Photo: Courtesy Don Leach/Daily Pilot
   

I remember the day clearly. It was a Saturday morning, early in April, and I was nine years old. I looked out the window of our garden apartment in Queens, New York, over a sliver of old woodland to the green diamond on 78th Street. Some kids were choosing up sides. The pile of leather mitts and wooden bats suggested that a game of baseball was about to be played. Girls were there, too. If I hurried, maybe I could play. I threw on a long-sleeved blue shirt, a white tee shirt over it, and my oldest jeans.

“Don’t be gone long,” my mother sang out.
“Don’t worry,” I yelled, as I ran out the door.
But we played all morning, and I arrived home late for lunch.
We played that afternoon, and I was late for dinner.
We played all summer.
For the first time in my life, I was on a team. I also had a crush on the boy who pitched. I tried explaining to my mother the importance of it all, but we never did reach an understanding.
“Don’t be gone long,” she kept calling.
Sure, Mom.
But I’ve been gone on baseball, and trying to explain why, every since.

Preface
Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime

 

The idea for Breaking into Baseball came unbidden on one of those drizzly late winter afternoons when it seems as if spring and baseball will never arrive. How many women, I wondered, dreamed as I once had of playing second base for the New York Yankees or becoming a sportswriter? How many others sought to umpire or work in organized baseball’s front offices? Why do women fans care so when organized baseball so often seems to care so little for them?

Thus began a baseball odyssey – following the threads of history into the 19th century when women, even as spectators, were considered irredeemably ignorant of the game America was falling for. There were plenty of live women to consider, too: Toni Stone, who played second base – second base! – in the waning years of the Negro Leagues; Pam Postema, who explained what she thinks is the real reason she didn’t make it as an umpire to the Show; and lefthander Ila Borders, who played boys’ and men’s baseball, culminating in three-plus seasons in professional baseball, primarily in the independent Northern League.

Baseball, it turns out, is a fine lens through which to consider how American women have fared over the past century and a half. Many fans and scholars of the game are familiar with the opening line of historian Jacques Barzun’s comment from God’s Country and Mine: “Whoever would understand the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball….” Few, however, know the remainder of Barzun’s comment: “…the rules and realities of the game – and do it by watching some high school or small-town teams.” Those who would understand the lot of contemporary American women would do well to take in one of the many girls’ and women’s amateur baseball (not softball!) games being played around the country, to observe women umpires at the Little League, high school, or college levels, or to sit in on the Association for Women in Sports Media (aka AWSM) annual convention.

Breaking into Baseball would have been a rather gloomy book had it only considered the history of women’s exclusion from the game; instead it celebrates the gutsy women who found a way to take part despite the obstacles they faced. For at its best, I believe that baseball offers a chance for reconciliation in the ancient wars between the sexes. My field research, correspondence, and interviews show the good that can come when someone – these days it is as likely to be a mother as a father – takes a young girl to her first ball game. The book was written for all fans, men and women, who know that a day at the ballpark is the best possible way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

 
What people are saying about Breaking into Baseball
  • At last! Incontrovertible proof that women have been a crucial, integral part of baseball from its sticks-and-stones prehistory right up to today. Ardell's sharp insights on women as players, owners, umpires and fans' on sex, money, power, feminism, and the role Baseball Annies played in baseball's long ban of black ballplayers' make this book essential for anyone who cares about baseball, women, or fairness.
    Elinor Nauen, editor of Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball
  • Ardell is a major league writer, and this book is proof that she belongs in the starting lineup. The essays in Breaking into Baseball explore relationships between women and baseball in ways heretofore neglected or ignored. They are, at once, imaginative, provocative, nuanced and empowering.
    Steve Gietschier, senior managing editor of the Sporting News
  • In Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime, Jean Hastings Ardell has written the definitive account of women's role in baseball. Ms. Ardell has uncovered a mostly hidden trove of information -- baseball's own feminine mystique. Her book is a must read, especially for those who believe (erroneously) they know all there is to know about baseball.
    Marvin Miller, former director of the Major League Players Association
  • Comprehensively researched and beautifully written, Breaking into Baseball tells the complex story of women and the national pastime in a compelling fashion. Jean Hastings Ardell approaches her subject matter with passion, bringing to life the experiences of a host of women, involved with every aspect of the game, in a way that is intellectually satisfying and extremely entertaining.
    Roberta Newman, New York University