The Next Market Inefficiencies: Women In Baseball
Consider Alex Remington’s excellent pieces on Kim Ng and Justine Siegal and Marisa Ingemi and Kate Sargeant my preamble.
On April 2, 1931, a 17-year-old girl struck out two of the greatest hitters in baseball history. Jackie Mitchell struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig swinging and then walked Tony Lazzeri. Shortly thereafter, baseball’s then-commissioner and all-around inflexible gentleman, Kenesaw Landis, disallowed Mitchell’s contract, ending her tenure with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts.
By all accounts, Mitchell threw one pitch throughout her career — a “dropball” or sinker, reportedly taught to her by Hall-of-Famer Dazzy Vance. Despite her incredibly young age, she located the pitch effectively and worked as a middle-reliever during her career (which included chiefly independent league and barnstorming appearances following her departure from MiLB).
Babe Ruth, physiologist extraordinaire, remarked after the game:
I don’t know what’s going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball. Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day.
In all fairness, Ruth didn’t have the advantage of watching Venus Williams play tennis. If I were to approach Ms. Williams and suggest she lacked the endurance to consistently play professional sports, I’m fairly sure she could — and would — slice me into little cubes with her tennis racket.
I am here to posit an addition to Remington’s theses: Women should not only be allowed to participate in baseball, they should be encouraged to do so.
Allow me to anticipate some of the obvious and historical protests: Yes, men and women do indeed have different physiologies. I don’t forecast a female Randy Johnson anytime soon. I also don’t expect a male Randy Johnson anytime soon, either. High-heat lefties with long careers come only every couple of decades. Still, very few men, much less women, are capable of throwing destructive, mitt-melting fastballs. At the same time, though, Major League Baseball has its fair portion with successful, soft-tossing pitchers and shorter, less-muscle-bound fielders.
Consider J.P. Howell, the Tampa Bay Rays reliever who throws a Bugs Bunny fastball at 85 mph. That’s a great speed for my semi-pro league, but in the majors, we should anticipate he — and Jamie Moyer (81 mph) — would have short, laughable and unpleasant careers.
Yes, as any good high school coach will tell you: Pitching is not about speed, it’s about location and movement. Consider Eri Yoshida:
Eri’s time with the Chico Outlaws didn’t last long. In the Arizona Summer League leading up to her contract with the Outlaws, Ms. Yoshida pitched 16.1 innings of 3.62 FIP baseball. But when the season began, she became a walk machine and allowed 21 walks in eight starts. The results were a less-than-impressive 7.37 FIP.
So how does an 18-year-old, independent league BB-bot help women get into baseball? Well, first of all, let us put Yoshida in proper context:
1. She was nine years younger than the league.
2. She started only eight games.
3. The Golden Baseball League (now the North American League) is one of the top tiers of independent baseball.
More importantly, Yoshida gives us an excellent picture of baseball’s future: She didn’t set out to imitate Randy Johnson. Instead, she took lessons (literally) from Tim Wakefield. She developed a knuckleball and a sidearm delivery. Her 5-foot-one frame necessitated creativity; it didn’t disallow her to participate.
Eri is not the first woman to play baseball, nor is she the only woman playing right now. She is, though, the greatest middle finger in the face of Ruth’s misogynist assumptions. (Perhaps The Babe thought women couldn’t ingest enough beer and hot dogs to succeed?)
As I noted in previous parts of this series, the average MLB team is happy — nay, eager! — to find a 2 WAR player. Teams employ hundreds of minor leaguers with the hope that a few of them will become a Michael Cuddyer or a Jhonny Peralta. I am fairly certain the female Luis Castillo or Paul Maholm is already playing softball.
Women in baseball will be among the next great inefficiencies. Why? Because the first wave of female athletes to make it to the majors will be taken in the later rounds of the draft. And that’s exactly the reason why women haven’t gotten a chance at the big-league level — yet: Too few men take them seriously.
***
(For those interested, Eri Yoshida recently signed with the Na Koa Ikaika Maui, Chico’s divisional rivals. She will be making her first start for them this Saturday, I think.)
NOPE
Fuck yea!
Serena Williams got destroyed by a male player ranked over 300, and the guy said he went easy on her…
Just sayin’
Serena plays a power game, though, which probably wouldn’t translate to the men’s game. A female player whose game is premised on finesse or guile would probably make more sense to try taking on the men. (Let’s not forget that Billie Jean King beat Bobbie Riggs, too.)
Serena is currently ranked 175 http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/07/2302862/navratilova-dont-count-out-serena.html.
Which can indicate a lot of things – rankings are often dubious at best, all sorts of temporary factors can affect rankings, Serena wasn’t ranked #1 even before her rankings plunged,etc. Besides, just like with any sport, there’s a lot of variability. How big is the sample size of Serena VS that other guy?
* * *
We all know that from time to time players crop up that completely dominate their peers – the Babe Ruths, Michael Jordans, etc. I find it hard to believe that a woman who is Babe Ruth when compared to other women wouldn’t even be good enough to make an MLB roster.
Rigby was like 60 and Billie Jean King was the best women’s tennis player in the world.
Agreed, but saying that makes me a bad guy and not a realist.
I will leave open the possiblity there could be a knuckleballer, but even then it is highly unlikely.
I saw a HS age girl throw an overhand pitch clocked at 91-92 mph multiple times on a radar gun to win the female part of a pitching contest at Shea stadium in the early 80s. She was fairly tall over 6 foot.
Now imagine that same girl if she had actually played baseball during HS at a competitive level (I am assuming she didn’t), then went to rookie ball. With all that good coaching then I could see her possibly developing into a quality MLB pitcher.
There are scores of males who throw 91-92 that don’t pan out, so one woman actually making the majors and being successful is such a low possibility.
“I saw a HS age girl throw an overhand pitch clocked at 91-92 mph multiple times on a radar gun to win the female part of a pitching contest at Shea stadium in the early 80s. She was fairly tall over 6 foot.”
And how many guys in the US can do that? 5 Million?
Thats the whole point here, yes, there are a handful of women who would have the physical attributes to do it, but there are millions of men who do.
But the main point is, there are millions of women playing sports in the US, and if even only a small percentage of those women were directed toward baseball, we’re still talking about big numbers. The chance that person A makes the majors is slim. The chance that ONE OF a million people makes the majors is high.
With overwhelming population numbers, the chance that one is freakishly different enough (in a good way) to make it goes up significantly.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Female-baseball-pitcher-tossing-heat-turning-he?urn=highschool-wp724
That’s a girl?
Excellent find! Thanks for sharing!
This article is about woman in baseball. Not people of questionable gender. If I were stuck in a room with that and Frankenstein, I’d move closer to Frankenstein.
frankenstein was a man, so that just makes you kinda gay, more than anything
Never thought I would see someone openly admit to being a Gay Necrophiliac in my lifetime! Thanks I can cross that off my bucket list. Oh wait, never mind about that last line.
And being gay is bad in this scenario?
Frankenstein as in Dr. Frankenstein… Remember folks, what you’re talking about is Frankenstein’s monster.
Chelsea baker
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5386830
I don’t see any reason a few exceptional female players couldn’t make their way into the majors were there not such cultural predisposition against it. I’m skeptical we’d ever see a legitimate female power pitcher or power hitter, but there have been plenty of players through the game’s history and today who perform at a major league level without those tools.
I think we’d be most likely to see women as middle infielders, because of the physical tools involved and the lower offensive expectations.
I think it’s interesting that all of the prominent examples we have of female baseballers are pitchers (Eri Yoshida, Marti Sementelli, Ghazaleh Sailors, Sandy Almon).
Jackie Mitchell too.
that is probably because everyone thinks woman would make better pitchers. I would bet that had the William’s sisters been given every available opportunity to play baseball at a high level as kids, and loved it, then they just might be able to hit 20-25 home runs in MLB.
Serena, maybe (and not 20, but at least a little power). Venus, notsomuch. Serena’s a tank, Venus is a fairly normal in terms of build.
“I would bet that had the William’s sisters been given every available opportunity to play baseball at a high level as kids, and loved it, then they just might be able to hit 20-25 home runs in MLB.
”
And I would absolutely disagree. Every reference I can find for Serena Williams is that shes 5’9, 155lbs. Thats big for a lady, but its tiny for a baseball player. If anything, she’d be the .250/.300/.300 type hitter.
There’s a reason the women in the olympics put up poorer results in the easy to measure sports (track & field, etc) than high school boys.
I just find it hard to see other than a publicity stunt. First off, baseball is one of the toughest sports to actually make the majors considering the amount of levels they need to succeed to make the majors. Second off, unless they are a knukleballer I find it very tough to see what would give them a distinct advantage. I am sure plenty of women could go out and throw it 85 mph an hour with decent control which is quite impressive. However, guys like this are a dime a dozen throughout the minors and indy ball and have probably have a more muscular build. I just find it nearly impossible for a women to make it to the MLB let alone AA or AAA again as a legit player for at least the next fifty years.
Mid-80s with very good control could get you a decently productive career as a LOOGL, I would think. I think it’s really hard to imagine a woman as a superstar at the highest levels of professional baseball, simply because superstars generally have physical tools which are exceptional relative to other men. But I think those who can’t even conceive of a woman who could be a useful MLB role player are just overestimating the overall MLB talent level. It’s very, very high, but with 750 roster spots to fill at any given moment, I don’t think it’s crazy to say that a few women could have the physical ability to be the best choice for several of those roster spots.
This is all assuming that there was anything approaching parity in terms of development for the two sexes, of course. As is, any girl with an interest in athletics and physical gifts is highly likely to get channeled into sports where women are currently in wide competition.
I’d feel much better about women’s chances in MLB if they could do it in Men’s golf as anything more than a publicity stunt.
“I don’t see any reason a few exceptional female players couldn’t make their way into the majors”
The smaller brain comes to mind.
At first I was all: >:(
And then I saw your name.
Sometimes the sarcasm gets lost in the stache.
imposter! we all know their inability to do over 1,000 curls with each arm is the reason.
it’s one thing to think that an extremely talented woman could make it in and be like a david eckstein, scrappy middle infielder type, because that certainly could happen, but to say that *women as a gender* can compete in major league baseball is going way too far
Wait, so you’re saying that only white women could play baseball?
…no, that’s nowhere near my point, nor can i see how you might be arriving at that conclusion
It was a joke about the type of players generally described as “scrappy.”
Really?
Has anyone actually watched a girl play baseball?
…Yeah… Kind of like in that video of that woman I posted. Y’know. Playing baseball. And getting paid to do so.
Honestly, Lyle, I haven’t see you playing baseball. How do I know you can?
When did I say I could play baseball?
I suck too!
We know, Lyle, we know.
My comment is a link, BTW.
My sister in law played softball all the way through college (shortstop). She could throw a baseball around 85 mph pretty consistently, had great range, and was and is extremely agile.
Further, after not picking up a bat for 8 years nor working out at all (desk job) and almost exclusively hitting softballs throughout her earlier career, I personally saw her launch baseball after baseball over 400 feet off my pitching machine at around batting practice speeds (80-85 mph) with a wood bat. Took her only about five swings to get back into it and adjust for the baseball instead of the bigger softball she was used to, despite that long layoff. After that it was line drive after line drive. It was very impressive.
And the fact that she hadn’t worked out in eight years and could still hit the ball that far was amazing (I’m a guy and do workout and can’t hit it that far with a wood bat, I top out around 350-ish feet). And, by the way, her frame is 5 foot 8, 135 pounds, which further makes it a head scratcher. From watching, what she did have going for her was pretty amazing bat speed.
Point being, there are some girls that can play and generate surprising power. Granted, that’s batting practice in my example, which obviously lets the players swing for the fences with abandon. But I still thought it was impressive, even without the layoff.
Odds are you’d never see a legitimate power threat in a female player, but Ichiro seems to have had a nice career without it and certainly defensive runs saved count just as well as those produced. Most second basemen and shortstops can’t hit much anyways for power. Those would be good positions for the few female players who could hack it and were agile with decent arms.
I’ll say it again. All this series is doing is proving that there are no more great market inefficiencies left in baseball. Moving from BA/RBI/HR to OPS was huge. OPS to wOBA, not so much, but something. Properly measuring defense (to the extent we can) is also helpful. But the topics covered here represent trivial inefficiencies, at best. “Little people”? Women? We’re talking, at most, one or two players in a lifetime. (I’ll let other commenters explain why you’re way off in thinking that a whole bunch of Luis Castillos are languishing in women’s semi-pro.)
