It is time for women to stop playing softball

[jmowreader]

I've seen women play softball. They're plenty athletic enough to play baseball.

[Nye Bevan]

1. Plenty of men play softball too (nt)

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Yes they do.

My brother played in a softball league for years until he blew out his knee. All the guys really loved it.

[SheilaT]

2. They can play ultimate frisbee.

Now THERE'S a sport for you.

[ismnotwasm]

3. ? Women play baseball

And have for many moons



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_baseball

[WinkyDink]

4. Um...It's a different game. Should men stop with NASCAR because there's F1? (Well, yes, but.)

[jmowreader]

10. You can run F1 and NASCAR on the same track

You can't play baseball on a softball field or vice versa - the baselines are 30 feet shorter on a softball diamond, there's no pitcher's mound and the fences are (usually) a bit closer in.

Easy example: the college right across the street from my house. (Literally. I get to watch all the games for free by looking out my window.) They used to own a baseball diamond and a softball diamond. The college needed the land one of the two diamonds was using for their medical-sciences building, so they got rid of the baseball diamond...which also means the North Idaho College baseball program died, and they had a good one.

The school has men's and women's basketball on the same court, men's and women's golf on the same courses and men's and women's soccer on the same field, so you can use one field for both men's and women's sports IF the two sports use the same field design. If women played baseball - and they would do well in it - it would do two things: return baseball to NIC, and allow schools who have both sports to turn the softball field into something else - an academic building, maybe?

[DanTex]

12. Actually, you can't. The tracks are completely different.

[MineralMan]

14. Not even.

Here's why:

Formula 1 Track:



Nascar Track:

[Go Vols]

20. Another Nascar track

[Baclava]

22. Don't forget Sonoma

[jmowreader]

23. Or Road America, where Nationwide runs

They also used to run Nationwide Series races in Mexico and Canada, and both those tracks were road courses. They did an exhibition race in Japan on a road course.

What would be REALLY cool...NASCAR runs two races a year at Daytona, and Daytona has a road course in the infield. They should run the Daytona 500 on the oval and the Firecracker 400 (that damn race changes names frequently due to sponsorship) on the road course.

[A HERETIC I AM]

27. That used to run F1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watkins_Glen_International#United_States_Grand_Prix

[Go Vols]

28. :)

why, yes it did host such races.

[Quantess]

5. I don't want to play either one.

[B Calm]

6. as in A League Of Their Own?

[Warpy]

26. The only time I saw softball was in sexist gym courses in junior high

Girls who were decent pitchers in baseball sucked because the damned things were too big to hold comfortably.

They weren't soft, either.

School PE teachers need to grow the hell up and get rid of softball. I agree with that completely.

[Dash87]

7. It's time for people to stop wearing sandals with socks.

[laundry_queen]

8. I know what you are saying

It's like how ringette became the substitute for girl's hockey when I was a kid. I wanted to play hockey SO bad, but instead the town set up ringette for the girls. My mom registered me even though I didn't want ringette, I wanted hockey! It was cancelled because of lack of participation, and all the girls I knew that wanted to play hockey ended up playing on boys teams (which my parents wouldn't allow for me).

Thankfully now there's hockey for women all over Canada (and the US). It's about time. There's ringette too, but at least now girls can choose. I'm guessing even though softball is its own game, that in times past it was set up for girls. It is time to end the divide in sports, imo.

[Bay Boy]

11. I have never heard of ringette...

...any link to explain?

[laundry_queen]

13. This should be good enough

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringette

http://www.ringette.ca/

I don't know much about it to be honest...I never did play it.

[hfojvt]

17. I thought that divide was ended a long time ago

my little brother, when he was 12 in 1977 had girls playing on his little league team.

So that makes me wonder what happened. Did they run into some troubles and thus quit doing it? Did it fall out of fashion (sorta like baseball altogether? How many kids play baseball these days? How many did when I was a kid?) Or did it just fall out of fashion for girls?

[laundry_queen]

18. Well, I was a kid in the 80's

and there was a big divide then. Zero girls played baseball. Some played hockey, but not baseball at all. There wasn't even softball in my area. I was lucky in that my dad was a baseball coach so I practiced with my brother's team off and on. As soon as I was a teen I played adults mixed slo-pitch.

My daughter played baseball a couple of years ago, and now it's all mixed teams. There are tons of girls playing baseball where I am. And baseball is more popular here than ever (I'm in Canada) I was surprised at the amount of teams for my daughter's age group. So baseball, at least around here, doesn't really have much of a divide anymore. Hockey is very mixed here too, at least at the younger ages. But it definitely wasn't like that in the 80's.

[JoePhilly]

15. That's some serious nonsense.

[Waiting For Everyman]

16. I agree.

I was one of those who was extremely good at baseball, but was forced into softball instead. I found it unbearably frustrating. I played on the winning team within my state, and then the state's all-star championship team in the 1960's (and we won that too, I forget which state we played though).

I loved the game but couldn't stand softball. It was like throwing a wheel of cheese, especially difficult as I have smaller hands than most.

[badtoworse]

19. Maybe in their own league, but I just don't see them competing with men.

Played in a mixed softball league - it was a lot of fun.

[liberal_at_heart]

24. my daughter played baseball when she was little. When she hit the age where she would be

forced to change to softball she quit. She didn't want to play softball. She wanted to play baseball. I told her we could fight it, but she was little at the time. When we told her what all it would take to fight it she decided she didn't want to. She's older now and is much more of fighter now. If she was interested in playing baseball now I have now doubt she would fight for her right to play baseball.

[cyberswede]

25. What's wrong with softball?

When athletes play softball, it's plenty athletic.