Women in MLB: Sadly, don’t bet a pile of money on that

The Game

In the unofficial team record for 1994, the team the Silver Bullets played Aug. 8 was not the Acme Butchers, but the “Scranton All-Stars.” Some looked like American Legion players; others appeared to be older. Some of them looked competent enough to play in the New York-Penn League.

Or at least that’s what we tourists from Philly decided after a couple of innings and a couple of beers.

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In general, though, the ladies who played for the Bullets appeared to exhibit better fundamental play. That their MLB coaches had done their jobs was pretty apparent, although when we attended the game, we were totally ignorant of the fact that Phil Niekro was on the field somewhere.

This was largely because none of us in the group had bought a program – a miss, retrospectively speaking.

The Bullets played nicely, given that they were largely experienced in softball (well before Jennie Finch), something else I found out after the fact. One of their higher-profile players was a tall first baseman named Julie Croteau. Croteau had sued to play on her high school team in Virginia, and lost, but eventually became the first woman to play and then coach baseball at the college level.

After the season, one of the team’s pitchers, Lee Anne Ketcham, and Croteau were signed as the first women to play in the (Class-A and AA-level) Hawaiian Winter League.

However, despite the skills the ladies exhibited, there was an apparent problem “right off the bat,” so to speak – or more properly put, the problem became apparent when the ball came off the bat. The men on the field simply hit the ball harder. Their grounders got by infielders even when the women were properly placed.

In contrast, the women, while putting the bat on the ball, struggled to put one of them out of the infield. Eventually, as I recall, there was a medium-depth fly to the left fielder.

The Meat Counter won, 9-2.

It was a definitive answer to the question about men and women competing together for me, although I don’t see any reason women should automatically be considered poor candidates for at least the lower levels of minor league ball.

If that occurred, I think we’d eventually see a woman in major league baseball. If it started tomorrow, though – and this year, it clearly can’t – I wouldn’t bet on the female MLB player arriving before 2040.