This series is in parody territory.
I don’t agree that it’s parody territory, but I think you make a good point about how most of the big inefficiencies have been conquered. Not that there aren’t plenty of GM’s and coaches that look at AVG/RBI/HR/SB/errors, but there’s enough of them that do know about stuff like wOBA/BABIP/FIP/UZR that there’s a significant market for traditionally-underrated players.
It means that the payoff for exploiting market inefficiencies has gotten smaller.
What’s the market value of a Female, Asian, midget pitcher?
My oh my, that just sounds efficient.
There will always, always, ALWAYS be inefficiencies waiting to be exploited, whether we’re talking about baseball, financial markets, whatever. The whole point of the exploitation of inefficiencies is that if the inefficiencies were obvious to the world then they would not be inefficiencies in the first place. I will say that it’s fairly likely that none of us appreciate what the next inefficiency to be exploited is, which, again, is the point.
The fact that one author on one site comes up with inefficiencies that you deem irrelevant doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The whole premise of market inefficiencies is that (almost) nobody knows about them.
The whole premise of market inefficiencies is that they exist within the market.
There is currently no market for little people, China, and females in MLB baseball.
We’re not talking about market inexistencies.
Market inefficiencies are not necessarily connected to particular statistics. In fact, they are more like a pendulum. Moneyball popularized the market inefficiency for OBP, but in a few years, OBP was already beginning to be overrated. Then the market inefficiency became defense, so teams started grabbing defense-only guys. Now offense is down (perhaps because of this), so the market inefficiencies become what is now underrated. Not exactly a pendulum, but it moves around to areas we already know of. I’d say the market inefficiency now is power hitters. We’ve got OBP and defense covered, now we are lacking guys that can hit XBH.
I think that only position that women could realistically play in the major leagues is pitching, and only knuckleballers at that. Women are about 10% slower than men in sprinting and distance (you can check world record races for the data) and a middle infielder that is 10% slower is not going to be a pretty sight.
There ARE women that are faster and stronger than men, but there are mighty few women that can do this. Thankfully, baseball involves such a large amount of skill that women with exceptional talent and reflexes might make it.
Counterargument: The annals of baseball overflow with the tales of slow infielders. I submit as evidence: The career of a one Mr. Yuniesky Betancourt.
Examine the speed scores on this page: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=ss&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2011&month=0&season1=2005&ind=0
And keep in mind: League average is about 5.0.
I hope your saying that woman could replace one Mr. Yuniesky Betancourt. Not become one Mr. Yuniesky Betancourt. I am not paying good ticket money to watch him play even if he had tits.
The problem is, for a woman, the bottom of that list would be her upside.
The woman’s 100m record is about .75 seconds slower than the men’s. It would be assumed that the difference in a typical man and woman running home to 1st would be about .3 seconds. IE, shes gonna be out in a whole lot of situations where even slower men are safe.
There have been plenty of female managers in baseball: Connie Mack, Sandy Alomar, Terry Francona, Pinky Higgins.
Thumbs way up, Ms. Simpson.
Lmao. Great reference. That episode was awesome 🙂
“I am sure plenty of women could go out and throw it 85 mph an hour with decent control which is quite impressive.”
Plenty, huh? Name one.
Blam: http://blogs.ajc.com/georgia-high-school-sports/2011/03/31/girl-holds-her-own-against-the-boys-on-baseball-field/?cxntfid=blogs_georgia_high_school_sports
(H/t Atoms)
From your link: “reportedly” 85 mph. “we haven’t clocked her yet” “above-average” HS player. The Next Great Inefficiency!!!!!
okay, so that’s one girl.
name 4 more.
Can you name, say, 10? Sure, naming one person for ANYTHING is almost always going to be possible. Naming a bunch in a case like this…not so easy. Even if you find 10, I would challenge you to find 25. Even though, i’m sure that would take a lot of research just to find those 25, and then that’s just 25 that you can actually find. What chance do those 25 have to make any kind of real impact on the game?
If there’s someone who can do it (and I would say they should have to throw side arm or overhand, no softball style), then by all means give them a shot. My guess is not more than a few in the world could be better than Lance Cormier.
Great point, Ivdown!
Name 1! Oh, you can? Then name 10! And if you can, then name 25! And then a hundred! And then a MILLION! Bwah ha ha ha ha! I win, I win I win!
Mike P, clearly you don’t get the logic. I wouldn’t keep going up if he could meet the 25. The point was yeah, you can name one, but that means nothing in the scheme of things. 1 out of 7 billion. Great. I’m sure she’ll take the MLB by storm.
Here’s the flaw in the thinking presented.
A woman may top out at around the same level as some of the bottom rung professional males. Let’s just say that’s true. Thing is: those guys got into the league because people, at one time or another, saw potential in them to be more. The women will likely never reach the highest level, so who will take time to develop them? You’re going to go out of your way to scout, encourage, develop, and nurture female baseball players just to MAYBE produce one that is as good as any number of men will be – men who don’t need any of the extra incentives to get into baseball in the first place?
If a woman comes along and develops, great. If not, it would probably a waste of resources to spend a bunch of money trying to develop a stranglehold on a market that isn’t going to result in much.
If a woman even makes it onto an MLB team, it won’t be after receiving a $1 million signing bonus. And realistically, the way these things work, she would probably start in indy ball, make a name for herself, and then be given a chance in MiLB. So I guess I’m saying: I think you’re right in that there’s not likely a “market inefficiency” here, even if you believe (as I do) that there are women out there capable of competing at MLB level.
Yeah, I agree there is none here presently. Eventually, though, female players will appear more frequently in high school teams and become the object of scouts’ attention. At this point, old school GMs will ignore them and progressive GMs will have a market inefficiency — a larger pool of talent that others do not utilize.
“Eventually, though, female players will appear more frequently in high school teams and become the object of scouts’ attention.”
They will? Why?
And again, why is a scout going to be scouting someone who can throw 85?
RC: Did you miss the part about how MLB secretly taints infant vaccines with a toxin that activates in females to give them weaker arms? And how with the fad toward not vaccinating infants eventually we will end up with scores and scores of girls who throw 95 with wicked screwsinkslideballs (that’s what a future super-offspeed pitch will be called)?
It’s really quite straightforward.
it’s not like major league teams are going to draft ten female players a year in the hopes that they stumble across the first legitimate mlb-quality female player, but if an organization’s scouts come across a player of sufficient talent and projectability, why wouldn’t they take the chance? pardon my cynicism for a moment, but can you imagine the windfall to the team that debuts a female player that can cut it in the majors? she wouldn’t have to play like jackie robinson or ichiro to sell boatloads of tickets and jerseys to the fairer half of the fanbase.
because chances are, that one female player, with the chance to MAYBE make the big leagues and be OKAY once there, is taking up a roster spot for a potential MALE star
I do not think it is too far fetched to think a woman could be drafted, at least for publicity sakes, afterall the Rangers drafted a Paralyzed outfielder this year.
You are missing one important thing: money.
If you are the baseball team with the first woman in MLB, you will make boatloads of money because of the increased interest in your team.
And if she’s hot, multiply that by a factor of ten.
wanted to post “in before the bigotry” but I missed my chance
You aren’t kidding. I knew this thread was going to be depressing when I opened it.
“She is, though, the greatest middle finger in the face of Ruth’s misogynist assumptions. (Perhaps The Babe thought women couldn’t ingest enough beer and hot dogs to succeed?)”
Really? As far as I can tell, Yoshida failed quite miserably, and never played anything close to a full season. How does this damage Ruth’s thesis again?
She is Ruth’s foil in that she is the antithesis of a prototypical baseball player: Short, soft-tossing, and female. Despite that, she has had success (yes, limited success) internationally and continues to play in a league far more older and more experienced than her.
If we elect to combine all her 17 appearances last year (eh, not advisable), she is a 4.72 FIP pitcher over a full year (winter to winter). Ruth said such a thing was impossible.
he said “they’ll never make good [players]”
17 appearances of 4.72 FIP ball over an entire year is not good.
ruth 1, women 0
how the hell does that get minuses? where is what i posted incorrect in any way?
Jim, you didn’t champion for women’s rights in your post, that means you get automatic minuses from all the sexually frustrated readers.
You take the author’s words literally, so you have to take Ruths words, too, without a grain of salt or interpretation. She’s alive. Ruth was wrong.
Ruth isn’t wrong, because women have softball, yet the bases are so much shorter and they hit a bigger ball. Give women the same bases and same ball then we’ll see if Ruth is wrong. I’m sure there are some small groups of women that actually do that, but just because there is an outlier doesn’t prove the point of the article.
Yeah but not those greedy North American women, let’s go down to the Dominican Rep. and get 3 for the price of 1.
poppycock.
you’d think a gay guy would be more friendly to this theory
Think that through, Jim. What is one additional facet of baseball that a gay man might enjoy, in addition to the beauty of the sport itself?
Wouldn’t it make sense for a gay guy to want men in tight pants vs women?
touche, salesman
Given the number of women on the planet, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least one, if not 2-3 that could passably hold a role as a bullpen specialist of some sort. However I think it’s quite the leap to say that this is somehow an untapped market of inefficiencies when you’re looking at the reward of finding 1 person out of 5 billion world wide. The risk vs. reward just doesn’t balance out in a way that would incentivize significant resources into developing women baseball players. Besides, nothing is preventing women from participating in the already existing player development structure. If a woman showed up in high school or college exhibiting abilities that impressed scouts, they’d take a look.
Most of what you said is pretty sound (though I may not agree with it), except for your assumption about the development structure. From what I have heard from news reports and various women in the sport, there are lots of pressures against women joining high school teams.
“there are lots of pressures against women joining high school teams.
”
And if an athlete doesn’t have the guts to push through that, they weren’t going to have the guts to make it through 3 or 4 years of minor league ball, living in a dorm, eating mac-and-cheese and having no money.
RC: There’s a substantial difference between, say, putting up with sexual harassment and the threat of sexual assault that comes from being the only woman in an otherwise entirely male, masculinist environment, and eating mac and cheese.
In a backwards way the author is correct with his title – GM’s trying to find that outlier female baseball player would be creating a market inefficiency – in their own baseball operations department.
I get that Fangraphs is really interested in diversity in baseball but a far more realistic focus would be African American participation. Year after year black players in MLB decrease as African American’s increasingly chose other sports over baseball. If a GM really wanted to exploit a market inefficiency he would open up baseball academies for inner city youth.*
*of course for this to happen we would have to do away with the amateur draft which disadvantages American atheletes relative to the rest of the global talent pool.
Does anyone watch the WNBA? Just kidding, I know no one does. What about the LPGA? Women’s pro football? Didn’t think so.
But if you did, you would understand that the gap between male and female elite athletes is extreme. I can’t take any of this seriously.
But that’s not to say those women could not play in the NBA, or on the PGA tour. Would Candace Parker be a star in the NBA? Hell no. But could she be serviceable? Quite possibly. Hell, Earl Boykins was in the league for a while. Parker probably could be a bench player.
No way. Candace Parker would get destroyed in the NBA.
Are you kidding me??? Candace Parker couldn’t make most highschool teams.
No, this is absolutely not true. There is no way Candace Parker would be able to hold a roster spot on an NBA team. I have nothing against females playing in male leagues but we also have to be realistic. She is not big, strong, or fast enough to play against NBA competition. Earl Boykins made it because he is an exceptional shooter and ball-handler. Parker’s game is tailored to beating ppl less athletic than her, totally the opposite of someone like Boykins, Nate Robinson, or JJ Barea.
the fact that you know the name a player in the WNBA is of immense discredit to your opinions
West – I have to say you’re wrong. When I was in high school, our girls varsity team beat our freshman boys’ team so badly they stopped playing at halftime. Then, they played the JV boys’ team and beat them solidly (15-20 points). The varsity boys’ team refused to play the varsity girls’ team.
I might watch the WNBA if they shot properly (from over their head) rather than from their chest. Why do they do that? It can’t be a strength issue- most 10-year-old boys can make a free throw shooting an adult-size basketball from above their head.
Most 10 year old boys can’t do that ralf. I work in an elementary school.
“Does anyone watch the WNBA? Just kidding, I know no one does.”
LOL, when I read this at my desk at work, I cracked up. Well done, Dwilson!
