Summer is back for the boys. The girls of summer are still out. The Major League Baseball lockout had barely ended Thursday when New York City Mayor Eric Adams rained on its parade the following day. After applauding the ending of the labor dispute, the mayor made a pitch to women for playing in the majors. During Women’s History Month, no less.
“I’m so glad that the boys of summer are coming back,” Adams said at a press conference in the Bronx Friday before launching a gripe. “I hope in the next year we start seeing the boys and the girls of summer. It’s time to allow women to play professional baseball, as well. They are here, and I’m happy for them.”
Not a single woman has ever appeared in a Major League Baseball game (where is baseball’s version of Sarah Fuller or Danica Patrick, females who gained gratis opportunities to race Indy cars and play college football at the highest level, respectively, without having proven themselves worthy?).
A woman’s ability to hit, pitch or field has not been a factor in a player being selected for the roster.
In fact, the Colorado Silver Bullets women’s baseball team once took on the Class AA men’s all-stars … and lost 19-0. This team debuted in 1994 with the goal of providing “a nurturing environment for top women athletes to learn and play professional baseball against existing men’s teams within the ranks of minor league, semi-pro, college, and amateur baseball. Its aspiration was to inspire female athletes to play the game of baseball at all levels, from Little League through professional, and encourage all forms of organized baseball to accept women athletes as players.” The experiment ended in 1997.
Women would have to be absent from big-league diamonds, which would lead to token-ism and mean that men who are actually qualified for roster spots in the minor leagues will be kept out. This would be a terrible thing for major league teams, and the minor leagues would not allow such an absurd stunt.
Adams quickly changed the subject following his racist complaint about baseball. He said the fact that baseball will not lose its season to a labor dispute will benefit retailers in proximity to Yankee Stadium and the Mets’ Citi Field. “I saw Yankee Stadium when I was there the other day,” he said. People see that all those shops depend on baseball. There is an entire industry dependent upon baseball.
Mayor Adams compared millionaires on the baseball field with people living on lower incomes. He said it’s important that food shops will be able to profit off large crowds of fans coming by for games.
Would those consumers still be coming by in huge numbers if the Major Leagues diluted their product quality by focusing on gender equality and lowering the quality of the game? This is an important question.
It’s more likely that any such stunt would be done at the lower minor league levels. Or, in a manner like Fuller kicking the ball a few times for Vanderbilt’s football team in 2020, a woman could be given an opportunity to play for an inning in a meaningless game at the end of the MLB season.
Whatever. Women’s History Month also means Women’s History Pandering. Besides, there’s no crying in baseball.
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