A front page article in the Atlanta Journal newspaper yesterday detailed a “scandal” (my word) at the softball World Series. Some teams are threatening to withdraw from the tournament as a result. The scandal? Boys are playing for one of the teams. The baseball league in which these boys had participated folded, leaving them no option but softball.
Now girls have been allowed to play Little League baseball for over 20 years. The first female player in the Little League World Series occured in 1984. I have coached girls on my son’s Dixie Youth (an organization similar to Little League) team. It matters not in Dixie Youth whether the girls have the option of playing softball. If they would rather play baseball, they’re allowed.
The age range of the players in question is 14-16, IIRC. Does age make a difference? Would it be ok if, as the softball WS Director (a male) said, the kids were younger? Are boys so much bigger and stronger, on average, that they should not be allowed to “play down” to girls’ softball? Is a girl playing baseball different since that could be considered “playing up” to a higher level?
In my opinion, it’s a no brainer both legally and ethically. If girls have the option to play baseball, then boys should have the option to play softball. Who knows, maybe eventually both sports will become co-ed. I don’t see that as a bad thing.
Incidentally, the female players interviewed from opposing teams saw no problem in competing with the boys. It’s the adults who are having coniptions.
If the kids are fine with it, what’s the deal? They are the ones sweating it out in the field. I think the adults should listen to the kids in this case and just shut up.
This is kind of a switch. Once in a while you hear about a girl wanting to play football but for the most part you don’t hear about a guy joining vollyball. (In my school there was no boys vollyball team.) When I was between the ages of 14-16 that’s when I started growing bigger, stronger, and more hairy then the girls. I do think starting around this age group boys start having the advantage when it comes to the physical department.
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In Texas you can’t stop a girl from joining the football team or wrestling. They are required by law to give a girl the same chance as any boy. Although I’ve never heard of a girl being anything but a kicker on the team.
I don’t see any problem with it being co-ed and I don’t know what the big deal is.
Marc
I suspect that, given the age of the kids, the World Series organizers may be worried less about what happens on the field than what might happen off of it if they go co-ed. They may be afraid of a sex scandal, or worse still a sexual assault scandal.
I don’t think so, Lamia. Most of the extra-curricular activities kids this age could be involved in are co-ed and would provide the same or better opportunities for “intergender socialization” - debate teams, band, etc. It’s just sports that appear to be “separate but equal”. More specifically, girls can play “boy” sports, but boys can’t play “girl” sports.
As MGibson mentioned, there are female wrestlers, baseball players, and football players at the high school level. Why not male softball players?
I think coed sports are fine as long as the whole team gets to shower together.
Here’s a dumb story for you: I once played on a company softball team, against teams from other companies. There was a stupid league rule that each team had to have a certain number (or more) of women on the field at all times. (I think it was 2 or 3.) The problem was that at some small companies very few women wanted to play, so if there were say 15 guys but only one woman interested, that company couldn’t field a team. I think that was unfair to the men in that situation & an insult to women in general, because this was just for fun anyway & some of the women that did play were better than the average guy anyway (so adding women didn’t necessarily weaken the team). That’s what happens when PC runs wild.
i coached little league fast pitch softball for 13 years. our league did allow girls to play baseball if they chose to, but did a pretty good job of supporting the girls teams. at the age in question, i had a great group of 11 12 & 13 year old girls. there was a glitch in the practice schedule, and a team of 13 year old boys showed up at the same time we did. i suggested a scrimmage game. the boy’s coach laughed at the idea. out of earshot of the children, i offered a wager. my girls waxed them, 11 to 3 in six innings. i used the $50.00 in winnings to buy pizza after the first game.
I made a few points on this case in a different GD thread; now that I have more facts I’d like to add on to it.
I was not aware that it was only the parents who had a problem with boys being allowed on a girls’ team and that the girls didn’t seem to mind. Because the boys did not disrupt team unity, I have no problems with them being on the team (provided, of course, that there wasn’t any boys’ softball or baseball team available to them). However, because this is Little League and not some local volunteer organization, the administration needs to set some standards. As IzzyR pointed out, there’s a very real danger that girls could get phased out of some teams entirely. So I’m all for limits on the number of boys allowed on coed teams, or at least a limit on playing time. I still believe that at any pre-high school level, giving everyone a chance is more important than putting the best team on the field.
TampaFlyer - I wouldn’t call it PC, just typical corporate boneheadedness. A picnic is supposed to be a fun time; forcing anyone to be in the “big game” is dumb.
> TampaFlyer - I wouldn’t call it PC, just typical corporate boneheadedness. A picnic is supposed to be a fun time; forcing anyone to be in the “big game” is dumb.
It wasn’t the companies that made the rules, but the league, which I believe was run by the city. This wasn’t a picnic thing but a weekly softball league.