I think the biggest obstacle is the inferior sport of softball. High schools and colleges push otherwise baseball-inclined female athletes into softball, rather than either forming a women’s baseball team or allowing them to join the existing men’s team.
Sure, you’ll get the occasional woman playing baseball in indy ball or college, but the chances are so against any single person making the majors, that you’ll need a large number of women playing for a single one of them to be an actual major league prospect. Until baseball is encouraged instead of softball for younger girls, the odds will be greatly stacked against a woman playing in MLB.
Softball is not an acceptable substitute for baseball.
Yea, softball does kind of suck. I feel bad for girls who would rather be playing hardball. It does allow more girls to play though – which is obviously why it exists. If hardball replaced softball, you’d have a hell of a lot less girls playing.
I don’t see why fewer girls would play baseball than softball.
Then you are an idiot.
Softball also ruins a lot of shoulders of young kids/girls from the pitching motion. It is unfortunate that in a society where everyone gets a participant medal that hardball is dying out in some communities because it is harder to play and therefore less “inclusive”. My kids will NEVER play softball, only hardball. My wife still has issues throwing a baseball because she was forced to switch from hardball to softball as a kid because after a certain age she was not allowed into the boys league.
fat girls need a sport to play
Aside from antiquated attitudes among authorities in the sport, the fact that girls play softball, not baseball when they are young is a significant problem. The best female athletes are not developing baseball skills when they need to be if they want to have the best chance of becoming major leaguers; on top of that, there are very few who give it a shot at all, so with the low probability of success for anyone (male or female), I think it will be a long time before we see a female pro ballplayer.
Still, I can’t wait. I kinda wish my team would sign a couple of the world’s top softball pitchers and see if they can throw overhand.
I kind of feel like elite softball hitters would not take long to become at least average MLB hitters. Still, it’s all just thought experiments until someone gets a shot.
I think it would take awhile just to be able to see the pitches properly. You’ve got a different arm slot, different distance to the plate, smaller ball, different ball rotations, and different speeds. It takes years for college prospects to adjust to better versions of pitching without these variables changing at all. Plus, of course, they would have to deal with a much bigger field, different bats, etc.
http://www.soxprospects.com/players/bishop-beau.htm
New Zealand softball player signed by the Red Sox, currently attending a baseball academy. Hasn’t played any baseball yet as far as I know but if you are really curious about how the skills cross over you might want to follow this kids career
See…I think this is where your imagination gets the best of you.
By insinuation of this comment, one gets the idea that you believe an opportunity is the ONLY THING standing in the way of elite Softball hitters becoming average MLB hitters.
Not really sure how to properly conduct the inevitable tap-dance of refute, in fear of sounding sexist/misogynist.
Suffice to say, I think this this leap in logic is what separates most skeptics from sharing your same viewpoint.
In all seriousness, maybe you’d be better served polling MLB talent scouts, etc w/ these types of questions relating to the transition of Softball players before these types of assumptions support one’s basis for an article.
WHAT!!!!! Do you realize how much athletic skill you have to be to be an average MLB hitter? Do you not realize how great you have to be to even be a September call up? Or even make it past rookie ball? Your asinine statements make MLB out to be some kind of BASEketball league where anyone has the talent to play.
Come on man, really? So why can’t all elite college bats turn into at least average hitters in the MLB? Compared to what the chances are for a male to make it to the MLB and be average you have to cut that into a much, much smaller fraction for a woman softball player, no matter how elite she may be at softball.
“I kind of feel like elite softball hitters would not take long to become at least average MLB hitters. Still, it’s all just thought experiments until someone gets a shot.”
Tell that to Brandon Wood, Ian Stewart, Jeremy Hermida, etc. Ya know, the literal legions of guys who were able to hit all the way through AAA (i.e. a far more difficult level than any softball league) that haven’t been able to become league average MLB hitters.
Honestly, that comment just shows either a profound misunderstanding of the difficulty in being an MLB player, or an equally profound logical leap in which you are just forcing yourself to believe the majors will one day be flooded with women even though every ounce of your rationality disagrees with that.
I’m gonna side with the commenter Telo, here: you are just saying these things to try and get laid. Either that, or you don’t deserve a position writing for a baseball website, because that is just an idiotic thing to say.
What is the point of continually forcing integration between men and women’s sports? There is a reason nobody watches the WNBA or women’s golf. There might be a female Paul Maholm out there or a female Michael Cuddyer but people are not exactly giving up top prospects trying to get their male counterparts so what is your point exactly? Most teams probably have AA and A ball players who can out perform females given the same amount of development and time so what GM would realistically want to spend money and resources developing this untapped female market? I stand by my original argument that women are just weak.
Who is forcing integration? Are they bussing male players to female leagues? Is the National Guard protecting stadiums?
You don’t watch women’s golf??
http://www.sportressofblogitude.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/natalie-gulbis-stretching-3.jpg
A large part of what’s keeping women out of baseball is a lack of coaching and encouragement when girls are in their pre-teens. The “throws like a girl” shotput-style throwing motion isn’t because of some physical difference in female shoulders, it’s because no one ever taught them proper form. You can see this even in elite college softball- some players throw properly, some don’t. (Also, if you ever happen to see a grown man who never played a sport that requires throwing overhand attempt to throw a baseball, I guarantee he’ll “throw like a girl”)
The split between baseball and softball comes far too early in kids’ development. Girls should be encouraged to stick with hardball as long as they’re able, even into high school and college, and only switch to softball when they can’t make the baseball team. Small town high school coaches are possibly more biased on average than MLB GM’s but they stand to gain more from this particular market inefficiency.
Women? HA! What will they think of next? Midgets?
This is a bigger laugh than Remington’s column about female scouts and GMs. Human physiology laughs at your silly, politically correct notions of equality between the sexes.
Hate to quote myself, but:
“Allow me to anticipate some of the obvious and historical protests: Yes, men and women do indeed have different physiologies.”
Actually, I love quoting myself.
YES. I GET IT. MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. That was never my point. My point is that women are presently walled off from entry in even the lowest rungs of the baseball.
You say human physiology laughs at my notions, but I have presented actual evidence to suggest women can play the sport. Your “argument” is null.
You do say the word physiology a lot, yet you don’t seem to know what it means.
Men and women are so physiologically different that no woman has ever succeeded at an elite level in men’s sports and probably never will.
It’s funny that you bring up Venus Williams, because as great as Venus is, there’s no way she could make a living on the men’s tour. You just kinda refuted your own thesis there.
Look at other sports. the women’s World Cup is on right now and there’s not a woman in the tournament who could even make an MLS roster, which is kind of the soccer equivalent of A+ ball.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Men and women are much, much more different than you seem to think.
Billy Jean King bet the best men’s tennis player in the world several times back in her day. I would bet, Venus could beat all but two or three men in the world constantly now.
NATS, you’re probably very, very wrong in assuming that venus williams could beat any male tennis player not named federer or nadal “constantly”
I meant consistently, the spell checker changed it on me after my typo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Sexes_(Tennis)
A woman has beaten the then #1 ranked man in Tennis using Men’s rules. Billy Jean King in 1973.
had she been allowed to play mens tennis I have no doubt she would have been a top 10 player in the 70s.
When is 1973 = 1947?
Riggs was 26 years removed from when he had last been ranked #1 when he challenged Billie Jean King.
Not only that, Riggs was a former finesse tennis player who was 55, while King was 30, close to her peak.
I’m extremely doubtful that King would have been able to be ranked in the top 10 in men’s tennis at the time.
did you even read that article? if so you would know the age difference alone renders that almost completely illegitimate, and then there’s this line: In 1998, 203rd ranked male player Karsten Braasch took on Venus Williams and beat her 6-2. He also played Serena Williams and won 6-1 after the Williams sisters, who were 17 and 16 at the time, said they could beat any man ranked 200 or worse. Braasch said afterwards, “500 and above, no chance” as he claimed he had played like someone ranked 600 in order to keep the game “fun.”[18] Yannick Noah and Justine Henin also went toe to toe in a match. The Frenchman won 4-6, 6-4, 7-6.[19]
dude, you gotta pay more attention to your “evidence”
CHEERLEADERS!
In the very real chance that this post is not entirely satirical:
Someone needs to explain to you what “market inefficiency” means.
It’s not that women and Chinese will never play baseball – they will (women: maybe not for a while, if ever).
It’s just that… there’s nothing inefficient here. It’s not efficient to build 1000 baseball academies in China. It’s not efficient to scour the world for the 3 women that can throw a knuckleball and post a 4.50 FIP (if FIP even mattered for a Knucklballer).
It’s almost as if you have no idea what a “market” or being “efficient” actually means.
But hey, this post will get 250 comments and generate more traffic than that post about how Hanley isn’t a top 10 fantasy Shortstop. (Rotographs – Check it out, it’s classic.)
So… congrats!
Thanks Telo. I would offer a serious retort, but since you consistently ignore the second word in each of my titles, I’ll go ahead and just say thanks.
I can’t be expected to read every word past the first…what kind of troll would that make me?
But the point is – what exactly is the inefficiency? You’ve written a nice article about a great female knuckleballer. I hope she has all the success in the world. But there have been like 15 dudes in the history of baseball who could cut it as a knuckleballer, and maybe half of them were really any good.
There just isn’t going to be a waterfall of female kuncklers, no matter how awesome she is. There is no inefficiency. There is an article about women and baseball and a lot of web traffic, though.
Honestly, I think Yoshido has a 2% or less chance of making it to the majors. Probably less.
Nonetheless, she shows there is indeed an avenue for female players — regardless of their particular body type — to pursue. Because of that, we need to recognize there is legitimate potential for women in this sport.
When women start making it through high school and college systems, teams run by — oh, let’s pick a commentor — GM Clarity will overlook the female athletes, saying instead, “NOPE.”
Excluding athletes regardless of their actual abilities and on the basis of their sex alone limits the labor available to that franchise. This means other teams, let’s say the progressive Red Sox, Rays, and A’s, have a labor market that’s larger. Maybe by 2017 there are several dozen women in the draft. These teams now have a larger pool of talent to pick from.
In the same way, the Rays re-valued defense in 2008 and came away with a different valuation of the labor market. To most teams, Jason Bartlett and Gabe Gross were low-rung players, but the Rays saw the market differently.
NOTE: Women in baseball is not a PRESENT inefficiency. I am not saying and have suggested that.
And yes, I do hope this gets plenty of web traffic. I think it’s time for baseball coaches and athletic directors around the world to start opening their rosters to women who can and want to play.
“we need to recognize there is legitimate potential for women in this sport.”
“I think it’s time for baseball coaches and athletic directors around the world to start opening their rosters to women who can and want to play.”
I think this is why these posts get trolled so much. You and Remington take such a “heroic” angle, touting female rights and championing equality in the face of all the knuckle dragging misogynists… it’s just very… odd. People love stories like Yoshida. It’s amazing. No franchise would ever pass on a woman who could actually help their team win. The fact is, they just don’t exist. In the youtube era, how could they and remain undiscovered?
If your point is that at some time in the future they will… then how do you know the market will act inefficiently? Maybe this Yoshida will pump up the publicity on women knucklers and scouts will be on the lookout for them. It feels like what you really want is for more women to actually want to play and practice baseball. I just don’t really get your whole shtick.
My best guess is that you and Remington are writing these articles to get laid.
Well said, Telo.
No offense to Brad, who I think is a talented writer, but the pop-sabermetric obsession with market inefficiencies always elicits an eye roll from me. For a serious discussion on the famous obp inefficiency, look up a “Hakes and Sauer” thread on The Book Blog. If it actually existed, it’s pretty damn hard to demonstrate; speculating on future inefficiencies, doubly so.
If this post were restricted to an honest discussion of whether or not a woman will ever make it to the big leagues, rather than drawing battle lines against perceived injustice, I personally would find it much more interesting.
Yeah, I really don’t understand why Bradley just assumes only “progressive” front offices will target women. Would sabermetrics be the only thing telling us these girls are good? I mean, does being an old school GM = being a chauvinist?
It’s basically the basis of your “next market inefficiency” argument, yet it’s an assumption, and one where I feel to see WHY it is assumed. Like Telo said, if there was a woman who was legitimately skilled, any GM that believed she would help their organization would go after her, regardless of sabermetric leaning.
I don’t think I’ve seen an author get as owned in the comments as bad as Telo just owned Woodrum here. It’s been pretty lulzy.
