She was signed as a free agent to Tampa Bay Lightning and played games against the St. Louis Blues in the 1992 preseason and the Boston Bruins in the 1993 preseason. She was pulled from both games early despite doing nothing to warrant a change in goaltenders (although goaltenders are regularly replaced mid-game during the NHL preseason).(emphasis mine)
In 1952 Major League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick sent notice that women are not to play on major league teams, stating his 'purpose was to prevent teams from using women players as a publicity stunt.'it looks as though Frick's ban has never risen to the level of official regulation, yet it has clearly been de facto policy. However, the short article linked makes the point that regulations on the books aren't the only thing keeping women from Major League play -- it's the entire chain of player development, from Little League on up, that isn't set up to cultivate female talent.
The result of this banning has kept highly skilled women, especially fastball pitchers, from playing in the minors or major leagues. Even 10 years later in 1964, an all-female team petitioned to join the men's class-A Florida State League but was rejected.
Although Title IX makes it illegal to discriminate against girls and women in baseball, three factors will continue to prevent them from playing. First, Little Leagues shunt girls off to softball. Second, most parents of girls still see softball as the acceptable female alternative to baseball. Third, since there are no girls’ baseball leagues, girls must compete with boys and suffer both blatant and subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination. The girl who somehow overcomes the odds and tries out will continue to be seen as the exception. As for women playing professional or semi-professional baseball the prognosis is dismal. Yet women did play semi-professional baseball in the 1800s.. (Berlage 110).
The real tragedy is that since the early 1970s girls should have had the opportunity to dream to play baseball," Brooks said in a telephone interview. "Women players are so far beyond the playing fields of MLB that I think nobody even wonders about why there are no women….there are no pathways that allow girls and women to get to the skill level where a team would be interested in you."PS - I was a Title IX kid and played Little League for one season in 1979. It wasn't very welcoming at all, and I was definitely begrudgingly tolerated, not cultivated. I enjoyed it and am proud I did it, but even 30 years later (and with a lot more athletic talent than I actually had) I doubt that this is easy.
Brooks said her own recent experience playing for the Western Canada Minors, in the professional independent Arizona Winter League, reinforced the importance of training. "I'd never been exposed to the level of the Arizona Winter League. But then I got the kind of training and coaching the guys take for granted and about three weeks into the game I blossomed and started hitting and pitching better."
He and Javois have been practice players for the women's program at Rutgers for two seasons. The two juniors played high school basketball in New Jersey and were involved in intramurals at Rutgers when Michelle Edwards, associate director of operations for the women's team, recruited them.So, these were pretty good players, but not good enough to make the Rutgers men's team.
penduluum: Wasn't it here on Metafilter that somebody had a comment on the order of: the first woman to play Major League Baseball in the US will probably be a knuckleball pitcher? Oh yeah, here we go. It was hincandenza.That's odd, everyone here knows I'm the most woman-hating sexist on Metafilter. This does not compute!
justgary: Upper body strength IS a factor. Throwing over 60 feet at 80 miles per hour for a hundred pitching every 5 days is not easy (and I'm just talking about pitching, not getting anyone out). I mean, I get what you're saying, but I think you're making light of the strength and stamina required.That's bullshit, justgary. With Eri Yoshida it was a legitimate gripe but the beauty of the knuckle ball is that it doesn't put unnecessary strain on the arm- and the pitchers throwing it don't tax themselves as much because they aren't fastballers hurling it at 95% velocity pitch after pitch.
She has thrown two perfect games within the past year, including one in an All-Star Game. She is unbeaten this season in nine starts, throwing 54 innings and striking out 103 batters while allowing only four runs. She also is hitting .569, playing third base when she doesn't pitchDo the math, man: she's thrown nine starts for 54 innings. If Little League rules are the same in Plant City as where I grew up, a game is six innings: she's throwing the full game, 6 innings, striking out more than two batters an inning. If her control is laserlike, then she's throwing almost all strikes and is still putting up 8-10 pitches an inning, which is a 50-60 pitch start. And yet you claim somehow, as a girl, she won't be able to do the ~100 pitches as an adult that a regular pitcher in the majors would put up?
yerfatma: hal, you know I love you babe, but I still maintain you can be your own worst enemy with the insistence on speaking in absolutes and being so caustically dismissive. And that's me saying that.You're probably right, I tend to do that in trying to "win" an argument. I guess I'm pretty passionate about this, because I'd love to see a woman play in the majors.
Dr. James Andrews, the world's foremost athlete surgeon, and his team at American Sports Medicine Institute have recently finished extensive studies they say prove, conclusively, that throwing a curveball enacts no more force on the arm than a fastball. That's the good news. The bad news? Throwing a curve early can lead you down a dangerous road.There's some mixed messages in there (such as why would throwing 70% curveballs be a bad thing if a curveball and fastball are equal?), but I think some other studies have shown that throwing a curveball per se isn't dangerous for kids
"It's not the pitch that's the problem," says Andrews. "It's the fact that kids who are throwing curveballs at the youth levels are generally dominant because young kids can't hit it," Which means that the kids who throw curveballs at that age will be trotted out to pitch as much as possible—and to throw their 'out' pitch as much as possible.
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posted by penduluum at 10:56 AM on July 26, 2010 [2 favorites]