It has been a long always for female sports fans. As of late, there seems to be a spotlight angled down on women in baseball; across journalism, Major League offices, fans online.
Unfortunately, that light has come with the negative consequences of reality. For every advancement and celebration, it is mired down with revelations of sexual harassment.
We see the about-time hiring of Kim Ng as the Miami Marlins general manager, and about a month later we learn of former Mets general manager Jared Porter’s relentless harassment of a reporter.
Another month passes: we’re celebrating Women’s softball feats, the rise of a Women’s Baseball league in Puerto Rico, and then we’re also clamoring for the firing of Mickey Callaway.
We’re angry about domestic abusers still having roles on baseball teams. We’re angry that even the male journalists who are allies, seem to be the loudest voices in the room. We’re angry that men in baseball still don’t quite grasp how to talk to a woman in sports because maybe they don’t quite understand that we’re equivalent to them.
But maybe I’m starting at the wrong place. Maybe we need to go back before we move forward. Just one more time.
Maybe it all begins with calling baseball America’s Pastime. We linger in this past so often, clinging steadfast to how things have always been. We’re resistant to change in a way only something with the word “American” in it could be.
It’s not worth arguing against that assumption, I’m a Taurus, meaning I’m pretty much the most American of all the Zodiac because we invented stubbornness.
This doesn’t mean baseball is incapable of change. But when the sport changes, it does so kicking and screaming.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been resistant to some rule changes in baseball. Sports are like that though, right? We wish with all our hearts to preserve the thing we fell in love with, not see it become a proxy of the thing we adore.
That’s what nostalgia does best.
The elasticity that comes with being human and open-minded becomes tighter and less malleable whenever nostalgia creeps in. You start saying things like “I can’t believe how long ago that was,” and you find yourself reminiscing about team jerseys, about drug-addicted, brawling role models, about how great baseball used to be even if you weren’t alive for those moments.
You find yourself ignoring the fact that baseball has endured, and even when those in charge try their best to harm it, we hold on tighter.
The creation of the designated hitter shirked the notion that all fielders should be represented in the lineup. It became an American League oddity. We accepted this adjustment and it became an added wrinkle, a new rivalry between fans of teams in each league.
Now we have new changes: the possibility of the universal DH, runner on second in extra innings, seven-inning doubleheaders, mound visit trackers, the three-batter limit for relievers… again that’s not the point of this piece.
But real, incredible, rule-transcending change occurs in baseball when history is at its loudest.
Breaking the color barrier didn’t relieve racial tensions in baseball, it merely made the light cast upon it brighter. Awareness increases when there’s more visibility. I can’t speak to that topic further, it’s not my story to tell or speak on, merely a blueprint for the rest of this piece.
We’re seeing women with greater regularity in sports and sports news. Some are via the successes of Lori Locust and Maral Javadifar with the Tampa Bay Bucs, or Becky Hammon coaching an NBA game, or Tonya Butler kicking a field goal in a college football game.
The fervor with which people adore the US Women’s National Soccer Team. The clamoring for the pandemic-shortened Women’s National Hockey League. The incredible shows of unabashed, unrelenting social justice displayed by the WNBA.
When it comes to Major League Baseball, there’s a solid “women breaking barriers” article by David Adler and Andrew Simon on MLB.com.
It’s a great piece worth checking out with some names from history you’ll likely recognize and some you might not. It’s pretty uplifting and exciting to see names we don’t hear about enough. It gives fans like myself hope that we’ll see even more someday soon.
So why am I angry? Why am I sitting here right now, a female sports fan, having to write another piece about yet another way in which baseball struggles to embrace the diversity of life?
I’ve written pieces on homophobia in baseball and being a queer fan, but now I’m writing about just being a woman. That’s… frustrating.
What I’m going to say isn’t new, none of it is.
Baseball welcomes back domestic abusers like Domingo German, Roberto Osuna, Addison Russell, Jose Reyes, Steven Wright, Aroldis Chapman. It gives Trevor Bauer a platform. It allowed John Rocker to thrive. It protected people like Jared Porter and Mickey Callaway until the clamoring was just a little too loud to ignore.
In the face of all of the sexual harassment accusations and evidence, we’re subject to think pieces by male peers, all with good intentions. It’s fine. It’s great to have their (or your, if you’re reading this) support but it’s not the angle we need.