Great post, GW. I too read tangos blog…
…speaking of market inefficiencies, why haven’t GM’s began training wild Apes and/or other large mammals into playing baseball?
Maybe best of all, they could dramatically reduce payroll by paying said mammals in barrels of food resource.
THE PHYSICAL ABILITY IS RIPE (like a banana) FOR THE TAKING!!!
without a doubt the best comment on this article
Because wild Apes and/or other large mammals lack the the mental ability to understand the abstract concepts necessary to play baseball. Clearly, you have never trained a primate before.
Now cephalopods on the other hand may have the mental acumen necessary to play baseball well. Plus, they are more energy efficient, and require fewer barrels of food resource.
The obvious next market inefficiency will be cephalapods. I’m pretty sure the yankees are working on a mutant mollusk for this very reason.
Sure about that?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/magazine/05FREAK.html?pagewanted=all
@anon
Positive. Normally, I would provide I scientific critique of this argument, however, I stopped reading the article once I got to this sentence:
“He began his monkey work as a Harvard graduate student, in concert with Marc Hauser, a psychologist.”
You see, much of Marc Hauser’s work concerning cotton-top tamarins has been thrown into question:
“A paper published in the journal Cognition in 2002 has been retracted.[7][8] In this paper, Hauser and his collaborators concluded that cotton-top tamarin monkeys can learn simple rule-like patterns. In two additional published papers, some field notes or video recordings were “incomplete”, although Hauser and his co-author replicated the experiments.[9][10] ”
Although Chen’s work has continued at Yale, the foundation of evidence that informed Chen’s interpretations (at the time of the article) had been invalidated.
*sigh* lack of edits…
The quote in my response was taken from Marc Hauser’s wikipedia article.
At the time the nytimes article was written, Marc Hauser had not been found guilty of conduct. Chen’s interpretation then had some validity, but because of the recent exposure (of Marc Hauser) that interpretation (but not Chen), at present date, loses its credibility.
How many women have tried and failed in the sport of golf recently on the PGA tour? Some physical barriers are simply hard to overcome.
In 1993 a woman was drafted by the White Sox in the 43rd Round:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carey_Schueler
Can you explain to me what is “market inefficient” about this hypothetical next wave of potential talent? I am pretty sure the 43rd round of a draft exits out of efficiency reasons – rosters need to be filled in cost effective manners.
Shueler was not drafted with any intention of making her a player. In the ultra-late rounds, players often go as kind gestures and favors — for instance, this year’s drafting of Johnathan Taylor, an outfielder who’s paralyzed from the waist down.
And yes, I do not think we will see women competing in golf or as quarterbacks in the NFL anytime soon. It would take a truly rare and incredible female athlete to compete in those sports. In baseball, however, there are many more opportunities for different body types to find successful roles.
Actually kicker or punter in the NFL is the only spot where a female has a chance.
kicking is a strength related ability. I would place woman Wide receivers or Corner backs as the only hope and that is small.
That guy was taken in like the 13th round I believe. Though not a top round pick, but much different from 43 I’d still guess.
And doesn’t that just hurt your argument anyway? A woman WAS drafted, yet only as a favor and never had any real chance of succeeding?
Funny enough that’s exactly what happened to Mike Piazza, in, I believe, the 64th round. Thank you Tommy.
“. In baseball, however, there are many more opportunities for different body types to find successful roles.”
I strongly disagree with this. The idea that baseball does not require physical feats is ridiculous.
“I would place woman Wide receivers or Corner backs as the only hope and that is small”
No chance. There aren’t any women fast enough. Corners and WRs are the fastest guys on the field.
Not to mention the woman would likely be injured on her first play in practice. A woman could be a crappy punter or kicker, no other position is even remotely feasible and saying so shows a serious lack of knowledge of the difference between men and women (and football).
“And yes, I do not think we will see women competing in golf or as quarterbacks in the NFL anytime soon. It would take a truly rare and incredible female athlete to compete in those sports. In baseball, however, there are many more opportunities for different body types to find successful roles.”
Are you honestly trying to say that GOLF is a sport more demanding physically than baseball and is less of a skill?
I mean, did you ever SEE John Daly, circa 2004?
If a woman can’t compete in golf, I don’t see how she could in baseball. I’m not saying a woman can’t compete in either, mind you, but that it is more likely to happen in golf than in baseball.
I’m in no way a misogynist, however, I won’t blame The Babe for his comments. He’s a product of his environment, the 1920’s, as any educated man should know, was a time where women first got the right to vote. So sexism was quite common, we shouldn’t put Babe Ruth on trial here, instead we should focus on the current players who don’t want women in locker rooms, on the field, or in the presidency.
Sorry if this takes away from Eri Yoshida, personally I hope she kicks some serious frickin’ ass. I’d love to have the first female to be Asian, not only to further shut up misogynistic views, but those who believe Nippon Professional Baseball to be AAAA.
Does suck that her fastball is 63 MPH and her knuckler is 50 MPH.
And she was selected by a league which has no affiliation with NPB, but still!!! Go her!
I like NPB, always have, but it clearly is AAAA.
Unnecessary comment is unnecessary.
Isn’t is still AAAA though? I mean how many of those teams would fair better than a normal Brewers team?
Not the point of my comment, addressing whether or not NPB is AAAA is pointless when a woman knuckle baller and Babe Ruth’s sexism is the main topic. I’m not going to argue about NPB, I wanted to talk about Babe Ruth or the lady knuckle baller.
Another problem that women would be physically is that they are at their peaks much younger than men around 23 to 27 and baseball is a sport that takes a long time to develop those skills so while even if she did make I would be surprised if she would be effective past 30. On the issue of middle infielders while a women might be quick and have good reflexes you also got to think that she would be on the small side and would have terrible power.
In other news:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2281644
Obviously baseball-to-hockey is an apples-to-oranges comparison, yet that’s the best women players in the country against what was a good boys high school team. I’d argue that the barriers to entry for women in hockey have been significantly lower than in baseball and the quality of coaching significantly higher.
I understand the author concedes there are physiological differences between men and women, I just don’t think he understands how big the actual differential is between elite men’s and women’s athletics. We might not colloquially consider Jhonny Peralta, Michael Cuddyer, Luis Castillo, or Paul Maholm (his examples) to be “elite,” yet the fact that they’re on a 40-man roster places them within the top 1,200 (give or take) baseball players in the world. That’s a small group to break into. Given the disparity of men and women playing the game, the odds are already incredibly stacked against a woman making it even without considering barriers they face in gaining skill.
Even IF a woman emerges that’s good enough to approach MLB replacement-level talent, the title of the article showcases at best an utter ignorance of the definition of “market inefficiency,” and at worst what could be a manipulative grab for page views/self-aggrandizing publicity. While much of the baseball world has been slow to adapt to more efficient means of analyzing information, there are plenty of people on the business side that would easily grasp the value a competent woman player would bring to their franchise. If a female Paul-Maholm level baseball player were already playing, you can rest assured she’d be playing somewhere to benefit a franchise financially (if not the on-field product). Perhaps there is unrealized potential for women ballplayers (I’m skeptical, but I can’t prove something doesn’t exist), but the author only makes one argument that doesn’t fall entirely in the realm of anecdote or straw man. The argument- that an 8-game sample is too small (essentially that she hasn’t fully proven her ineffectiveness yet) is a couple lines below the author citing a 16.1 inning sample (in an entirely different league no less).
This article bothers me that it’s a puff piece incognizant of the gap between high-level men’s and women’s athletics that makes ill- or un-backed claims of (future) market inefficiency. While it succeeds in generating comments (and likely pageviews), it fails by attempting to substitute links, anecdotes, and speculation in place of data and sound argumentation
Finally, no one can argue that Eri Yoshida has suffered from lack of coaching or opportunity. The article notes that she not only has received tutelage from Tim Wakefield- probably the best-equipped person on earth to teach her chosen craft- and has been re-signed in a league where her performance has yet to approach adequacy.
I was going to give Annika Sorenstam as an example but this works too. In 2003 Sorenstam got a real chance to play a PGA tour event. She missed the cut and finished 96th out of 111. That’s the best female golfer in the world maybe being the 24th person on the roster. A middle reliever or utility infielder. It’s going to take a lot more than that to break the gender barrier. If Jackie Robinson had that kind of talent he never would have sniffed the major leagues. Maybe there is a woman who is a better baeball player than 99.999% of the population. Too bad. There are 1200 guys on 40 man rosters out of five billion humans. If you aren’t better than at least a couple hundred of those 1200 you aren’t going to get a chance.
Interesting side note, Vijay Singh (a black man) said Sorrenstam didn’t belong on the men’s tour.
Woman have beat the top men in Tennis on the rare occasion. Billy Jean King beat the #1 man using the Men’s rules entirely in 1973.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Sexes_(Tennis)
The “top man”? Did you even read the article you just referenced? Bobby Riggs was 55 at the time.
It was a cool event, and an impressive win for BJK, but you’re vastly overstating the accomplishment.
Was Riggs even trying hard in that match?
“In all fairness, Ruth didn’t have the advantage of watching Venus Williams play tennis. If I were to approach Ms. Williams and suggest she lacked the endurance to consistently play professional sports, I’m fairly sure she could — and would — slice me into little cubes with her tennis racket.”
Just sayin’, in women’s tennis, they play a max of 3 sets as opposed to men’s 5.
seriously, is there any doubt that federer or nadal would smoke either williams sister?
Federer or Nadal? That’s overkill. A college player would do just fine.
maybe, not federer or nadal, but that is not his point. Federer and Nadal are like the Pujols is to baseball. The top guy around. But, saying they can beat lets say marin Cilic (ranked 27th on ESPN), or Alexandr Dolgopolov (ranked 25th) is in my opinion very possible. In my mind Michael Cuddyer is nowhere near the 25th best baseball player, so Venus could beat better guys than our author expects for baseball.
Billy Jean King, woman’s Wimbledon Champion, beat the men’s Wimbledon Champion (Billy Riggs) in the 1973 using Men’s rules entirely, so it has happened before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Sexes_(Tennis)
When Riggs was 55.
Still impressive, but this can’t be omitted.
The man Billie Jean King beat was Bobby Riggs. He was, as GW notes, 55 years old, long since retired, certainly not the men’s Wimbledon champ, and hadn’t been the men’s #1 since shortly after World War II. That she beat him is impressive, but let’s not pretend that he was anywhere near a top men’s player at that point.
Meanwhile if you read your own link, you find that Jimmy Connors waxed Martina Navritilova despite only getting one serve and giving her the doubles court. Karsten Braasch, then ranked just outside the top 200, beat Serena and Venus back to back, 6-1, 6-2.
Tennis is not a sport you want to look to for examples of the top women competing with even average male professionals. It will happen in baseball first, and it will probably be a knuckleballer.
Personally, it seems highly likely that there is at least one woman in the world who would be a better player than at least one current major league player
Probably not, since she’d have been shunted off in softball and lost the chance to develop several key baseball-specific skills at a young age.
I can see this. I don’t know how the league is going to expect pitchers to concentrate with special uniforms which expose chick tits, but that’t their problem. Two thumbs up on girls playing the diamond with their breasts exposed.
“She is, though, the greatest middle finger in the face of Ruth’s misogynist assumptions.”
“I am fairly certain the female Luis Castillo or Paul Maholm is already playing softball.”
“Women in baseball will be among the next great inefficiencies.”
“I kind of feel like elite softball hitters would not take long to become at least average MLB hitters.”
Seriously?
Uggh.
Uggh is about right.
We’ll see women in baseball, but I don’t see it as an inefficiency.
Forget gender for a moment, and instead look at tools. There may well be some women who can pitch in the low 80’s, but there are tons of college players who can reach that velocity and are never given a second glance unless they project to potentially add velocity. How many knuckleballers get drafted as compared to pitchers with knuckleball velocity? Even Wakefield was drafted as an infielder rather than as a pitcher.
I think it would be worthwhile to actually talk to a scout regarding how, say, a top female heptathlete’s raw tools rate on the 20-80 scale. How does her time in a short-distance sprint compare with the average MLB runner? How does the ratio of a top woman tennis player’s serve velocity to the top men compare with the ratio of the average MLB player to the top power hitters? What kinds of tools would the most athletic women softball players have compared to the top men? A good scout, if he considered the question honestly, could probably give us a pretty good idea of what the peak potential of an ideal female athlete in baseball would be. While it’s true that there’s a significant gap between the top male athletes physically, there’s also a significant physical gap between, say, Justin Upton and David Eckstein.
