On Baseball and Boyfriends

there’s no intro, just jumps right in. I miss something?

I’m weighing in on the whole ‘Baseball Boyfriend’ concept. It’s moronic.

I could get on my soapbox and list all the reasons I think it’s moronic but what’s the point? Any intelligent person has probably come to the same conclusions I did and besides, don’t think I could improve on what Matt has stated.

Suffice it to say that not only are they targeting women because they think we need the help, they’re targeting young women. Being married for 28 years has taken me out of the search for a ‘boyfriend’ now for over 30 years. Jeeze, not only do they think I can’t hold my own in the arena of baseball knowledge with the guys, I am apparently completely invisible as an older female fan.

I’ve long ago gave up the ghost on being offended in the battle of the sexes.
I looked at this and pretty much just LOL.

I’d like to weigh in and say that I genuinely appreciated this piece, Matthew. For one thing, it didn’t fall into the trap of “mansplaining” anything, since it gave us your point of view as a son of and a father of female baseball fans rather than some abstract outrage expressed on others’ behalf. I’m not a parent, but I found myself really feeling for my friends with kids (boys and girls) who have to navigate a world that constantly wants to tell their kids what is and isn’t appropriate behavior based on gender. It is stupid. I have a lot of kids in my family and among my friends and I am always amazed at how expansive kids’ curiosities and interests are. Why anyone would want to crush those curiosities is beyond me.

I had the good fortune of being raised by parents who never really told me that it was inappropriate for me to like baseball, but one of my best female friends had her fanhood crushed as a kid by being told by her baseball-fan dad to behave in a more lady-like fashion and quit watching so much baseball. She was told that baseball is boys’ fun, and that she should find something more appropriate to do with her time. She’s come back around to be a casual Mets fan in recent years, but I am certain that the early experience quashed her enthusiasm for the game in a lasting way.

It’s not just sports, of course. When my mom suggested that I play the flute, I told her that I wanted to play the guitar and she was cool with that too. When one of my uncles told me that it was unlady-like to read so many books and that no boys would ever like me if I was “too smart,” my father took me aside and told me not to listen to him. (It turned out that my uncle was wrong anyway; guess he is just the sort of dude who feels insecure around intelligent women.) My father is actually a pretty traditional guy, but I was an only child and I think he wanted me to succeed so much that it overrode some of his preconceptions about what little girls can and can’t do. But I’m really lucky. Guys, just ask your female friends, wives, sisters, girlfriends, whatever — I bet each of us have countless stories like this, where we were made to feel dumb or wrong or bad because we behaved a certain way. I bet you have stories like this too, where you were told to “act like men” and stop, I dunno, wanting to learn how to cook or watching some particular TV show or whatever the fuck.

Like MF4D, I tend to tune out stupid BS like “baseball boyfriends” when it comes to my fandom of baseball, because I’ve simply gotten used to the fact that some men simply don’t think women are capable of thinking critically or analytically about baseball. I’m sad to say that the “progressive” SABR community is often just as bad in this regard, and often even more condescending. (Which is why I’m doubly appreciative of this piece, Matthew.)

The sexism of some (though obviously not all) baseball fans - and things like BBBF and the stupid MLB -fan mancave doesn’t really phase me at this point. That’s the thing about being a woman — you get pretty used to casual sexism from an early age. It makes all of us better at spotting non-asshole guys and also a lot better at fighting battles that are worth fighting.

This baseball boyfriends thing is utterly idiotic. It made me LOL and shake my head at the same time. I feel sorry for any men (or women) who believe — as the creators of this website seem to — that the only way to get women interested in something is to brutally condescend to us, insult our intelligence, tell us we have to behave like ditzes just to get by, etc. I can see why a father of a young girl would be appalled. As for me, I just ignore it and move on. Trust me Matthew, if your little girl has supportive parents then she’ll learn not to let the petty insecurities of the misogynist creeps of the world bother her, and she’ll be more apt to stand up for herself when the situation gets beyond just dealing with some jerks.

(Besides, I’ve learned that the world really doesn’t have to be so either/or black/white. I mean, why not grow up to be a pretty pretty princess AND a shutdown closer?)

way too many women on this thread

but it always bothered me that women have no option of playing baseball at any college in the U.S. even after Title Ix. They have this separate sport of softball which is really different than baseball. Look at the popularity of the WNBA and the U.S. women soccer team. Won’t a women baseball team be as popular?

she’s more levelheaded than me. which is great cause some one has to be the opposite of a pissy/emotional/ psycho cause Dubs just k’ for the 15th time in a week. she does not follow the mets cause some dude is hot.

she’s a fan cause her grandpa loved them and she loved the time they had at Shea. She loves them. I love her for it among other things.

Even though the girl was their best baseball player, she couldn’t play in the high school baseball team or Koshien (the high school baseball tournament, which is a BIG DEAL in Japan).

In one of the flashbacks, it shows the father telling the girl (as a kid) that she could do anything. Then she asks something like if she could keep playing baseball and participate in the Koshien, and the father encourages her. Though when she grows up and a friend reveals that woman can’t play in the high school teams, her world crashes, she gets pissed at her father for lying and gives up baseball. Only later she resumes playing, to help her friend. I’ll try to find the exact passage, since it’s been a while since I watched it.