Dear Paige

***A few weeks ago, the Our Lady of Sorrows Academy baseball team decided to forfeit it’s Arizona Charter Athletic Association state championship matchup game rather than face off against Mesa Preparatory Academy, which features a second baseman named Paige Sultzbach.  Our Lady of Sorrows claims it is against their school policy to play Mesa Prep, because they do not believe in mixing sexes and sports.

Dear Paige Sultzbach:

You don’t know me, but I just wanted to write you a note to say three simple words: “I support you.” Three more words that I feel compelled to also add are: “I am sorry.” I am sorry on behalf of those who do not understand how their actions can affect others.

Yeah, three words, or more accurately six words, are NOT going to cut it.

My father was a baseball coach. He coached Babe Ruth baseball to 13, 14 and 15 year old boys for 37 seasons, from 1969 - 2005. In the late 70’s, my observation of baseball included such things as goofy boys with long hair that barely fit under their baseball caps, a family of people that gravitated to one another anchored by their love of the sport and one memorable game in particular that included an uninvited streaker, who I caught a glimpse of as he darted across the baseball field wearing only a vibrantly colored neck tie before a hand was quickly cupped over my eyes by one of my Dad’s assistant coaches. In that decade, we also all witnessed the first girl, Cindy, to try out and be drafted onto one of the teams in the league.

My Dad’s stance was that just because a girl had never played on one of the boys’ teams before that did not mean she was not capable of it. Secretly, deep down, I don’t think he appreciated it, but he had the common sense not to share that with me. Of course we had softball for girls. But NOT baseball for girls. Only boys played baseball and they were much more highly regarded for doing so.

Gutsy, courageous. Even back then, I knew just how ballsy she was.

I remember sitting on a swing at the playground as she took her first at bat. Her long, stringy, chestnut hair down to her waist. Her tall, slender shape. Her calm, yet awkward stance at home plate.  It was a pretty controversial moment. I admired her and thought she was pretty cool, yet I remember feeling sad for her. I was sad, because it was not “normal”, the sight of it making me feel all of a sudden inferior. It felt uneasy. Some people in my small suburban town where elated over this new development, but others met it with criticism, whispers and heated debate over many a dining room table.

Shortly after that, my mother, a softball coach, started the first town softball league for teenaged girls, because there wasn’t one for those of us who wanted to play over the age of twelve and play for the town we lived in. I know that Cindy was the catalyst that set this in motion. My mother saw a need, not to mention my softball career going no further. The prospect of me being all washed up at the age of twelve, surely motivated her. That also took some fortitude. I remember my mother complaining that they refused, at the time, to let her use the Babe Ruth name, because it was for boys. She met with some resistance, mounds of paperwork, rallied for support and formed a league anyway, under a different name.

For the record, I am the last woman on this earth to go out and burn my bra (the gravitational ramifications of this would be the embarrassment of a lifetime) but I do believe we have a problem. Not the scream from the rooftops, in your face type of problem, but a serious issue, nonetheless. Yelling, protesting, occupying is not in order here. If I were to occupy something, I would take over something sensible. Like an outlet mall.

 I digress. Something must be done.

My suggestion is that all teams that are in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association (and any others that are interested in equality) should make it an active mission to recruit girls to play baseball. Not coerce girls into playing in order to prove a point. They need to look for talent in girls. Those girls will need to make the cut, be able to play up to the standards of the team (or probably better in order to really prove herself), just as the boys do. If a team such as Our Lady of Sorrows, has a policy that prohibits co-ed sports, that is fine for them, let them. Let them have their beliefs. But it does not necessarily prohibit them from playing other schools that do not have that same policy. By refusing to play another team that has a player that happens to be a girl, how does that violate their own policy? If you read that policy it does not violate it at all. What they did by forfeiting that game was make a statement. An anti woman statement. Once there is a girl on every team that they must face, Our Lady of Sorrows will have no choice but to forfeit every game, which may require them to take a better look at their own rules. Keep your school policy exactly the same, if you wish, just don’t force it on other schools who do not have the same beliefs.

I have a 12 year old daughter that I am very proud of. I truly believe, if put to the test, she could beat the crap out of most boys her age because she is strong and determined. She is driven to be her best, at whatever she does. She is athletic, fast, strong and highly motivated, yet small. God forbid the person that stands in her way. Sometimes, even I as her mother, am tempted to get the hell out of her way.

The other day my daughter told me that “chivalry is ridiculous”. “If I want to open a door or put my coat on, I have two arms, I can do it myself.” I appreciate that. I am somewhat thankful for that as I see the tide continuing to change. We can’t truly have it both ways, unfortunately. I believe in practicing respect toward all people you come in contact with.  

Paige, please don’t let Our Lady of Sorrows influence your feelings about yourself or your abilities. Take that fuel and use it to fire your love of baseball, or criminal justice or education, medicine or auto mechanics, whatever it is. In your time, Our Lady of Sorrows may not take the field with an opposing team who proudly includes a girl on their roster, but with your grace under pressure and important influence, maybe in my daughter’s time, they will.

And that team will be better for it. We all will.