Reading the responces to this article and thinking about why softball exists make me so upset that I have to post something. Softball exists simply because someone of Ruth’s ilk decided women “couldn’t” play REAL baseball and so graciously invented them a goofy, inferior version.
I think we can probably all agree that there’s no real reason why women in high school and college couldn’t play competitive baseball at least in all-female leagues. If that were allowed to happen, I see no reason why a once-in-a-generation type talent wouldn’t be able to develop into a player that could contribute at the MLB level.
Why women coaches and players continue to promote a sport that was obviously created under the (now) offensive and clearly untrue notion that women are too weak, too slow, and too frail to compete in “serious” athletics is beyond me.
Ladies, please play ball!
Actually, that’s completely wrong. Instead of thinking about why the sport “so obviously” exists, maybe do some research next time.
Softball has been played (primarily by men) since the end of the 19th century. It was originally popular as an indoor form of baseball that could be played during the winter. It gained prominence in crowded urban areas because it required a much smaller field than baseball. In Chicago, gloveless 16-inch softball is still immensely competitive and popular, considered to be “real” softball.
As to it’s popularity among women, perhaps on a wide scale, they prefer it to baseball (gasp!).
will, you’re an idiot
Its just really hard for a woman to beat a man on a professional level. Good HS sprinters are faster than the world’s FASTEST woman. It’s such a big difference, about 10% between a man and woman at the same level of competition. That’s just the physical component.
I would bet that men are much more aggressive and will train harder to win. For example, for much of their careers, Serena and Venus Williams won with just random players racquets picked up at the local store. In comparison, men pick VERY specialized racquets that suit their games. Its incomprehensible that a professional male tennis player could pick up a racquet from Sports Authority and be the world’s best player. Also, there is a 40 year old female tennis player that is ranked in the top 100. It would be highly unlikely that a 40 year old man could do that; its too competitive.
I’m sure that there are a handful of females that could make the majors based on merit, but this is assuming that more women get interested in baseball and that the other variables are accounted for. Regardless, I doubt that there would be more than just a few women that could make it to the bigs.
“I would bet that men are much more aggressive and will train harder to win.”
Right. One of the chief differences between men and women is that women are scientifically proven to have less ambition and drive to succeed than men. Just like how women aren’t good at math and science. And Jews are cheap. And black people are best suited fo manual labor. And gay people all have AIDS. and all republicans hate homosexuals.
Barf.
“I would bet that men are much more aggressive and will train harder to win.” This hypothetical opinion is really equivalent to saying “gay people all have AIDS”, or “women aren’t good at math and science” – explicitly, objectively false statements? You don’t even address his actual opinion, choosing instead to take down the unposited straw man “Women are scientifically proven to have less ambition and drive to succeed than men.” Self-righteousness does not lend itself well to logical argumentation, imo.
WAL, are you just will, from a couple posts above? you both have equally unintelligent and invalid things to say….
Women can’t even hold their own in men’s professional golf, which is closer to a board game than a sport. Why waste time searching for a female MLB player?
I’d assume at some point, a female so dominating will emerge and make us sit up and take notice, but until that point, I’m completely uninterested in wasting time dreaming about this until it does.
BRADLEY YOURE SO WRONG A BLACK PERSON COULD NEVER BE PRESIDENT.
“I would bet that men are much more aggressive and will train harder to win.”
Right. One of the chief differences between men and women is that women are scientifically proven to have less ambition and drive to succeed than men. Just like how women aren’t good at math and science. And Jews are cheap. And black people are best suited fo manual labor. And gay people all have AIDS. and all republicans hate homosexuals.
Barf.
Ok, I’ll provide some more examples of men being MUCH more aggressive and competitive. There are articles saying that females may be less aggressive because society doesn’t push women to be amazing at sports or that its unladylike to be so driven in sports. I’ll stick with running since that’s what I know best. At our university, a girl just made the varsity cross country team with a 5K of 20 minutes. That is equivalent to a man running a 18 minute 5K. All the guys running on our team run 15:30 and faster. There is NO way in heck a guy running a 18 minute 5K would ever make it on the team. That’s not even a good high school time.
Also, you’ll see professional runners like Sara Hall become one of America’s best steeplechase runners within a YEAR of picking up the event. You know of any males that can just pick up an event and within a year be the best in track and field? I.E, a sprinter picking up the hurdles/steeplechase and being among the best in the nation or world?
Only when we talk about olympic class athletics do women approach men in competitiveness or drive, in my experience. Below that, there are a lot less people to beat compared to men’s sports. It may hurt your feelings, but sometimes controversial viewpoints may be correct.
My comments are not meant to be sexist at all; in sports that involve skill and hand-eye coordination, a woman can most definitely beat many men. Also, I think that women are better than men in many facets of life, like being more calm and collected, better drivers (well, lower accident rates), and more rational. Also, the math and science gap is best explained by societal pressures, in my opinion. Finally, you kind of jumped the gun by typing some (more) extreme ideas.
“Also, you’ll see professional runners like Sara Hall become one of America’s best steeplechase runners within a YEAR of picking up the event. You know of any males that can just pick up an event and within a year be the best in track and field? I.E, a sprinter picking up the hurdles/steeplechase and being among the best in the nation or world?”
When Usain Bolt broke the world record in the 100m dash and won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, that was only the second time ever he had ran the 100m competitively.
He had been a 200m and 400m sprinter because he had been “too tall” to have the necessary explosion out of the blocks needed for the 100m. Guess he proved his cynics wrong and I guess I proved you wrong.
Not really, Mike. Its not as big of a change going from the 200/400 meters to the 100 meter as compared to going from running to JUMPING over obstacles. (Like the steeplechase and hurdles) An accurate comparison would be one looking at male sprinters just picking up the hurdles of steeplchase. (Steeplechase would be the EXACT comparision, obviously)
“Also, I think that women are better than men in many facets of life, like being more calm and collected, better drivers (well, lower accident rates)…”
Have you ever watched a woman drive before?
The only PROVEN differences between men and women are in visual spatial reasoning and in aggressiveness. Men will almost always have the upper hand in their ability to reason in space, but women can come close if properly taught when young. Which is why playing catch may be more important with young girls than young boys. Men are also more aggressive than their female counterparts. So out of hundreds of possibilities, there are only two known differences. Otherwise, the only thing keeping women out is society.
Do you all really think women couldn’t have the physical ability to play baseball better than a man? Think of this: You have a daughter. You start playing catch with her when she’s old enough to do so. You enter her into little league baseball. Eventually you start having her go to the gym, lifting weights, etc. She goes to high school, then college. HYPOTHETICALLY, she could develop the ability to pitch in the 90’s or become a decent power hitter. There’s no reason to believe she couldn’t be just as good as all of the professional MLB players, or even better than a large chunk of them. For it to work, however, you would have to start her young to give her the best possible chance.
You have to remember, fundamentally, there is no structural difference between boys and girls. In fact, we often have things mixed up. It’s believed that between birth and the ages of 5-6 or so, girls are physically more sound than boys. During that same age, boys are much more fragile than girls, but still the females are treated as precious little china dolls while males are allowed to get into whatever mischief they choose.. The biggest reason we think women can’t compete on the same level is because we say they can’t. Culture doesn’t encourage females to become “one of the guys.” It’s looked down upon.
I guess to end my rambling: there’s no reason women couldn’t conceivably just as physically adept as males IF they are properly groomed to be such and given the chance. It would just take parents dedicated to giving their daughter the best opportunity and a team willing to give it a shot.
The difference in physical strength between the male and female population is not a matter of proper training. I don’t see how you could possibly reach that conclusion. A well trained and talented female athlete will handily beat a male amateur, but she wouldn’t be competitive with an equally well trained and talented male athlete in the vast majority of sports.
Next up. Steroids don’t work! That testosterone in your body is just for show.
@TartanElk
Most unbelievably bad post in the comment section. Just terrible.
Bron, you are fast moving up the Telo leaderboard of great FG commenters.
….god, why do these women articles bring out such incredibly unintelligent posts?
“HYPOTHETICALLY, she could develop the ability to pitch in the 90?s or become a decent power hitter. ”
No, she couldn’t, and thats the whole crux here. Its not a training issue, its a musculature issue. Men are stronger than women.
If your argument was true, we wouldn’t see women running 10.6 100M sprints at the olympics while men run 9.8. We wouldn’t see female powerlifters struggling to bench 400lbs while men at the same weight lift 700lbs.
Ok, if there are no physical differences, then why are women slower than men in running and swimming? Or weight-lifting? Those are “pure”, physically involved sports that involve relatively little skill, unlike baseball and golf, for example.
“You have to remember, fundamentally, there is no structural difference between boys and girls.”
This is 100% accurate. Except for the different bone structures and ability to add muscle mass. No structural difference whatsoever, though.
………………………………………….really?
I think your post contains a lot of inaccuracies, and that’s putting it nicely.
Both men and women play basketball from young ages. Watch the NBA and WNBA and compare the games, abilities, styles, etc.
Women are not taught to “play below the rim”.
Men and women play lots of the “same sports”. We can look to the olympics to compare the results of men and women doing the smae activity.
I’m an administrator in a junior high. I will agree that pre-puberty boys and girls are physically similar. Up to 5th grade, girls probably have the upper hand in terms of height, strength, etc. Post-puberty, not so much. Not even close. By 21, the physical differences are very significant. MOF, when women want to get stronger and faster than they naturally are, they inject male hormones.
The biggest error in your post is the idea that one can “practice” themselves into the major league. Sure the only reason why women aren’t throwing 90+ is because they didn’t play enough overhand catch.
No.
“No.”
Hahaha.
God, I don’t even remember writing this. Shows me not drink and then think I can make intelligent points again. A lot of that is just dumb, especially without having any research to back it up.
Honestly though, do you all really not think that a chunk of women could be a better ballplayer than somebody like Juan PIerre? What they lack in speed, it’s not so far fetched to believe that they couldn’t compensate in other ways.
The debate is kind of a moot point though. No one’s done anything necessary to prove this whole concept true/false. Research would indicate that in general, women lack the physical strength of men. However, professional athletes are already above the average person, and they come in different levels rather than one total set. So there honestly is no reason to believe some EXCEPTIONAL women could perform at the level of some lesser quality athletes. Would it be worth exploiting? Not really, but it’s certainly possible. At this point, it’s mostly just a thought exercise. For this to be definitively proven, it would take families giving up their daughters from birth as test subjects to go through some kind of process that might lead them to be on the same level as men. Until that happens, no one can really say yes or no.
I have to say, I am glad to see that Fangraphs has so many experts in biology and human development.
There aren’t many people in this thread legitimately arguing that it’s not possible for a woman to play at an average level in MLB. The argument is that it would HAVE to be a truly exceptional woman, i.e. there would be a very small pool and, therefore, no market inefficiency. This entire discussion has just been completely asinine.
In this discussion, there are:
a. Trolls.
b. People responding to trolls without realizing it.
c. Guys going out of their way to be offended (similar to item “b”).
d. People disagreeing with the original post, in completely civil and legitimate ways, and being called misogynists.
e. People completely misunderstanding the terms/concepts “market inefficiency,” “misogyny,” and “legitimate biological differences between males and females (i.e. NOT “women have smaller brains.” There is a difference.).”
f. Oversimplification to the point of absurdity.
Every comment falls into one of those categories.
As one that has a pre-med degree (Professional Biology Major, Chemistry and Nutrition minors), I would have figured no education was required. Surely all of us guys around age 12-14 noticed what changes the girls’ bodies underwent, and concluded that they didn’t become more “like us”.
I have stated in previous discussions that I felt there were 2 high school girl softball players that could have played on our high school baseball team (I coach). One of them may have started at SS (she is considered the greatest female athlete of our school’s 100+ year history). But, she would not start at a major a D1 school, nor make the team. That’s not even considering whether she could make it through the minors and eventually to the major leagues.
I know some outstanding make athletes that did great in college but did not get a chance at the pros. They are considered some of the greatest athletes in the history of the conference … and not just any conference, but a conference that routinely sends a representative to sectionals, supers, and state.
We talk as if a female throwing 83 could throw in the bullpen. Teams don;t even draft these types of players, right? Jamie Moyer is the league because he once threw 90+ before an injury forced him to change his approach.
