America’s Baseball Underground

Abstract

America’s national pastime has long been associated with masculinity and more recently has acknowledged its problems with racial exclusivity. Yet from the time it was professionalized in the 19th century to the aftermath of the Little League Lawsuits of 1973, baseball has excluded girls and women, regarding itself as “too strenuous” or “too violent”, in spite of American girls’ and women’s post-Title IX participation in other more violent contact sports. The contrived exclusion of girls and women ignores their long-abiding affection for and participation in baseball from the early 19th century onward. What explains sequestering baseball for boys only? What are the civic implications of the insistence on masculine exclusivity for the game associated with American national identity?

Bonding and Abandoning

“…As women increasingly flock to fantasy sports (June 2015 FSTA data suggest 34 percent of fantasy sports players are now women), more studies on the impact of fantasy sports on relationships are warranted. Previous work suggests as women gain power, men turn to sports to shore up masculinity and male supremacy (Messner 1987; Ring 2009). As such, one might expect that as women make up a larger percentage of fantasy sports players and make strides in public and work life, men might attempt to restrict women’s entrance into their male leagues, carve out certain fantasy sports as male domain, or exclude women in other ways from intruding on male bonding.…”

Lizzie, Mamie, & Mo’ne

“…We begin, however, with Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (Schmidt, 2004), a novel that has the potential to engage students in critical conversations about timely aspects of American history while making connections to sports and sports culture, including the history of women in baseball. It is, in fact, through baseball that the book's characters first begin to interact and learn valuable lessons about racial, social, and political inequities and discrimination, which seems fitting since baseball is considered a sport that has historically and purposefully enforced race, class, and gender hierarchies (Ring, 2009). Through this article, we invite the reader to explore issues of racism, classism, and sexism in baseball by learning more about the intersectional experiences of Lizzie Bright Griffin, Mamie Johnson, and Mo'ne Davis.…”

“…Study and Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature VOLUME 4(2) 2020 Years later, from the 1890s to the 1930s, women began playing baseball throughout the United States despite objections from some of the most powerful men of the era, including Albert G. Spalding, a professional baseball organizer and founder of a prominent sporting goods company, who is credited with establishing the myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball to "save the sport from the ignominy of being associated with anything English" (Ring, 2009, p. 375). Spalding felt baseball was too strenuous for women but welcomed them as fans, something he considered "a passive activity that didn't threaten the sexual order" (Berlage, 1994, p. 5), despite the fact that the earliest accounts of English immigrants playing baseball did not involve segregation by sex (Ring, 2009). The first traveling baseball teams to include women became known as barnstorming Bloomer Girls (Gregorich, 1993).…”

“…Generations of young girls, both Black and White, have never had a chance to play organized baseball, in large part due to the politics of youth baseball. In 1939, Little League Baseball was established for eight-to twelve-year old boys to promote citizenship, sportsmanship, and manhood (Ring, 2009;Schultz, 2018). In a ruling known as The Tubby Rule, named after 13-year old Kay Johnston who played baseball under the male alias Tubby Johnston, Little League Baseball officially banned girls from participating in 1950.…”

Not America’s Game: The Globalization and Post-Westernization of Women’s Baseball

“…Girls successfully sued for the right to play Little League baseball in 1973, therefore removing legal barriers to their participation, but persistent cultural beliefs that link baseball to masculinity continue to serve as obstacles to women’s equal involvement in the game. Ring (2009a) argues that girls and women have been “pushed off baseball diamonds as the sport was associated with American identity” (p. 387), suggesting that the nationalistic undertones of baseball demand that the sport retain its “masculine purity” (p. 387) and eschew any association with femininity. Such is the culture of contemporary baseball in the United States, even though thousands of girls play Little League baseball, increasing numbers of girls are playing in high school, and the women’s national team has participated in every Women’s Baseball World Cup since 2004.…”