The goal should be amplifying the voices of women in sports — their feelings and desires, in place of your own. It becomes exhausting to be chatting with male friends, and they begin to talk over you about a thing related to you, and they’re doing it with good intentions so you feel almost bad asking them to stop. And then you forget to ask them to stop.
I adore conversation, but sometimes the strongest part of a conversation is when you accept that you need to be the listener and not the speaker all the time. Sometimes you simply can just say you agree, rather than reiterating what was already said.
Sometimes you can just re-share articles by female writers, fans, athletes when they discuss these topics.
Sometimes you hear one thing, and it isn’t as bad as the rest, but it sets you off.
And today, the impetus for this piece, was a moment during the Mets vs Nationals ESPN spring training broadcast where Tim Kurkjian sounded incredulous about the fact that the female reporter was “so young” and loved baseball, and felt compelled to ask her where that love came from.
Honestly, most of it wasn’t the words used, but the tone of voice. I remember the millions of times men have sounded surprised that I enjoyed sports, that I played baseball. That the impressive part of me sharing pitching videos is often that I’m a girl who’s doing it.
Don’t get me wrong, I take a lot of pride in those videos and the work I’ve put in. But there are still some men who still have that knee-jerk reaction to being amazed that women love baseball the same way they do.
This is to say that when Kurkjian asked where her love of baseball came from and noted her youth, it just rubbed me — and likely many others — the wrong way.
There’s no way there was any malicious intent, but it’s those types of things; it comes across as infantilizing when the easier, less awkward question would’ve just been the one they ask literally every baseball player, fan, or even anchor, “When did you fall in love with baseball?”.
People say words are just words, don’t take it to heart. The issue is, words are our main form of communication. I’ll say that until I’m blue in the face. It’s the way in which all humanity shares thoughts.
When we don’t hold words to their appropriate value, it isn’t that we’re sensitive, it’s that we are insensitive to others.
No one wants anyone to be afraid of speaking or writing. The ask is that we work to be more deliberate with our words. Asking that people consider what the words they’re saying actually mean, addressing the tone with which they are expressed.
No one shook it off when Mickey Callaway said, “A real man wouldn’t need to ask his wife’s permission,” when Mets star Jeff McNeil was weighing the merits of adopting a family pet from the North Shore Animal League during pregame warmups at Citi Field in 2019.
Fans of the sport were aware of the problematic nature, but the organization and the sport let it slide. Two years later, we’re learning that Mickey didn’t respect women at all, which came as no surprise to many fans, but it somehow shocked administrations across the league.
Only for those same administrations to be exposed as part of the problem, of having poor background checks, of having a lack of diversity in reference checks, in covering up all the ways he was shameful to women and baseball.
Maybe we’re at that loud moment.
Maybe we’re at this apex where baseball is forced to weed these people out even if they’re reluctant to do so. At every turn, we see one step forward and two steps back.
It isn’t enough to suspend a player for domestic violence. They should no longer be in the league.
It isn’t enough to fire people like Jared Porter and Mickey Callaway. They should lose the privilege of working in Major League Baseball entirely.
It’s exciting to see women with roles in Major League Baseball, but the fact that several teams didn’t have protections in place to prevent exactly these issues is because they were complacent in fostering the behavior if it meant winning.
It’s why domestic abusers are given “second chances”; these players throw hard, they hit well, they are defensive wizards.
It’s not about canceling. It’s about responsibility and accountability. It’s about listening to women rather than being the loudest ally in the room. Allies are great, you’re great, but things change when the individuals who are affected have their voices heard.
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One Small Step...
This is a great article and agree 100%. I've always said that change doesn't happen overnight but change does start with widespread awareness. So thank you for bringing more awareness to this issue. And hopefully I can be an ally without talking over those that need their voices heard.
To add my own 2 cents related to male voices talking over women in sports, I remember when Hannah Keyser asked Sandy Alderson if he consulted with any women prior to hiring Jared Porter and male reporters/analysts were saying how this was such a great question. Yes it's an important question, but in reality, it shouldn't have come as such a shock or surprise and I feel like that's part of the problem. The fact that men don't automatically think "we should consult with women in the baseball industry" is part of the problem. The fact that men were so caught off guard by Hannah's question is part of the problem. We need to change the way we think about these things.
Again great article and I hope your voice gets heard!