baseball or is it just kind of they're sticking their haunches kind of.
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Caitlin Tiffany
I had a fairly brief exchange with them. I was, I was asking for information about how many girls play baseball currently, which they said was a statistic. They don't have. They do, I think they do semi regular events that are sort of like in honor of girls with game. So girls who play softball or baseball, I wouldn't say that they've demonstrated a particular commitment to encouraging girls to play baseball over softball, although I do think Major League baseball has, has been doing some of that recently, the last few years.
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Koosha Navadar
Let's go to some callers quickly. Let's go to Patricia in Jersey City. Hey Patricia, welcome to the show. Hey Patricia, can you hear us?
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Patricia
Okay. Hi. Hi. So my sister in law, Ronnie is an umpire for baseball during the summer and then she also, she plays in a women's league. Jim, what was it? The Jersey. All right. Anyway, she also plays baseball but she umpires all summer long boys teams and then she was sponsored to umpire a big tournament up in Cooperstown and bio girl team and the girls did very well against the boys and they came in, they went as far as like the second to last round, whatever that's called. But all the boys were coming to watch their games. The parents, all the buzz was about the girls team.
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Koosha Navadar
Oh, that's wonderful, Patricia. Thank you so much for that call. It makes me think of what opportunities there are in the future, you know. Caitlin, next year a women's professional baseball league is expected to open. What do we know about the league?
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, it's founded by this woman named Justine Siegel who's also in the See Her Be her documentary. She's a pretty well known figure in, in women's baseball in general. She's had a non profit for the past at least 10 years. I'm not sure exactly how long, but it's supposed to start with six teams, mostly in the northeast, which would follow kind of the model of the new hockey league that just started last year and presumably, well, that the, the hockey league is owned completely by the Dodgers chairman, LA Dodgers chairman, this one. They're looking to have different team owners, I believe for each team. So I think it's kind of a matter of waiting to see if that comes to fruition. I hope it does. I would be excited to go to the games.
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Koosha Navadar
I mean what kind of impact do you hope the league has on access to women for playing baseball?
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, I mean living in New York, I think about how exciting it was when the Liberty basketball team was getting to the WNBA finals last year and just seeing in their championship parade both young girls and young boys, as the caller just mentioned. Like, everyone being excited about that and participating in it as like, you know, this really isn't different. It's not like a niche thing. Like this is our hometown team and it's women and just, I don't know, I'd be really excited to see that similar type of thing in baseball, which has been, you know, has a reputation for being a very conservative sport, lowercase c conservative, slow to change and integral to American culture, which is why I think people have been so resistant to see women take part in it. Other, you know, it's been easier with other sports. Not easy, but easier. And I don't know, I think it would just be really exciting.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah, it would be really exciting for many people. We've been talking to Caitlin Tiffany, staff writer at the Atlantic. Sorry, we've been talking about her recent article, why Aren't Women Allowed to Play Baseball? Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us.
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Caitlin Tiffany
Yeah, thanks for having me.
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