Now, THERE might be a market inefficiency, lower velocity, changing speeds, control specialists. They likely exist in good numbers and could be had for cheap. I’m not sure we can prove that very many 83-mph pitchers can find MLB success.
I passed third grade. Ergo I’m qualified to mock your fucking ridiculous assertions (and CC11’s stupidity as well. Fucking children. lol @ his nutrition minor. Moron.)
Can I be the new Billy Beane if I start scouting Chinese-girl-midgets?
Forget Jeremy Brown, I’ll drafting Ching Ling Tong (?).
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ccsteffen.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/china.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cherierunsthis.com/tag/mother/&usg=__UlvMaVGWf6SA0CMFcfvm-t9K_M0=&h=500&w=375&sz=75&hl=en&start=16&sig2=v_hds6uWtqhSIeG4ku0yiA&zoom=1&tbnid=eml7BT9zzKbzuM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=98&ei=CjMVTu7KL_KHsAKXov0s&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dchinese%2Bmidget%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D799%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1
Oh, and for my new movie coming out, I’d like Matt Damon to play me. He’s smarter looking than Brad Pitt.
The more preposterous ideas are that given the huge size of the modern industrial population, the MLB clubs have somehow perfectly recruited the entire ideal baseball playing population to the point that it is impossible for exceptional women who have been given the same training to even compete.
The population average physiological differences only mean that we should expect a lower proportion of woman players on rosters, not zero women for all time. This is doubly true for games like baseball and cricket where strength and endurance might not even be dominant attributes in all positions like in the goal-based team sports.
There was a female goal tender in Hockey a decade or so ago. She even played as a backup at the highest level for a while.
Well i found her, but she did not play as a backup during the regular season. Only exhibitions. Nonetheless.
How many times do we hear about players taking days off for the birth of their sons? Now consider entire seasons lost due to pregnancy, its your career or your chance to get a family
how does this get minuses? this is an incredibly valid point brought up by no one else
Sad part is that he did miss the next market inefficiency involving women in baseball – as scouts and in player development.
NFL’s next market inefficiency: fieldgoal-kicking mules.
Couldn’t there just be a woman with an exceptional batting eye? What about speed?
Defense is not all physical. I don’t see why the very best female fielders in the world at any time couldn’t be major league caliber.
of course they could… but chances are, there would be a guy who could field just as well, while also hitting
Cesar Izturis can’t hit for shit yet he’s still had a very valuable glove at SS and a mostly starting job the last 8 or 9 years because of it. Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, Omar Vizquel, A. Escobar, Elvis Andrus, Cliff Penington, Ben Zobrist, Clint Barmes, Michael Bourn, Chase Headley, Tony Gwynn Jr, etc… a lot of guys who don’t have much value outside of their glove yet have been a starter on their teams multiple seasons.
I have no point to this besides just to add onto your post, lol.
I just think it should be put up to that chance. As apposed to what we have now. Which is women not being given a fair shot to play baseball. Most high schools offer softball instead, you can’t play softball and make it to the majors.
I don’t get why guys are such dicks about women in baseball. If a girl can play let her play. If she can hang she will, if she can’t she like the plenty of men who can’t play pro-ball won’t. Baseball should never overlook talent. If a woman can pitch or hit or anything that can help your team, you want her on your team.
no one is seriously saying DONT LET ANY WOMEN PLAY BASEBALL EVER… do you even read the comments, or just assume everyone’s saying what you want them to be saying for your strawman to work?
Jim, are you even reading your own comments? You and others are falling all over yourselves to make the argument for why women can’t/won’t play. Aren’t you the slightest bit suspicious of the level of passion this topics brings up in this group of men? Basically, the hundreds of posts here saying that women can never hang at baseball prove the author’s point.
we’re not saying NO WOMAN COULD EVER PLAY BASEBALL EVAR, what we’re saying is that *women as a gender* lack the physical capacity to compete with men on an level playing field in most athletics, and that is 100% scientifically proven. of course the very best of a female player might make it someday, sure, but *women as a gender* will not
Attitudes like this are why biases exist. Science hasn’t really proven anything. Put a woman around men the whole time and she’ll do her damnedest to compete with them.
Also this isn’t a one on one thing. This isn’t a leaderboard thing. I don’t think anyone is saying a women would come on and win the triple crown as a hitter or pitcher. But I would have faith that a woman can play as well as a David Eckstein or Scott Proctor.
I’m sure you’ll pull up golf or tennis, But those sports aren’t comparable to baseball, which is a team sport. Baseball teams can get by with someone players who can’t hit well, look at the Braves, one of tthe best records in baseball, and they have guys like Schafer and A-Gon who aren’t good hitters. Tennis and golf are one on one and a leaderboard sport.
I’m sure you’d bring up football. Football is also different, cause it’s a sport about strength. Baseball is about finesse. Comparing football to baseball is like comparing a 200 M dash to a 20K run.
I think you drastically underestimate David Eckstein’s contact skills, defense, etc.
There are A LOT of 5’7 100-nothing shortstop in the USA. A LOT. I’ll go so far as to say every team has 3 of them.
Very few, if any of them, become productive major league baseball players. David Eckstein is just not the little engine that could. He just has elite levels of ability in things that are not generally regarded as athletic abilities. His hand-eye coordination has to be off the charts, which is kind of important for baseball players.
And just what are the other men doing around the men? Goofing off? You realize there are thousands of male baseball players each year that do not get drafted, despite spending their entire lives trying to, right?
We’re talking about the top 1-3% of all professional baseball players, the top 0.5% of all high school and college players.
I think people drastically underestimate the talent of players that have absolutely no shot at making it the major leagues.
——————————————-
People continue to ignore all data that opposes their opinion. Is their any athletic endeavor where women’s results are close to the men’s results (at the same level of competition)?
Which parts are finesse?
I ask from the standpoint that there is so much emphasis on having a strong lower body and core, and being able to transfer that strength to the baseball.
A baseball swing and a pitching/throwing motion are incredibly violent, actions of strength. Maximum, torque, bat speed via strength, etc.
We can examine certain acts and say “women could do that” (throw like Damon, same build as Eckstein, etc). But those players often have aspects of their games that are worth the parts that aren’t “up to snuff”.
I think we should rule out pitching by default, since scouts generally don’t/won’t sign someone that throws less than 90. We could also rule out positions occupied by power hitters.
We’re basically left with, due to physical limitations, middle infield spots and center field. The issues in my mind is the larger field (requires much greater arm strength) and the trend toward much larger shortstops and second basemen.
I think it is a fair assumption that a female baseball player will generally not be a 6’0 205 power or gap power hitter. The musculature and body types are not the same. So, the remainder is left with being able to cover ground (range). Will a female athlete be able to run like Vince Coleman, defend like Carl Crawford, … probably not. Looks at their physiques. A more realistic question is whether there’s a female “Otis Nixon” out there. Again, probably not in the speed department. We’re basically left with a female baseball player being able to outperform Skip Schumaker. Some may be able to … but there are also a lot of males that likely could (same with Aaron Miles). So, we’re looking at the best female baseball player in the country and saying she could out compete the worst second baseman/men in the game. By definition, so could lots of other men. I’m trying to see where the advantage is? The issue isn’t “females would be a better value”, but rather “Skip and Aaron shouldn’t have Major League jobs”.
When looking at the situation, I’m looking at [1] what positions will they play, [2] who will they outcompete for the job, [3] do they have the physical attributes for the job?
I’m not all that interested in debating theoretical possibilities, but rather there’s enough females with the physical stature and abilities to make it to the major leagues to constitute a valuable market worth exploring.
Sure but we’re talking about the elite of the elite women athletes competing for this. You don’t think Serena Williams who can serve a ball over 110 MPH, or Michelle Wie who can drive a ball nearly 300 yards can’t compete with lesser talented players?
And we’re talking about women growing up and playing with boys. Not taking some girl who’s been playing softball (which most men who grew up playing baseball can’t hit off a softball pitcher) and converting her to baseball. We’re talking about a girl who’s playing baseball in little league, travel leagues, and high school.
Your last point about results further proves my point. I would bet a good amount of money you put Hope Solo in goal in the MLS, she would compete with any of the guys here. We’re not talking about starters, we’re talking about someone making the team.
Baseball is a finesse sport, it’s all about playing 150 games. Sure strength comes into it. But how many baseball players who’re healthy are built like Shawne Merriman? Or Flozell Adams?
I don’t think it’s worthwhile for baseball to go out of it’s way to get a ton of women, I think it would be a good grab for minor league teams for fan draws. But I think it could be more than feasible for women who’re brought up playing baseball could be drafted out of high school or college, they could play the OF, 2B, 1B, 3B, SS, maybe catcher, and of course pitching.
“In all fairness, Ruth didn’t have the advantage of watching Venus Williams play tennis.”
Huh. What does this mean? Is there anyone on this forum with an above average tennis IQ that can give an honest opinion of how a Williams-Djokovic or Williams-Nadal match would end up?
I don’t get the point of this, women can play softball. It’s more available to them, it’s a level playing field, and it’s every bit as much of a sport as baseball is. Why would anyone want to try to pit them against a much stronger competition field? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Now I support and absolutely believe that some woman could play baseball at the 2-3 WAR level if they were allowed to develop at young ages equally as men. I am also certain that a much lower percentage of Woman would ever be a hall of fame quality player for physical reasons. Consequently, I am not 100% that it is in the interest of Baseball to fully exploit this inefficiency. The cost of scouting and developing woman would be the same as scouting and developing men, but the average payoff would be lower since you have a near zero chance of developing a hall of fame player.
Have you ever known an athlete who played at the professional level? I’ve known a few, and even those who most people would consider to be non-athletic in relation to their peers in the sport, are such better natural athletes compared to the general population that it’s not even funny. Now go back to high school, when a pitcher who is now one of those non-athletic LOOGYs, was a superstar shortstop and all state player for four years. This notion that guys like Paul Maholm are nothing athletes is just silly and it undermines the entire argument.
It’s surprising that no one here brings up the Colorado Silver Bullets. Phil Niekro managed them, and in the mid-90s, they were touted as playing at the same level as Double A teams. Then they went out and got utterly destroyed by nearly every semi-pro team they encountered. Seriously, I remember watching them play on ESPN2, and they lost to a team of Hollywood actors led by Kevin Costner. People stopped talking about them being future major leaguers after that.
So, sure, there could be a female David Eckstein or a Daniel Herrera, but the idea that there could be so many women that could play professionally that there is an unexploited market inefficiency is pretty silly.
Peter Gammons once said Kevin Costner would have had a 11-12 WAR career, so that’s not really a fair example.
: )
Yeah good luck with this one. No team would ever want to be “THAT” team (the one who signs a woman first, unless she throws 98mph with cut on it. Which probably isn’t even humanly possible for a woman without HGH.
Women have half the muscle capacity and 75% the lung capacity of a man, average vs average of course. The William’s sisters would destroy me in just about any athletic competition. They’re exceptions, they’re the elite. You compare them to LeBron James, they get destroyed.
I don’t think there’s in inefficiency here at all. Women develop differently, I would guess that there are more elite women’s athletes age 18-25 than 26-32. So already those 18-25 years (typically spent in the minors) are a woman’s peak. Not only that but, as I said, elite vs elite it’s not even close.
Someone said that they thought the Williams sisters could hit 20-25 home runs if they were dedicated. Venus is just 6’1″. I say “just” because if she were a man in the Majors, that’s not very tall. Couldn’t find a listed weight but I’ll guess around 185-190 since she’s pretty solid. How many Major Leaguers are 6’1″ 185 with above average pop? Derek Jeter, for example, is listed at 6’3″ around 200 pounds. He’s a bit larger than Venus and has only hit 20-25 3 times. He’s a future hall of famer.
I’m not saying a woman doesn’t have a chance. However, much like the NHL, NFL, and NBA, it’s such a difference between strength, speed, and endurance. Baseball is more of a skill sport where you can’t rely on natural athleticism as much, however the strength and short twitch muscle fiber capabilities to do what ML players do is insane.
The real market inefficiencies aren’t types of people; they’re new ideals. The next level after Sabermetrics. A new training technique. A new scouting technique, etc that nobody who writes for this site is smart enough to come up with. That’s not a knock, it’s just that if they were, it’d already be employed by some team right now. In all likelihood, it’s already being exploited and we don’t even know about it yet.
