Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
March 16, 2001, Washington Post

Why No Girls Of Summer?

I'm mad.

because last week I had to do something I really didn't want to do: sign up my daughter, Kerry, and a bunch of her friends, for softball.

What is so bad about that, you ask? Let me explain.

For the past three years, Kerry and her friends have played baseball on teams that I have coached. Last year, we had seven girls and seven boys on the team. The team wasn't great, but we won some games and the kids had a ball.

This year, the girls are in sixth grade. The baseball leagues in our area are for sixth- and seventh-graders. My girls are pretty good, but I'm not sure that all of them could stand up to a seventh-grade boy's fastballs. Besides that, they don't want to play against boys anymore. But, there aren't any all-girl baseball leagues. The only all-girl option is softball.

So I signed them up for softball.

I know that softball is a terrific sport. It's a hard-hitting, fast-moving, spikes-flying game.

But it is not baseball.

I bet lots of girls would love to play some real hardball if they could play in all-girl leagues. I know Kerry would. Kerry has a poster of Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra in her room. She has been going to baseball games since she
could say "Go Red Sox."

There is no reason girls shouldn't play baseball in an all-girl league. In fact, fans paid money to see the Rockford Peaches, Racine Belles and Muskego Lassies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II. (That league was the subject of the movie "A League of Their Own.") More recently, a professional team, the Colorado Silver Bullets, played exhibition games against men's teams.

I think baseball is a great game for girls -- in fact, 1,300 girls play the sport in high school. A baseball is small and perfect for throwing. I think the reason that lots of girls "throw like a girls" is because it is tough for any kid, especially at a young age, to get a grip on a big, clumsy softball.

Even though a baseball is harder to hit, once you hit it the ball really flies. That means that there is plenty of running and throwing in baseball. More running and throwing means more action.

So how about it? Let's drop the notion that baseball is for boys and softball is for girls. How about baseball for girls in all-girl leagues? Isn't it time that girls had a league of their own?

FRED BOWEN is the author of sports novels for kids.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company