Substitute "baseball" with any sport, really

April 14, 2016 8:32 AM

When the sport you love doesn't love you back.

If Gibbons’ “dresses” comment was just one isolated incident, it wouldn’t deserve a second thought, but that’s not the situation we face. We are not talking about one off-color remark or even a handful of off-color remarks. We are talking about a sport-wide culture which permits casual sexism and reinforces over and over and over again to its female fans that their involvement in the sport is not as valid as that of their male counterparts.

posted by misskaz (40 comments total)

Noticed this phenomenon recently in Bruce Arians' craptacular "It's not dads, it's moms" commentary as well.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:36 AM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

BUT WOMEN LOVE PINK! says MLB.
posted by dw at 8:46 AM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was virtually indistinguishable from any other kid who loved baseball with one notable exception: I was a girl.

My reality as a girl who loved baseball is that throughout my life baseball has constantly reinforced its message that although I’m always welcome as a fan, baseball is not actually for me. Baseball’s subtle but steady rejection of me began when I became old enough to play in a recreation league and, like so many other girls throughout the country, I was urged to play softball instead of baseball.

OMG THIS IS MY LIFE. Goddamn softball! At 7, I was too feminine female for the baseball team and at 10, not feminine enough for the softball team. And because I was a kid who had a lot of other shit to worry about, instead of pushing it or trying to carve out a niche, I just gave up. So many girls just give up -- not because we're weak or flighty or ultimately disinterested, but because it's incredibly exhausting to be told over and over that if you want to maintain a presence in a given sphere, you're either going to have to sit back and stay quiet as your supposed peers repeatedly denigrate the group into which you were born or build something brand-new from the ground up in order to accommodate you and your ilk. Like when female musicians encounter blistering sexism at music festivals, men are always telling them to just go play women-only festivals instead. Phew, problem solved!

I'm 34 and still regularly realizing how many genuine interests and passions I let fall by the wayside because the world boys and men in charge made it very clear that those interests and passions were not for me. Or, like, even if they "let" it be for me for a little while, something egregious would eventually be said or done to make it clear that my not-quite-acceptance into the club was only a temporary arrangement and can I just go back to doing whatever it is that girls do now? (Here's looking at you, indie rock record collecting. Actually, indie rock in general.)

Fantastic essay that I will be sending to many of my friends. Thank you for the post, misskaz!
posted by amnesia and magnets at 8:49 AM on April 14, 2016 [29 favorites]

“If these jokes aren’t funny, why don’t you just ignore them?”

That's a damn good question. I don't care about baseball, but I do care about comedy. Humor is an important and complex mode of communication that deserves thought and analysis. If the punchline of your "joke" can be summarized as "Women are inferior" (or "Gay people are inferior" or "Members of other races are inferior," etc.) then it's bad comedy. It communicates nothing of value and can only destroy rather than build. Comedy is serious business, and trying to play off bigotry as a joke is a crime against humor.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:50 AM on April 14, 2016 [17 favorites]

BUT WOMEN LOVE PINK! says MLB.

The pink thing is annoying because that's what happens when they try.*

I'm a man who likes baseball, I didn't grow up loving it, but I've come to it as an adult, and it's something I'd love to pass on to my kids, including any daughters. I hate hate hate that part of passing that along to a daughter will be dealing with this. The softball thing is such a dumb manifestation, because there's no reason for it. Soccer, hockey, and basketball all have girls and women's teams without anyone getting in the comments of a website to talk about how women can't play at the major league level. No one thinks that the existence of a high school girl's basketball team is some how contingent on whether those girls can play for the Cavs, and plenty of those girls grow up liking basketball generally. Baseball forces its young female fans into a separate sport, then tries to lure them back with pink jerseys; it's just so dumb.

*It's not just MLB, obviously, I attended "ladies night" at a Sporting Lisbon game and the woman in our group got a discounted ticket with a free pink and green scarf, to the consternation of her boyfriend, a Benfica fan.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:02 AM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

For all its many failings, the NFL has done a good job reaching out to female fans. I mean it's nice to see corporate self-interest actually override sexism for a change. (And all the guys who are like "if there were a market, of course they'd do that!" are then complaining about the NFL having the players wear pink on the field for breast cancer awareness because, duh, obviously that excuse is just a cover for sexism. It's not REALLY sexism, it's just "the market"!)

