I should have known this when I was playing Sunday, but then I could have been too depressed to play. However, last Thursday, Aug. 13, the Olympic committee chose two games to add to the 2016 Olympics—tada—golf and rugby. NOT baseball, or more important to me, women’s baseball. Now I’m really steamed. The next time women have a chance of playing baseball (or even softball, for that matter) in the Olympics is 2020. Since there are very few existing venues for women’s baseball (or softball) on a stage with that kind of worldwide audience, I think the decision just emphasizes an attitude to reduce women’s sports to “babes” running around in short-shorts, bikini tops, and thongs, whose athletic skills are secondary to their abilities to charm and titillate an audience between the “real” men’s games.

Another problem is the encouragement factor. Many young women and girls have started to play baseball with the hope that they will be taken seriously in the most prestigious international competition sometime before they are over their prime athletic years. The current young female high school pitchers who are throwing as well as their peers may not be so dedicated—or have the advantage, as their male counterparts do, of honing their skills in a professional league—when 2020 rolls around. I would like to think, Olympics or not, some of these young women can be scouted and possibly signed to minor league and maybe major league contracts. But what if they are not? Because of this decision, will younger girls hope for a chance in 2020 and follow the current female baseball trailblazers? Did young girls and women follow Ila Borders, who pitched for independent minor league teams in the 1990s? Or did she feel as if she was standing out there alone with no successor on the horizon while some of her male counterparts took the proper “potions” to excel in the bigs?

I understand the Olympic committee reticence to reinstate men’s baseball because of the continued “doping” scandals or rumors of scandals, but why didn’t they get rid of track and field or cycling or swimming or other sports where “doping” was a problem? Additionally, because of what the MEN did in professional baseball, the women, whether they are playing softball or baseball, are being punished for something they did not do. I always thought the Olympic ideals were about reaching for the highest standards and evening the playing field for all. It appears, for women’s baseball, that’s just a dream.

***

I just saw this online at the New York Times site yesterday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/us/16women.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1250611504-hea1M7K+mhuit/pqIua8EA

Check it out—and answer these questions for me: women are fighting for our country—with, and against, men, so why can’t women play baseball on the same fields as men? Is there really a “frailty factor,” or is that a lot of hot air? Hmmm?

***

I’m still aching from Sunday, but that was mostly from a silly accident. I was sitting behind a bench with protruding braces. When I hurried out to greet the incoming fielders after the top of the first inning, I tripped over one of those braces and fell to the dirt, hurting my right knee and scraping my left arm and right hand. Damn, what a klutz! Of course, if I don’t get a least one bruise per game or practice, I’m not trying hard enough, so I told everyone who asked that I was fine. “I’m just a tough old bitch,” I said—at least I was that day. Since, though, I am FEELING it. Anyway, I did get a fielding assignment for two innings of the seven-inning game and one at bat (struck out after getting a 3-2 count, yuck!). However, the Philadelphia Women’s Baseball League defeated the MSBL 55 and over team, 11-5. We “flashed some leather,” had good pitching, ran the bases well, and “hit the ball where they ain’t” in the victory.  Coach Dean said we acted much more like a team than in the past. I know I felt less like a fifth wheel than I normally do. I have no problem cheering from behind the wire fence that shields our dugout, and I’m trying to be a good teammate, no matter whether I play or not.