Spring has sprung here in the South, and in school sports baseball, tennis, golf, and track and field, and Spring soccer take center stage. Not universally known, in 2017, the U.S. women's soccer team lost to a Dallas soccer academy team of boys, whose top age was 14 years old.
The match was not a formal contest, and you could say that not much was on the line. The young boys, however, won 5-2. Since then, in other contests against boys’ teams, women’s teams have lost, all of which leads to the topic of girls’ sports and who qualifies to play in them.
The Best Baseball Hitter I Ever Saw
I am a dad, and when my daughter, Valerie, was four years old, I began pitching to her in the backyard. We started first with wiffle balls and a wiffle bat because it was easy for her to swing a bat that was so light. Soon, keeping the same bat, we switched to tennis balls. I would pitch to her underhand but progressively started pitching faster and faster.
We had a backstop so that if she swung and missed, the ball would hit the backstop, bounce back to me, and I could pitch again. As time wore on, I began pitching to her faster and faster. I also bade her to swing from the left-hand side. I figured that with her being that young, she wouldn't know the difference.
Sure enough, by the time she was six, she was hitting equally well as a lefty and righty, a complete switch hitter. I also had been throwing progressively faster. She was hitting the fastest pitches I could throw, and I could throw fast. I had been a pitcher in the Babe Ruth League when I was growing up. I could strike out grown men.
As Fast as I Could Throw
One day, when my best friend, Peter, was visiting North Carolina, I threw a round of pitches at him, and he had extreme difficulty in making contact. And make no mistake, he was a top athlete: a Babe Ruth League and American Legion baseball star, and a wide receiver in college football, with arguably pro potential.
I then had Valerie pick up the bat and do her thing. He was amazed. She would whack the ball with regularity. Neither of us had seen anything like it.
By age eight, she was so skilled that I had to enroll her in the girl’s nine- to 12-year-old league because I feared what would happen if I enrolled her in the seven- and eight-year-old league. She would smack line drives up the middle. No one would be able to catch them.
Doing it All
Even at age eight, playing with girls up to four years older than she, many twice her weight, Valerie was a decent player in the nine- to 12-year-old league. At nine, she was better, at ten, she started to become a star, and at 11 and 12, she was unstoppable.
Play shortstop if the team needed it? Sure, fill in at third base, sure. Pitch a little? Yes. Play the outfield, why not? Valerie could do it all. At 12, she was still more slender than any of the other girls. Val had skill, however, for every phase of the game. Other girls who had been pitching for years did not have Valerie's accuracy. When ground balls got hit back to the pitcher's mound, she would field them and throw to first, as if it was nothing at all.
One night, I took her to see the Durham Bulls, a Minor League Baseball team and the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. There was a contest in two categories for the fastest pitch thrown: 18 and under, and 12 and under. The 18-and-under winner for girls was a 17-year-old from eastern NC who was the star pitcher for her high school softball team.
Speed Ball
This 17-year-old threw 49 mph and won a custom Bulls baseball cap. The 12-and-under winner that night was my 11-year-old daughter, Valerie, who threw 47 mph. Six years younger than the high school pitching star, Valerie was able to throw within two mph of her. Valerie, however, took it all in stride.
Today, with the prospect of biological males competing in women’s sports, I would not enroll a young daughter at all. The distinct possibility of incurring jarring injuries as a result of playing against or alongside pre-pubescent males with inherent superior upper body strength would be more than enough not to take that risk, especially in baseball.
I sympathize with young transgender people who want to compete and at the same time, perhaps they did not think through all of the ramifications of their momentous choice. I hope enough parents of young biological female athletes fully comprehend the ever-present dangers involved, and that the officers of girls’ leagues in every locale across the country have the smarts to keep the girls’ leagues for girls.