Anyway I realize that it's a cynical corporate outreach meant to double the audience and most NFL execs do not give two shits about sexism qua sexism, but it's so nice for a change to see cynical corporate outreach recognize women as a viable market rather than saying, "Well, I mean they might be a market? But also, girls have cooties, so let's not."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:06 AM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

BUT WOMEN LOVE PINK! says MLB.

Charitable events notwithstanding, ballcaps in anything other than the actual team colors are an abomination.
posted by jonmc at 9:10 AM on April 14, 2016 [18 favorites]

The thing that most baseball players never admit is that they are intimidated by fastpitch softball. I know I am and I'll comfortably, and occasionally successfully, flail away in a baseball batting cage with the pitching machine set to 80+mph. Serious athletes have made softball into a hard sport.

Baseball is weird in how it throws participants out. Even for men once you are past college age it is pretty unlikely you will continue to play hardball. I played until I was about 20 and then the opportunities for a hack like me just dried right up. It was rec league softball from then on. Almost all other non-violent sports have more popular options for non or semi-serious adult participation in the actual sport rather than some weird modified version.

Not that I don't enjoy rec softball.
posted by srboisvert at 9:12 AM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

The weird thing about baseball is that its fanbase is as high as 47% women. And yet the pink hats are everywhere and there's still a "play like a girl" thing in the game.
posted by dw at 9:18 AM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Baseball is a pretty clear case of sexism, but don't forget the US women's soccer team and their demands for at-least-not-quite-as unequal pay.

When I was age 6 and wanted a particular pair of sneakers, the salesman whisked them away in a huff: only boys can wear black sneakers: girls only wear white.
When the school asked us to each pick an instrument to learn, the teacher was horrified: only boys can play drums.... here, take a flute (interesting recommendation for a kid with crappy breathing because of asthma!).
When I was in junior high, I wanted to take shop class: it looked like a lot of fun, playing with all those tools and making things.... more horrified looks: only boys can learn woodworking, girls have to take home ec.
In high school, I tried to join a drafting class: yet again, they told me boys only, no girls allowed.

Thankfully the world has improved, even if sometimes it doesn't look like very much of an improvement.
posted by easily confused at 9:20 AM on April 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

> Baseball is a pretty clear case of sexism, but don't forget the US women's soccer team and their demands for at-least-not-quite-as unequal pay.

But women get to play soccer (and, in the US, far more successfully than the men). The point of the essay is that they aren't even allowed to play baseball, they're shunted into another sport. It's disgusting and stupid and retrograde and goddammit, baseball, do something about it!

Er, thanks for the post! It got me a little worked up...
posted by languagehat at 9:23 AM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is a great piece, and it's great to see Corinne Landrey linked here on the blue. She recently took the helm of my favorite Phillies blog, Crashburn Alley, and though the previous head honcho there was actually very good at covering these issues, I think the message resonates better coming from someone who has personal experience facing sexism as a fan and now someone who writes about the game professionally. Allies are good, but all else being equal, it's better to have marginalized groups speaking for themselves with a big platform. I just hope that the usual gangs of trolls that always seem to appear in comments and on Twitter don't go after her the way they seem to whenever any other woman has an opinion on sports (or anything else, really.)

The only way I see MLB's problem going away on anything approaching an acceptable time scale is to get more women into baseball's power structure. There's a bias toward former players, so it's not going to be easy, but the Phillies did at least interview a female candidate for general manager, and we're starting to see women sneak their way into low-level coaching positions in other sports, so... yeah, baby steps.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:35 AM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I follow men's gymnastics. Gymnastics is the rare sport where women are the default; if you say "gymnastics," people think of women's gymnastics, and you have to say "men's gymnastics" if you mean men's gymnastics. One of my favorite gymnasts is 2012 Olympic medalist Danell Leyva. I'm not sure how he identifies his sexuality; there are suggestions that he's gay or bi (like the day he just spent at Miami Pride letting gay men hold his medal while taking pictures with him). But in any case he's queer-positive and politically progressive.