I don’t know about that. Baseball front offices are both notoriously cheap when it comes to hiring new blood and notoriously conservative when it comes to implementing new ideas. No young turk professing the next big thing is going to be taken seriously until there’s a critical mass of evidence behind it, evidence that’s probably been amassed by outside sources. And even then, well, we still have front offices that seem to ignore anything more complicated than gold gloves and OPS.
You don’t think teams like the Rays are, in the words of Bruce Willis in Armageddon, paying guys to think shit up, and guys backing them up paid to think shit up? The mid-small market teams MUST be creative. Unless they’re like the Pirates or Marlins owners who actually don’t care about winning, just taking in the “profit” from rev sharing, keeping a low operating cost, and (in the Marlins case) trying to make it look like you care.
Outside of a knuckleballer, I can’t see this happening. The physiological difference between sexes is too great. Many studies also have shown women hit their physical peak at 21, while for men it’s 27. That leaves no room for developement and what organization would even consider that? Not to mention the natural ability to build muscle faster and stronger.
Pitchers who’s average fastballs range in the mid-80’s don’t usually get a real chance in the majors as millions of people can throw them.
Shut up you racist!
I don’t see how any of that can be seen as racism so I assume it’s a comical reference to something…
it’s probably sarcastically mocking the people who think that women not physically being able to hack it vs men in baseball is some sort of derogatory comment… if it’s serious, then he’s just an idiot
did you get your information from my post just above yours? About the earlier physical peak and less overall “ceiling” for athletic achievement?
*Insert misogynistic, “DERP, gerls cant play spohrts!” comment here…*
So judging by most of these comments, the average age of a Fangraphs commenter is what, 12 years old? Maybe you tots should just stick to Neopets and the Justin Bieber message boards for now and let the adults talk. Feel free to come back and join the conversation after you finish puberty.
Absolutely pathetic…
Outside of a couple trolls, no one really said anything besides that women have a physical peak much earlier than a man’s which leaves much less time for development, and that the difference between the most athletic women in the world and the most athletic men is vast.
I postulate that it is indeed you, sir, who is
Outside of a couple trolls, no one really said anything besides that women have a physical peak much earlier than a man’s which leaves much less time for development, and that the difference between the most athletic women in the world and the most athletic men is vast.
I postulate that it is indeed you, sir, who is 12 years old.
Hey now, I haven’t read a single “but the boobies get in the way of their swing” similarly ridiculous comment. It’s not like top male athletes having a decisive advantage over top female athletes is a remotely controversial position. And having completed puberty myself, I realize that it is the point at which female fall behind males athletically.
How many female writers are there on staff at fangraphs, by the way?
Inefficiency #4, batting with your pants round your ankles.
“The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the knee cap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.”
Winner.
Wow. This article displays a profound misunderstanding of both the physiological differences between men and women and what a “market inefficiency” is.
The only chance a woman would ever have of even sniffing pro baseball is as a knuckleballer. Then again, for every one woman who could do that there probably thousands and thousands of men who could potentially make the majors throwing a knuckleball, but never get the chance because of the way pitchers are developed and scouted.
So maybe there is a market inefficiency in developing knuckleballers (although I’m not really sure) But there certainly, certainly isn’t one for female baseball players.
I do have to commend this troll of an article for getting me to comment, which I rarely do.
kick me in the GO NATS says:
July 7, 2011 at 2:35 am
I meant consistently, the spell checker changed it on me after my typo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Sexes_(Tennis)
A woman has beaten the then #1 ranked man in Tennis using Men’s rules. Billy Jean King in 1973.
had she been allowed to play mens tennis I have no doubt she would have been a top 10 player in the 70s.
People also forget that Riggs beat Margaret Court a few months before; a top (1 or 2?) female player. A lot of tennis professionals have said that the top woman tennis player is about the same as the number 1,000 or 1,500 man. And this is in a “skill” sport that certainly has a major physical component, to be fair. When Kim Clijsters (number 2 in the world) practiced against her ex-boyfriend, Lleyton Hewitt (ex number 1 in the world), it was hard for her to win POINTS!
You’re an idiot.
Here’s a question to ask yourself: How often do you hear a story about a five-foot-nothing male pitcher at any level HS and up who throws a fastball in the 60’s and relies on a specialty pitch? How often does such a pitcher have as widespread recognition as Eri Yoshida? How often has such a pitcher caught the attention of someone like Tim Wakefield and taken lessons from him? There are hundreds of men more projectible and more accomplished than Yoshida that none of us have heard of.
Yoshida’s accomplished more than most of us ever will in baseball, but she’s a story because of her gender. People want her to succeed, whereas they wouldn’t even take notice if a John Yoshida had the same resume with similar stuff and physical tools. When a woman comes along and dominates in a league like Yoshida’s played in, you can believe she’ll be a huge national story – much more so than a man with the same numbers and tools, who might make a few fringe prospect lists – and I’d be awfully surprised if her gender doesn’t work in favor of her opportunities to advance rather than the other way around. Yoshida’s proven that there are teams in indie leagues willing to give women a chance to play, and female players are out there in the HS ranks, so there is the opportunity if the right woman comes along.
Straight sexism bro.
What? Reporting on something very uncommon that interests a lot of people is sexism?
Perhaps you don’t understand that she received a ton of benefits purely on the basis of not having a dick.
Your argument implies that gender discrimination has (and will) play a major role in the market for women baseball players. I would argue that it is not gender discrimination but talent discrimination. To date, women simply have not shown the ability to play baseball on a consistent talent level equivalent to that of men. If a woman put up Bryce Harper-like numbers in high school baseball and was still taken low in the draft you would have a point but as of now you are mistaking correlation for causation. “There are no women baseball players” does not mean they are being discriminated on based on gender. It more likely means no women are good enough to play professional baseball.
In short, in order to make the argument that gender/racial/creed/sexuality/etc discrimination is at play one must provide evidence that the group perceived to be discriminated against is capable of performing on an equal level. This would have been easy in the days of the Negro leagues as guys like Josh Gibson crushed home run after home run. But, with women that is not the case. Until we see women playing baseball on a high level the claim of gender discrimination is baseless
Little People, China, and females.
Pass.
Really, there’s no way to present a counter arguement without it being perceived in a negative fashion, or worse being labelled incorrectly.
IMO, this series could have just as easily appeared at The Onion.
Devastating closing argument by CC11. Case closed. Series over.
I’m more disappointed than anything.
We got a series about the next market inefficiencies … supposedly things already in the market that are currently undervalued that teams could obtain at little cost, yet provide good value. A market inefficiency needs to provide greater than replacement level value for it to have “value” that can be undervalued.
We got:
[1] Little People
[2] China
[3] Females
I find it difficult to take that seriously. My comment about The Onion was not a joke. I could easily envision them writing the same articles … only people wouldn’t spend 200+ posts discussing it as it if were realistic.
I agree completely, my friend.
http://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/articles/nostalgia-prompts-return-of-negro-baseball-leagues,1147/
In all seriousness, I thought this series was a joke until this blog.
I mean, it still is, just of the unintentional variety.
or shit, notgraphs at the very least
It always amazes me how much sarcasm flies high overhead of the majority of this site’s commenters.
Women don’t play baseball because they suck at baseball. The comments about softball are nth level retarded.
Look, all you cavemen can say what you want and spew whatever nonsense you can dream up, but women in baseball is going to happen. People want it to happen and people are going to invest whatever it takes to make it happen. You can’t stop the tide of history.
There is a WNBA. It loses money and is full on inferior athletes. Who cares?
Its sexist to selectively choose women who’re inferior to men. Yet for all of these no upside, talentless hacks. There are thousands of men who’re superior ballplayers. Look for the next BZA. Ignore these whiny bitches.
Let’s not confuse the two issues.
There is a difference between …
[1] A female making it to MLB one day.
[2] Females being the next market inefficiency.
#1 just shows a possibility, an achievement.
#2 says that there’s enough value worth investing money.
I think people DRASTICALLY underestimate the amount of male talent that goes undrafted,let alone never makes it to MLB. Seriously, there are 4 year all-conference, D1 scholarship male athletes that don’t “go pro”, and there are even fewer that make it to MLB.
We’re talking about this as if there are lots of female athletes out there that could/would become major leaguers enough to create a market inefficiency.
One or two females athletes being marginal ML’ers does not a market inefficiency make. If we want to look at history, here’s the scoreboard:
Little People: 1
1-Armed Outfielders: 1
1-Armed pitchers: 1
Females: 0
It may happen. Whether people want it to is beyond the discussion. But, it won’t happen to a degree to create a market inefficiency.
We might as well say “switch pitchers” could be another market inefficiency because there’s a chance one of them will make it to MLB one day.
For all the guys who are complaining that every girl they’ve seen play baseball sucks at it and that’s proof that it’ll never happen…
First, you’d need to pour billions of dollars into the development of female athletes at every age level – coaches, time, facilities, scholarships, developmental leagues, pro leagues – so that the girls have the same coaching and opportunities that the boys already have. (Or do people honestly think that throwing hard has more to do with size than it does with early, frequent, and smart coaching? Tim Lincecum, anyone?)
So find all that money, do all those things, and then we can talk about some meaningful evidence. In 30 years, or so, I would guess.
“First, you’d need to pour billions of dollars into the development of female athletes at every age level…”
So we agree there’s no market inefficiency, correct?
timmeh is the outlier, not the exception
err the outlier, not the rule
Lincecum may not be huge, but his short twitch muscle fibers are pretty goddamn amazing. Insane Bolt is about the same size as some women, but there isn’t a woman in the world with his short twitch ability. I’d bet the same with Big Time Timmy Jim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Sexes_(Tennis)
A woman has beaten the then #1 ranked man in Tennis using Men’s rules. Billy Jean King in 1973.
We’ve already gone over this. Riggs was in his 50’s and had last been ranked #1 in 1947. Obviously, at this point (1973), he wasn’t competing professionally any more.
King was in her prime.
You’re a fucking idiot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Jean_King
Still big.
how stupid are you? why does no one even read that article? anyone who did and had half a friggin brain would not believe that was evidence of women being better then men
@garrett: this is the first and probably only time I will thumbs up a comment reading “you’re a fucking idiot”
How to get females into professional baseball in 2 easy steps:
1. Get rid of fastpitch softball completely.
2. Have mixed youth teams.
While we’re at it, we should get rid of cricket in India, and communism in China.
What is better for women?
[1] Compete in a girls sport that results in lots of college scholarships.
[2] Compete in a co-ed sport, where very few will compete,let alone play in college?
I don’t see where that’s a good trade for girls.
Men also play volleyball, which is pretty much known as a girls sport (the girls alternative to football if you will). Have you ever seen men play football? Good god, those fellas are on trampolines.
We need to stop looking at David Eckstein and thinking “girls could do that”. There are a whole lot of males that were college players Eckstein’s size that cannot do what Eckstein does. My guess is that the primary difference is arm strength on a big field. In that regard, Eckstein is reputed to have a “weak” major league arm. However, that weak arm is superior to the arms of the other guys he outcompeted.
As has been pointed out numerous times, we can look at sports where boys and girls compete in the same activity in youth ages through professional and see how they compare. Track, volleyball, basketball, tennis, triathlon, swimming, etc …. and all this is considering that perhaps the best male athletes play football, where there is no female equivalent.
Err, “Have you ever seen men play volleyball?” (not football).
Your evaluation of athletes routinely sucks. Try watching tennis and judging the speed of female athletes and look into why there is virtually no net play in the women’s game. Maybe you’ll “learn you something” about athletics instead of this word vomit you pass off as “thinking”.
I can just see the issues with trying to put a girls locker room in Wrigley field.
It’s all about opportunity, black men in the 30’s had zero chance to play MLB just because of the color of thier skin. I’m sure there are women out there that could compete with marginal palyers that just did get the opportunity to play. I think the real question is could a woman be a superstar MLB player, the answer is clearly no for obvious physical reasons. MLB teams don’t draft players they hope will be marginal, they always hope for the best. Women, therefore, will not get the opportunity.
I don’t even think women could compete with marginal men. Most women are promoted on the basis of novelty and still suck.
As my last word I’d just like to remind everyone that Billy Jean King beat the best mens tennis player in the world several times back in her day. Had she been allowed to play mens tennis I have no doubt she would have been a top 10 player in the 70s.
