Girl playing High School Baseball

Thumbs through my Man-Rules rule book.....

I can't seem to find any rules against it. But if she can throw the pill like the girl on Bad News Bears I say let her play.......

That's one of those things that have always made me scratch my head and go "hmmmmmm". We've had two or three girls try out for our high school team over the years - one actually made the freshman team, and then switched to softball after that first year. But I've never been able to figure out why girls should be allowed to tryout for baseball, but boys are not allowed to tryout for softball? Anybody?

By high school, girls should be in their own league. Not every sport has to be coed. Part of the team dynamics is the dugout and the locker room.

Why not have a girls high school baseball team instead. Makes more sense than coed.

If a girl is good enough to make the team, she ought to be able to play. As for boys on the softball team, I cannot imagine why one would want to.

Techinically they cannot try out for the boys team IF the school offers a complimentary sport in the same season - ie softball. But what you find is that NOBODY is going to try and stop a girl from trying out if she wants to no matter what. The negative publicity just isn't worth it.

Also, by law guys cannot try out for girls sports if it means that a girl will be cut to take a guy. A guy cannot replace a girl on a team roster because it limits the number of opportunities a girl has in high school athletics. Now we all have heard / read / seen stories of guys who sued to be on girls teams. Not real sure how they get around the law - probably the girls team didn't have cuts so that opens the doors for them. Honestly I don't know.

This is how it was explained to me by an expert Title IX committee that came to my old school several years ago to see if we were compliant with Title IX. The biggest thing they found we violated was our girl teams were called Lady Tigers instead of Tigers.

I can't imagine why a girl would want to try-out for baseball. They need to stick to softball. I would have never let a girl make my team, no matter how good she would be. I would at least give her the courtesy of pointing her in the direction of the softball field. If boys can't play on girl teams, then girls can't play on boy teams, at least under my watch.

There is a girl on a HS baseball team in our league. She is on the V squad, but I have not seen her play yet. I think she had some injury last season, but....

Here would be my issue: if she wanted to play a sport in college, could she play baseball, or would she have to switch to softball, and would she have the ability to switch if she had to, considering the differences in the sports.

Ila Borders

Would never happen on my watch at the HS age level !!!!

If I were a HS coach I would quit before it happened

If a girl makes your HS school team what does that say about the strength of your HS baseball team? Point her to the softball coach, she would really be able to help them out.

A couple years ago a girl played on my son's HS football team. There are no cuts in football, so as long as she could hang for the practices, the program had to allow it.

Which they did with good cheer. But it was a farce. It bothered my son, because he saw she was just going through the motions to be able to say she spent a year on a varsity football team. If she would have actually have given it her all, he would have been OK with it.

The program is one of the state's elite. Having a girl on the team hardly damaged the program. But she didn't belong on the field.

Such are the joys of Title IX.

dawg
It has nothing to do with team strength---they girls softball teams for a purpose not to mention your son cannot go out for the softball team but your daughter can go out for the baseball team

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From the Way Back Machine.

I've just never gotten why fairness, in terms of high school sports, only goes one way. Little League had some issues a number of years ago with boys playing on girl's softball teams and basically dominating (this was at the 17-18 year old level). They quickly put a stop to that. Obviously that's what would happen in almost every case, because the BEST boys are, by virtue of being bigger and stronger, going to be better than MOST girls - not all, just most. So call it "girl's" softball but let boys tryout and you'd soon have a male dominated sport.

In our high school, we had girls taking spots of boys who they were not better than - they were perhaps equal, but not better. And they were definitely near the bottom of the list. So the girls would tryout, nobody wanted to cut them because it would just cause too much hassle, so a boy who was at that same level would end up off the team. In every case the girls were done after one year (in fact, only one out of four lasted the whole year) but those boys never came back. Kind of a case of being humiliated to the point of no return. (You might say they didn't really belong on a high school team if they couldn't beat out a girl, but who knows what might have happened had they been given a chance.)

We also had a girl on our boy's wrestling team - can't say no, because there IS no girl's wrestling team. She won every match by forfeit because no one would wrestle her. She also chased a few boys off her own team who refused to practice against her.

We have girl's bowling, gymnastics, field hockey and dance teams. No boys allowed. (I know, because my son asked to be allowed to tryout for field hockey - he didn't like s-o-c-c-e-r and thought it would help him get in shape - and was told no way.) So why does fair only go one way?

And P.S. I do have daughters as well, so I'm definitely not anti-girl!

Dawg: funny you should say this. The HS team on which this girl plays is an excellent program - nearly always a league champion contender. She also played little league, if that means anything. Again, I have not ever seen her play, and she was rostered V last year for her first year, as a Jr.

So, don't know her plan of attack, I just think it is an interesting dilemma for a team, coach, program, school, etc.

If it were my daughter, she would be playing softball, not baseball.

There is no way I let my daughter play HS baseball (she wouldn't want to anyway).

It's not fair to her, potential teammates or the softball team. Softball is a different game and you need to learn how to play it, but playing it.

Besides, there are more women getting full college scholarships in softball than men getting full college scholarhips in baseball.

Why would I want to limit her opportunities?

My younger son graduated from HS with a girl who played varsity football her senior year. She was barely 5'0" tall, approx. 100 lbs, very wiry and strong, and became the starting kicker.