During the 2012 Olympics, a mostly-naked bathroom selfie he sent to someone he was dating was leaked. He was undisturbed. When asked if he was embarrassed by it, he said that he saw no point in being embarrassed about being "caught" at something that practically everyone has done, and that he thought underwear companies missed an opportunity to capitalize on it by making him their spokesperson. I tell that story just because I like it.

This is the more relevant story:

He's a talented gymnast and all-around good guy, but a thing I really appreciated was a few months ago, when he was asked in an interview if it bothered him that women's gymnastics gets so much more attention than men's gymnastics. He replied that the US women work really hard, are great athletes, and are much more successful on the international stage than the men's team, and that they deserve all the attention and accolades they get. Maybe if the men's team were as good as them, the men's team would get more attention, he said, but he really admires the women's team and thinks they deserve every good thing they get.

I share this in case the rare counter-example is heartening to discouraged sports fans. It is to me. There should be more men like Leyva in sports and sports fandom, but it's nice to at least know one.
posted by not that girl at 9:37 AM on April 14, 2016 [31 favorites]

Great post not that girl. I would only add that if you bring up figure skating the default is also women.

I could be wrong but I think the popularity of women's fast pitch on the high school and college level are a bit of an impediment to girls getting into playing baseball. It's so much easier for them to just channel it into softball than take the path of greater resistance.
posted by Ber at 9:52 AM on April 14, 2016

We are not talking about one off-color remark or even a handful of off-color remarks. We are talking about a sport-wide culture which permits casual sexism and reinforces over and over and over again to its female fans that their involvement in the sport is not as valid as that of their male counterparts.

Agreed. The "why can't you take a joke?" rejoinder to the negative reaction to the latest instance of high profile sexism just underlines this point. It is a trope to tell women who don't like sexist comments that they lack a sense of humor.

Speaking as a lifelong baseball fan, there is so much obvious sexism every time I go to the park . . . the trophy girlfriends and wives, the fact that the kids invited to the field with their parents for pre-game fan amusement and the kid who is selected to call, "play ball!" are almost always boys, the pink and glittery female versions of baseball clothes, and unavailability of choice items like player jerseys and jackets in women's sizes, the fact that virtually every announcer is male, the designation of the rookie pitchers to carry a pink small backpack when the pitchers head for the bullpen area at the end of warmups . . . I could go on.

The big problem is the elephant in the room: women aren't playing professional baseball, at any level. There is no route these days for any woman to play. There is a deep, profound assumption in sports that women just can't play as well as men, in any organized sport. At best we get our own league. Until the day comes that it is clear women have a role on the field or the court or the ice or whatever, I think we are going to have ongoing issues with baked in sexism in sports.

Plus of course there is the fact that there is baked in sexism everywhere in our society.
posted by bearwife at 9:55 AM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

The only way I see MLB's problem going away on anything approaching an acceptable time scale is to get more women into baseball's power structure.

Another route to opening more opportunities for women in baseball at the amateur level -- which might offer some bottom-up pressure over time -- is Title IX reform. Softball was invented in the late 19th century as, essentially, "indoor baseball" and the gender split between baseball and softball did not become as rigid as it is today until the 1970s. Because softball and baseball were thought of as "equivalent," schools could deny women baseball opportunities when softball was available. But as the original article makes clear, they are not the same at all.
posted by AndrewInDC at 9:55 AM on April 14, 2016

On the other hand, I imagine that it's entirely possible that middle school/high school baseball coaches are telling girls and their families that there's no reason for them to play baseball because they have softball.
posted by Ber at 9:55 AM on April 14, 2016

Substitute "baseball" with any sport, really

O ya. I read the FPP and was thinking, "now it is football, hockey, baseball, or basketball?" I thought it might be soccer b/c of the lawsuit, or basketball b/c they actually have a pro women's league, but baseball is my favorite sport (after soccer), so I'm glad to see it skewered. It deserves it.

And that was a GREAT article. Encapsulates a lot of my beliefs about gender and sports growing up. Such a shame, in terms of the loss for girls.

