I've really enjoyed reading Lairderg's articles on women's baseball. I also play on a women's team, the Detroit Danger, and I also play coed baseball as part of the Detroit Tigers fantasy camps and with many of its members in the summer. I, as many women baseball players have, grew up playing fast pitch softball... not out of desire, but out of lack of opportunity to play baseball. Baseball has always been my bat and ball game. I'd wanted to play it at least since I was 5 years old... that's as far back as I can remember wanting to play it, anyway.

 At my dad's slow pitch softball games back in the 1970's in suburbs of Grand Rapids, Michigan, I sat there and paid more attention to the boys who played baseball on neighboring baseball diamonds. I watched them, not because I was interested in watching boys play baseball, but because I wanted to play baseball, too. I knew, at that time, at the ripe age of 5 or 6, that girls weren't allowed to play baseball. I understood what was going on, but I didn't agree with it. The whole time I watched the boys' games going on, a little fire was ignited inside me... and it continued to burn and to get bigger the older I got.

Growing up, after that, in a rural area 1 hour north of Grand Rapids, I somehow knew that I'd be involved with baseball at some point in my life (strong sense of intuition). I also knew that someone would start cutting the paths for girls and women who love the game of baseball so they'd be given opportunities to play it. All I wanted to do at that time was to play baseball while growing up and to play it professionally.

 So, in 1998, after being told by my high school's baseball coach that girls don't play baseball, after finding out that organized women's baseball exists, and after being discouraged by the lack of organization and interest of the so-called organizers of a Colorado Silver Bullets "tryout", I founded the first-ever women's baseball team in Southeast Michigan... the same team that I play on. Upon finding out that there were women's baseball leagues and teams around the country, I knew I had to make one of three choices: 1) to play baseball on a team in another area, 2) to found my own team, 3) or to give up on playing baseball altogether. Well, you can figure out which choice I made.

 So, that all brings me to the point of this post. Most of the women playing baseball currently have faced very similar experiences while trying to play the game of baseball. A small handful have been fortunate enough to have not faced any sexism and/or harassment for trying to play, and some of them have played baseball on their high school teams, and a few have played in college. The numbers of girls playing baseball in high school are increasing everyday now. Still, women are shunned from playing the sport at most levels, especially in youth organizations, in high school, and in college. And don't even think about playing MLB baseball if you're a female. A 1952 ban on women playing in the league still exists to this day. I believe there's also a ban on women playing MLB-affiliated minor league ball.

While a lot of people throught the U.S. and around the world are working on building girls' and women's baseball by creating opportunities, the story is the same... it's only the details that may differ. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a lesser human being, like a second-class person in many things... and especially in baseball.

We will change this story completely someday, however!