When she first went out for the football team, some of the players (my son did not play football) were upset and did not want a girl on the team. Eventually they accepted her because she was the best kicker on the team, and they became extra protective of her.

If I had a daughter I would not have wanted her to play football, because of the amount of contact! And I'm not sure it was fair to the other players to feel such a need to protect their kicker. But it turned out okay I guess, with no significant injuries because of her playing.

Julie

All kickers need extra protection regardless of their gender......I'm just kidding. I'm an ex lineman so I get to make fun of them.

Guys (and gals) let's face it - one day in the future girls will be just as good as guys in MANY sports. Think about it like this - in the 1960's would anyone think there would be a professional league for female basketball players or ESPN giving major coverage to college basketball or softball? Where women are at in sports right now was unthinkable just 40 some years ago.

In the 1980's women athletes were considered a novelty and the talent pool was very shallow. In the 20 some years since then we now have women who can dunk a basketball, throw a softball almost as hard as men do, hit a golfball as far as men and other things. The talent pool is getting deeper.

Imagine where we will be in another 20 to 40 years. While there may only be a handful of women who can dunk now it might be much more common by then. Women athletes are catching up to men athletes.

Now that being said would I let a girl on my team.....probably not but if that girl who can play comes along I would be a fool to pass up on her if she can help my team.

Men and women are truly not equal and there are MANY differences between the two. It's comparing apples to oranges. But that doesn't mean women should be held back by any means. So please don't think I believe that women are inferior because they are not - they just ain't men and men ain't women. And there are some women who can kick my butt and throw a baseball harder than I can.

I think there may be underlying reasons a parent would encourage their "female" to go out for the "male" baseball team. I have yet to see a female do much but distract from the boys game and waste the scouts and coaches time. I've witnessed a "female" in the past few months try to compete and their is no comparison. IMHO.

B.D., in Doonesbury, handled this one well many years ago. The question was posed in the huddle as to whether women should be allowed to play football. His answer:

"I think women should be allowed to play football when it can be reliably determined that he** has frozen over. After that, it's fine with me."

There are girls that will be able to compete at some level of baseball, but for pure strength reasons, it will be the extreme exception and not the rule. Why create unnecessary controversy?

vincennes rivet lost in the class a state finals this year. their starting left fielder was the little sister of one of the players. at the beginning of the season they didn't have enough players to field a team. if she didn't play then 10 other guys (they picked up a few) wouldn't be able to call themselves state runner-up.

http://www.indy.com/posts/vinc...aseball-state-finals

if a girl can compete, then she should be allowed to. if she earns a spot, she should play. hopefully everyone.....the player, the parents, the administration, the coaches, etc. are doing what they do for the right reasons.

we see a few female kickers in indiana (recruited from s****r)in football.

Luke Hochevar, former #1 draft pick overall by KC played against a couple of girls during his high school career. He played his high school ball in a very small district and a couple of “farm county” schools couldn’t field a full team of boys. So for those teams it was either forfeit or play girls.

I know the thread is about high school varsity, but I prefer to play baseball and in times where I can't find a women's baseball team or league gotta find some guys to play with. Seems there's FAR MORE interest to play sports amongst guys than girls. I had this same problem as a teenager playing street hockey. I was the only girl in probably our whole city at the time who played street hockey.

I wish there were more females who are interested in playing baseball and other traditionally male sports. Cause I understand that its better for guys to bond as a team better without a female distracting even if she just wants to play ball.

Mythreesons, LL apparently still has some issues. In spite of the LL softball world series now broadcast on ESPN (Title 9 for TV networks?)
They announced tonight during the broadcast there were two boy's teams with a female player.
I just have to wonder, and admittedly have no daughter of my own, if you have an legitimate opportunity to play softball with the same benefits, what are you really trying to prove by forcing the issue and playing baseball?

ESPN doesn't fall under Title IX because it doesn't receive federal funding. Therefore it could just show all guys sports and nobody could do anything to them (except not watch them).

Prefer to play baseball over softball maybe? And no girls baseball team?

I don't think of baseball and softball as being the same game. They may have started from the same place - but have evolved to being very different in my opinion.

I loved playing baseball growing up - and now I am too old to play it competitively, I've tried softball and find it a very poor substitute. So I don't play anymore.

I can certainly see why a woman/girl might feel the same way about softball vs baseball and have no problem with girls playing on the baseball team.

Do I think that the average girl can compete with the average boy in baseball? No. But I can see how an exceptional girl could add value to a HS baseball team and see no reason why they shouldn't have that opportunity.

I should say that I went to a California high school in the late 70s and early 80s that had a number of girls who played traditional boys sports.

My class' prom queen was also on our boys water polo team - and made all league as one of the leading scorers on a league champion team. She ended up as a college swimmer who just missed the olympic trials. A decade or two later, they added a girls water polo team to the school - but not before a number of other girls swam with the boys.

A few years behind me, a girl was one of the starting pitchers on the baseball team - which also won league. She was 5' 10 and I remember her throwing probably mid 80s.

There is a girl playing baseball in Northern VA for Stuart H.S. She played LL and I coached her in Babe Ruth. Up until now she has not been interested in softball. She has played with a lot of her teammates coming up so team dynamics are not an issue.
Stuart is a weak program with bad baseball demographics so she does OK - pitching and 1B. Not much of a hitter. HS rules do not prohibit girls in baseball, or wrestling for that matter.
Hey, if they can cut it, let em play.