Gibbons' comment will get ignored by most mainstream folks as trivial, but it IS insulting. It insults me as a person, as a feminist, as a baseball fan, as a father of two girls, and perhaps most importantly, as a transvestite.

I am a tough as nails stay-at-home dad who likes to wear dresses. And I was a pretty damn good shortstop (with albeit limited power to the opposite field ;) So go fuck yourself, John Gibbons.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:59 AM on April 14, 2016 [10 favorites]

Gymnastics is the rare sport where women are the default; if you say "gymnastics," people think of women's gymnastics, and you have to say "men's gymnastics" if you mean men's gymnastics.

Still working on the recognition part of it, but roller derby falls under this as well.
posted by Lucinda at 10:02 AM on April 14, 2016

I've stopped going to major league baseball games because I realized I don't enjoy it because people (often middle-aged female fans or occasionally ushers) will so often say something to me about how I'm dressed or tell me not to do what I'm doing (e.g. put my feet on the concrete barrier even though male friends with me are doing the same thing -- I have literally been singled out for doing this, presumably because I was wearing a skirt since I'd come straight from work. We were in the highest level of the stadium out of sight of other sections. No cameras were showing us. No one could see my underwear and, even if they could, which they couldn't, I wear very modest underwear unless you're offended by polka dots. Also, it was a long skirt! It came down basically to my ankles! But no, I'm not allowed to have my feet a certain way because I'm someone who wears skirts/dresses to work. It was also really embarrassing to have a stranger lecture me on this and to be singled out and specifically and personally told that what I was doing wasn't okay ).

I realized it just wasn't worth it to me to go to games anymore because I don't totally love baseball and, although I enjoyed the opportunity to sit outside and drink in public and sort of hang out on a summer afternoon/evening, it became profoundly not worth it because I spend so much of the time feeling out of place and anxious about what a stranger is going to say to me .
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:05 AM on April 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Synchronized swimming.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:05 AM on April 14, 2016

I think it's important to note that there are female baseball teams and leagues, and even at the 2015 Pan American Games, the United States women's baseball team won gold!

Melissa Mayeux because the first woman added to MLB's international registration list, making her eligible to be signed by an MLB team in the future last year (she's stated she wants to make France's women's team in 2017 then go to the majors). Let's not forget the awesomeness of Mo'ne Davis (though it sounds like she is opting to go towards basketball). Or Eri Yoshida, who was the first Japanese player to play for a men's team in Japan, then later in the United States for a team in Chico, and was in the instructional league. Or Chelsea Baker, another young knuckleballer who could possibly get a shot.

Also we now have Justine Siegal, whose been a coach and BP pitcher for the As and a number of other male teams.

I mean, it's gonna be tough and require a lot of work, but I feel like we're really hitting the time where we may start seeing a new professional female baseball league, or we start seeing female players make it into the minor leagues and hopefully the majors. There's a real war brewing lately in the MLB about shaking off some of the stodginess and "making it fun again" (Thanks Bryce!)... and some of the stuff that needs to be shaken away is this idea that women can't or shouldn't play baseball. It's gonna happen. It's gotta happen!
posted by tittergrrl at 10:21 AM on April 14, 2016 [9 favorites]

Okay, when professional wrestling is more progressive than your sport, you gotta take a step back and look at yourself in the mirror.

(context: The WWE Diva's Championship (a.k.a. the Butterfly Belt) has been derided for years, and was just this month turned into the WWE Women's Championship, which is nearly identical to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The emphasis on women's wrestling in WWE's developmental program NXT has resulted in a complete redefinition of women's wrestling across the company, from "models who kind of know how to take a bump" to "full-on athletes who can work a 30-minute-plus match".)

((Further context: Second-tier promotion CHIKARA -- which is explicitly family- and child-friendly -- allows women to fight against men, and the current Grand Champion of the promotion is Princess KimberLee.))

(((Further further context: Second-tier-but-growing promotion Lucha Underground also allows women to fight against men, and one of the current* Trios Champions is Ivelisse.
* -- Lucha Underground matches air on El Rey Network months after they are recorded, so "current" champions are sort of broadly defined; Ivelisse's team has not lost the belts on television as of this writing.)))