From the ESPN article: “King, then 29, ran [Bobby Riggs, #1 ranked man in Tennis] ragged, winning 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a match the London Sunday Times called ‘the drop shot and volley heard around the world.’
‘Most important perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations and that men are as susceptible to nerves as women,’ Neil Amdur wrote in The New York Times…”
How are you able to post this fuckstick nonsense?
I hope someone besides me understands that this is pure trolling at this point. I fell for it once, too.
As a woman who watches and cares strongly about baseball (I know, it’s like I’m a unicorn), I would love to believe a woman could make it in the majors as a finesse/knuckleball pitcher. That would probably be the best chance a woman would have to play in any of the four major North American pro sports leagues, except maybe as an NHL goalie. But I think it’s a long way away, if it’s coming at all, largely due to the lack of infrastructure that a lot of people have brought up. Girls either don’t get the chance to play baseball rather than softball, or they don’t want to, because why play on a team where you are going to stand out/very likely be discriminated against in some way, when you can just play a similar sport on a team with all girls and not have to worry about it? (I’m not saying this is the right way or a good way to think about it, but it’s certainly the way a lot of girls think, and it’s at least partly valid.)
I absolutely think a girl brought up to play baseball (rather than softball), and born with the right physical abilities (i.e. she’d have to be uncommonly tall, strong, etc. for a woman) could play professionally. But that’s a whole lot of variables that would have to fall into place just right, and on top of that she’d have to be the type of person who could handle the ensuing media/fan shitstorm. The fact that so many people troll these articles about women in baseball (even the ones about front office positions, where there’s absolutely no reason to think women can’t hang) on a site like Fangraphs, where the readership is probably a lot smarter than on the average sports site, is not encouraging. At all.
Also, I liked the article just fine, but I’m not sure it belongs in the “market inefficiencies” series with the discussions of developing talent in China, Latin America, etc. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but I see teams starting to draw regularly from Panama way, way before they’d start to draw from your average group of female American athletes. And the financial commitment necessary to make it happen would preclude this from being anything like a market inefficiency.
Oops, I guess the Latin America article wasn’t technically a market inefficiencies one. My bad. Still, I even see teams starting to draw from China/India before they start consistently making women big-league regulars.
After reading all of the comments, I believe it is fair to say that there are a significant number in three categories:
1. Clear jokes (whether you think it is okay or not to joke about something as serious as donkeys kicking field goals is up to you)
2. Irrational comments claiming that women could ever be a significant part of baseball.
3. Comments pointing out the massive logical flaws in #2, with varying degrees of effort to spare the feelings of the authors of those posts.
There were a few just simply unnecessary comments (perhaps #1s that missed their mark), but not very many. What is interesting is that the people that claimed that women could not do front office jobs as well as men were so clearly wrong and the people that say women could ever play MLB baseball (aside from a miracle player getting a shot and being terrible) are also clearly wrong. I wonder how many people fell into only one category?
I mean, yeah. I read the article about women in the front offices right before I read this, so I may have been carrying over a little of my reaction to that piece into my response to this one. Just curious – did you mean “irrational comments claiming that women COULD ever be a significant part of baseball” or “COULDN’T”? Seeing as my response sort of depends on that.
Like I said in my comment, it would be incredibly unlikely for a woman to be really well suited to play professional baseball, but I don’t think it’s impossible.
(Also, you forgot 4. People completely misrepresenting Billie Jean King because they didn’t read the seventeen comments above where someone already did that.)
I’m not claiming that it is literally impossible that a woman could be good enough to play (a knuckleball pitcher really being the only possibility I can see). But the chances of them being significant, as in, more than a sideshow, is nil.
The BJK thing is really just a rush to try and make a point. Clearly, a 26-year-old beating a 55-year-old does not make her a top-10 player. That doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Annie, I think that most male readers are just skeptical of the idea that a considerable or significant number of females could make the majors. Men and women have their particular strengths and men are better in almost all physical characteristics than women. I believe that women have higher pain thresholds than men, however.
That’s certainly fair – you can see I was skeptical of it in my comment too. The biological differences are obviously a huge impediment to a whole bunch of women winding up on major league rosters any time soon (I guess I didn’t really go into that in my comment because I thought it seemed obvious). I just didn’t see the need a lot of commenters had to act like even bringing it up in a hypothetical sense was horrifying.
this is one of the most poorly researched articles I have ever read. a lot of poor logic went into as well.
the williams sisters are a terrible example of “endurance” considering they both take extended leaves of absence from the women’s tour to rest so they can be at full strength for the majors, especially Wimbledon
and yea, as previously mentioned they were both slaughtered by a scrub on the men’s tour when they were in their physical prime
the talk about “different body types” is hilarious as well. there is no one in MLB at eri yoshida’s height and there hasn’t been since probably the dead ball era. if the best woman golfer can’t compete on the men’s tour they have no chance in baseball. not sure how throwing a 50mph knuckleball is supposed to help either. maybe you shouldve wrote an article on all the men out there who wash out in college/the minors with the arm strength and ability to throw an MLB-level knuckleball that don’t learn it as a market inefficiency using RA Dickey as an example.
however, using the logic that went into this post I expect your next article will be on people lacking ulnar collateral ligaments
So I have read the market inefficiency articles, and I have not been impressed. None of the options sounded great. I was wondering if the current situation with Cuba would qualify as a market inefficiency? The tiny island has a rich baseball history and well developed leagues. It seems entirely possible that there are 5-10 MLB quality players currently stuck in Cuba.
the ‘market inefficiency’ articles are satire, they’re not to be taken seriously.
If you google “women beating men in sports” the first entry is a top 9 list (I guess there are only 9?). It consists of:
2 entries for women winning unimportant golf tourneys (golf, btw, is a sport a woman could definitely compete with men in, especially if they cut down on the PED usage), but with the caveat that they both got to hit from the “ladies’ tees” which is an antiquated term and Golf Digest says are only for inferior players of all genders.
1 eating contest winner. I don’t think I need to explain why this doesn’t matter.
1 jockey. Ditto
1 bowler. Ditto
1 tennis winner. 26-year old Billie Jean King beating some grandpa
1 baseball – Jackie Mitchell striking out the Babe and Lou, talk about a SSS
1 103 pound wrestler winning the Alaska state championship. Probably the best evidence of womens’ ability. This would carry more weight in an argument that women could compete in a 103 pound baseball division
1 top US Warrior Competition. I can’t say I know nearly enough about this to opine.
I honestly can’t believe this is a list that is I guess supposed to celebrate women beating men.
Women can’t compete with men in golf. Stop the nonsense.
The rest are just women beating shitty competition. I could just as easily go out and “compete” (and lose) in a variety of events to women. This doesn’t mean they’re any good. Just they managed to find a man who sucked (see King).
Women can easily beat men in any sport where speed, strength, or durability are not significant factors. But those sports, such as bowling, really really suck (horse racing is different because the real athlete is the horse).
Obviously, with golf, strength is important, but if Tom Watson can almost win the Open at 59, I think it is theoretically possible that a woman could win a PGA tournament playing by the same rules. Unlikely, but possible.
Baseball, football, basketball, etc. No chance.
I always thought sabermetrics guys were supposed to be these logical-thinking smart guys. However, reading this article and some of the comments that followed makes me seriously doubt that. Maybe it’s just Fangraphs and the readership is more intelligent on a site like Baseball Reference.
I don’t mean to knock the majority of the posters who have responded in this thread. There have been some very good posts refuting the author. But this is just ridiculous.
There are almost no knuckleballers in MLB. Do you know why? Because most teams do not like the knuckleball and do not teach it to their pitchers. So the idea that all these female knuckleballers will somehow become MLB players is silly.
The next bit of “wisdom” bestowed on us is how a female should be able to be a better player than Pat Maholm or Yuni Betancourt. This is flawed for 2 reasons:
1) Yuni may look bad compared to his peers, but he is a far superior athlete than most normal people
2) There are players in the minors who are better than Yuni. Thus, the only reason he has a job is because the front office is stupid. So the player you think a woman could replace is actually worse than men in the minors. And if she is on Yuni’s level, she is worse than a bunch of men who aren’t even in the majors yet.
Men and women have real differences in the way we are physically built. Now, I am not misquoting the author by infering that he said men and women were the same (he did NOT). However, what he did do was say that baseball required less physical athleticism so women can compete despite these differences. That is wrong! Baseball is the hardest sport ( not the easiest). The amount of hand-eye coordination that is involved, arm strength, muscle mass. Women can not achieve that without steroids, and they are no longer allowed in baseball.
Lastly, can the retard who keeps mentioning Billy Jean King beating Riggs when he was 55 (and no longer relevant to the sport of tennis) please smack your head against the wall. Riggs only did this as a publicity stunt because he was a 55 yr. old has-been. So he wanted to get himself attention. He was a retired, out of shape guy, who challenged a woman in the peak of her career. And he was still competitive.
I guess Fangraphs writers are only good at reading statistics calculated by those smarter than them. Then, they think they know-it-all because they know a 5 WAR > 4 WAR. Too bad they don’t know basic Junior High School Biology.
From what I have read about Jackie Mitchell, her pitching in the exhibition game against the Yankees was a publicity stunt. The following is an excerpt from a piece that Scott Simkus wrote about Chief Bender and Jackie Mitchell:
“Miss Mitchell was an over-hyped carnival attraction who helped draw
fans when she pitched, but possessed a batting-practice fastball which came to the
plate “on a hump” (according to some of the more honest local newspaper accounts),
and was often hit for long distances by the opposition.”
From now on, every time I read a completely incompetent inference or misguided analysis posted by a Fangraphs commenter, I’ll think of all those on display above, recognize that the usual human failures and biases apply to this community as much as to any other, and refrain from saying anything.
I think there’s really two valid points in the article that kind of get jumbled together into a faulty premise.
1. There’s a potential inefficiency in pitchers who don’t throw hard. There are pitchers who have success with velocity below what is considered draftable. Could a team find some quality pitchers by rounding up a bunch of undrafted pitchers in a special academy for next to nothing, hiring a specialty pitching coach to teach them knucklers and other junk-type pitches, and keeping the ones that stick? Possibly.
2. Given that there are women who can throw as hard as some of these types pitchers who do find success, there’s no reason why an extremely talented woman couldn’t use that as a means of making the majors, and even becoming a decent player.
Both points makes sense. A lot of successful soft-tossers are guys who projected differently or once threw harder but have to improvise when their velocity drops, so it might be worthwhile grooming a high volume of cheap lesser velocity pitchers for that role to see what sticks. It also stands to reason that if there’s some overlap if there’s some overlap between the tools of the most physically talented women and the least physically gifted men having successful careers, it’s reasonable to expect there to be a woman here and there who could succeed in the majors. From an inefficiency standpoint, however, it makes no sense to look at a small pool of players (say, women with fringe MLB velocity) over a significantly larger pool (undrafted college players with the same velocity) unless there’s some reason to believe that the average player in smaller pool has a much better chance of panning out.
Here’s why it doesn’t make sense. Because MLB players can destroy most soft tossers. This is why scouts typically look for guys who throw in the mid 90’s. It’s because you need a quality FB to be able to dominate the league.
Knuckleballers are mostly unsuccessful. It is a hard pitch to teach and even harder to control. Therefore, it’s not an efficient pitch to teach.
The real skill is to have a guy with a great fastball and a slow changeup. The greater the speed difference between a fastball and a changeup, the more effective the pitcher will be.
If MLB hitters sit on a soft tosser, they will pound them eventually. Even RA Dickey uses a straight Fastball to keep the hitters from sitting on the knuckleball.
The Yankees had a soft tosser named Aaron Small. He was brought up and had an amazing run through the league for one season. By the next season, the league had caught up to him, and his career was over.
That’s one of the things that makes a potential market inefficiency, though. At that point, you’re not looking for your stars, you’re looking for players who can competently eat innings at cheaper than the market rate. The question isn’t whether a soft-tosser is as desirable a commodity as a hard-thrower; he isn’t. The question’s whether it would be worth the investment to set up an soft-tosser/knuckleball academy for players that slipped through the draft with specialized coaches. I don’t know if it would or not, but the fact that even average pitchers cost a lot more than a good coaching staff and that every year there are pitchers succeeding at velocities that wouldn’t have gotten them drafted makes it something worth investigating.
Thank God we have fangraphs commenters to defend sports against the ominous threat of female athletes being relevant. The prevalent attitudes in the society we live in DEFINITELY aren’t doing their job well enough.