Wrestling is still not the most progressive industry (Understatement Alert), but in many ways, it's getting better faster than any of the major legit sports.
posted by Etrigan at 10:38 AM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Women's gymnastics has its own set of problems though. Men's gymnastics is treated like an adult sport. Women gymnasts have to include dance elements in beam (which always look super awkward and out of place) and floor, the floor requires music, and their leotards are often bedazzled and they sport childish hair ribbons.
posted by asockpuppet at 10:41 AM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Not that I don't enjoy rec softball.

I enjoy rec softball too but every time I play it breaks my heart a little. Because every adult rec softball league I've ever seen is mostly men. I play games where I'm the only woman among 30+ people. When I was eight years old I started playing for my dad's office team so they could get the minimum two women. Adult rec softball is as male-dominated as any space I've ever been in and I'm a free software programmer.

It's not just the numbers, either. It's the way the men bring in the outfield when I come up to bat. You'd think it'd be satisfying to hit the ball over their heads but it just makes me sad.

I don't know where all the former girls softball players are, but sometimes women who have clearly never played before will show up. They generally play terribly as most completely inexperienced people do. I try to take them aside and show them the basics. Five minutes of instruction is all you need to learn to hit slowpitch. I don't know why none of the men seem to do this. Sometimes I catch and when I do I'll give tips to any women batters on the other team.

When I was thirteen years old I played on two softball teams and a baseball team in the same season. That year my family got season tickets to the Yankees and we drove hours into the city to see 30+ games. My walls were decorated with newspaper clippings from the sports section. When the season ended, we watched through all eighteen hours of Ken Burns' Baseball. Now I can't name a single player on the Yankees, or tell you which teams are doing well.

As long as I had softball, it didn't matter so much that baseball didn't want me. But now that softball's been taken over by men, I can't really bring myself to care about either of them.
posted by galaxy rise at 10:47 AM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

This is great, thanks so much for sharing it here!

My favorite football and hockey teams are owned by a husband and wife pair. She's from the area (he isn't) and is heavily involved with both teams, and it shows! And it's such small things, like an email doesn't refer to a man cave anymore, it says fan cave. The hockey team's 'ladies night' isn't talking down to female fans, educating us about the game, it's a happy hour-esque event to hang out with other women who like hockey and chat with former players, then go down to the tunnel to cheer the team as they skate out onto the ice. We're fans, and we're treated like fans.

Both teams still do dumb stuff, obviously, but these small things, they matter. I've written to both teams to encourage them to continue making progress, and I know someone is listening.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 10:51 AM on April 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

which might offer some bottom-up pressure over time -- is Title IX reform

Certainly any law can be made better, but given that Title IX is often one of the few things creating any opportunities at all to increase diversity in sports, I need to ask exactly how you would fix it. The pattern you note between baseball and softball could very well be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and if anything, it seems to me that Title IX requirements would be more likely to create both women's softball and womens' baseball teams than it would to ensure that only one of them is allowed to exist.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:55 AM on April 14, 2016

Coupled with the sexism against women and stuff in comments like this is the underlying homophobia of major league sports. The insult of being somehow mistaken for female has been hurled around sports teams as supposed motivation forever, but encapsulated within that is the "what if you are a man who wants to be a girl" or a man who would play a female role or whatever other homo/trans cultural bullshit can be layered on top of that.

It wasn't that long ago that 'motivational" rants that included the word "faggot" were common in locker rooms. They may still be, for all I know.
posted by hippybear at 11:08 AM on April 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

I mean, this really only "works" because 1) women are lesser and 2) men who aren't heterosexual men get equated with women. It's an odd cultural ball of wax, but yeah. Layers.
posted by hippybear at 11:09 AM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Certainly any law can be made better, but given that Title IX is often one of the few things creating any opportunities at all to increase diversity in sports, I need to ask exactly how you would fix it.

Well, sure. I don't have specific recommendations. It seems like a logical area for exploration though, given Title IX's scope and impact.
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:27 AM on April 14, 2016

Women do play baseball. This is our local team's division. https://ewbc.wordpress.com The disparity is real.
posted by childofTethys at 11:27 AM on April 14, 2016

It wasn't that long ago that 'motivational" rants that included the word "faggot" were common in locker rooms. They may still be, for all I know.

They still totally are.
posted by Etrigan at 11:33 AM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was pleasantly surprised when a couple of high school kids came by my house raising money for the local high school football team, because one was a boy and the other was a girl. I asked them what positions they played, and the boy was a defensive end while the girl was a slot receiver and cornerback. Neither was of a size to be selected to go pro in college, but for all of football's faults it's evident that the high school game has an impact on the college and professional leagues. So I was pretty heartened to see female participation in a traditionally male sport.

I'm gonna leave that "go pro in college" Freudian slip in there, because it's accurate despite college kids not earning money on their labor...they spend more effort on the game than their schooling much of the time.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:34 AM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

They still totally are.

Holy fuck! That's, like, a light year away from the "you want those people in the stands to think you're a bunch of faggots?! Get it together!" sort of "motivational speech" I'm familiar with from sports. I would hope that if ENDA were ever passed (ha!), that sort of thing happening in sports would result in a federal trial.
posted by hippybear at 11:36 AM on April 14, 2016

Great read. Especially the part about the DGAF girl who insisted on playing baseball.

Side anecdote: This happened at least 15 years and more ago, so the sexism was strong then. A good friend of mine got asked to become an assistant coach for his daughter's softball team (middle school aged kids.) At the first batting practice, he noticed that the majority of the players were being tentative in the box and that their swings were not as forceful as they could be.

He called the group together and took them over to the parking lot where there was a set of fenders made up of old tires. He had them just whack away at the tires with their bats, encouraging them, "Harder, harder." It became kind of a cult routine with the kids. Guess which team became really good hitters that year? Tore up the league!
posted by CincyBlues at 11:48 AM on April 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

In my area, gendered teams become the norm typically before the kids are in middle school. It's been great to see the parents of daughters in particular insist on continuing as coed team members.

There has been recent research that looks at how single-sex approaches promotes gender stereotypes and essentialism. My premise is teams should be coed or agender for as long as possible.
posted by childofTethys at 12:22 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

You run like a girl. You jump like a girl. You serve 165 km/h in their faces - like a girl.
- Australian female volleyball player
posted by shortfuse at 1:42 PM on April 14, 2016

When I coached youth baseball for 10 or 11 year olds I got a girl on the team that was without a doubt the best all-around player we had. She could hit, and I played her at first base, which is arguably the most important position on the field after pitcher. And it didn't bother the rest of the team (all boys) one bit. There wasn't anybody on that team that didn't want her at the plate when we needed a hit. I was real proud of the whole team for the way just accepted her based on her desire and ability to play. And this is in a county that absolutely will never be confused for a progressive community.

Adults ruin everything.
posted by COD at 6:19 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Regarding Title IX. The issue is with the contact sports exemption. Schools claim baseball is a contact sport and that softball is the provided equivalent. This article (PDF) from the Nevada Law Journal is a great read if anyone is interested in Title IX reform.
posted by papercrane at 6:13 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

As a sports fan, the pink jerseys (other than for charity) really get to me. Why are you making jerseys in any color except the team colors? Not to mention that the women's jerseys that are in the team colors are usually bedazzled. I usually end up getting something from the boys section because wearing a men's jersey makes me look like I borrowed my dad's.

I have always told my husband that if we have a daughter and she wants to play baseball, she will not be forced into softball. I think when she's young and the sports are more co-ed, there won't be a problem, but once her female teammates start being shunted off to softball, it will probably get harder for her.

For anyone worried about sexism towards the youth, it has gotten better. I played drums in school (and no one tried to talk me out of it except my brother, who didn't like that I copied everything he did). There were girls on both the football team and the baseball team. And this was a small town in Texas (my drum instructor did believe that women shouldn't be in the military though, so...). I went to alot of Ranger's baseball games and they were really good about splitting jumbotron things (contests,etc.) pretty closely male/female. However, there were no ball boys, only ball girls, who acted alot like cheerleaders.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:21 PM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]