I had an e-mail exchange with one of the three Northern California USSSA Directors about girls participation in their organized tournaments. One girl I have heard rumor of in the 11-12U range, from Davis, CA, blew away most of the boys she had faced in a USSSA tournament, in the last year (I believe she is a player who helped the Women’s Baseball League, Inc., Sparks take 5 out of 7 wins at Cooperstown Dreams Park in 2007 - but I don’t have confirmation, yet, on this.)
That the girl played in a USSSA tournament indicates that the organization is officially gender-neutral. The responses I received from the Director indicate that the USSSA does not discourage girls from playing but:
no coach or team is required to select ANY player who they are considering for future tournaments. In other words: whether a boy or girl, if someone reaches out to a team to see if their child or they would be considered, it is at the discretion of the team’s organization, coaches if the player is selected.
Considering how competitive USSSA is - as well as a number of other organizations that are now represented in the Major Youth Baseball Alliance LLC - this seems a legitimate excuse for anyone who may sense that a coach is rejecting a playing prospect who happens to be a girl who wants to play. The example, above, reinforces it.
Where it seems we need to go from here:
Here is an excerpt from the letter I sent to the USSSA leadership passed through the Northern California Director, regarding public notice of team openings and open tryouts:
Please discuss with the central leadership about the issue:
- teams not allowing girls to tryout:
even though the respective team has made it public they are looking for players to fill in their ranks.
I am not suggesting that a team should be required to pick a girl to play on their team or be required to allow a girl to try out for their team merely because she is a girl and she or her family has asked: with no prior public notice by the team, that their are openings or opportunities to try out.
If this is not in place, here is what I propose:
If a team puts it out there, to the public, that there is an opening on their team: the team’s leadership should be required to allow the girl to try out, that there should be a fair equitable tryout opportunity for each player who has approached the team: regardless of gender.
That just seems fair.
I suspect even that suggestion would be considered going too far by some individual teams.
That seems a good way to avoid the issue in being require to have a public tryout.
Bottomline: no one is telling the coach who or how to pick a given player: that is still their decision, their right, to decide who is the right fit: as far as their Baseball performance during a fair tryout goes.
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Here is the rest of the letter I sent to the Director:
Here is what I recommended to USSSA in my letter to the Director:
Re: Girls allowed access by individual teams for consideration and to tryout:
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this with me today. I was surprised to hear that a a girl who:
- plays exceptionally well;
- made the cut on her JV Baseball team (15 others didn’t);
- has continuous accolades in Baseball and
is not and never will be a Softball player
was denied the opportunity to even try out for a given team that plays to USSSA tournaments.
At this moment, there is no burning issue: her family is pursuing all of the other more inviting organizations: PONY; local High School Summer leagues.
But, in this case, it is truly a loss for USSSA Baseball as she is one of the top players, regardless of gender, in her region.
And, it is because of the resistance they have run into they don’t even have the choice of playing on a given participating USSSA.
Again, I am not pursing this on her or her family’s behalf. But, as I mentioned, my own daughter does play in Northern California USSSA tournaments and has yet to experience an issue because her team has welcomed her into their training program and invited her to play in the tournaments; because they feel she is ready for the level of competition and skills required.
This is to affirm that USSSA as an organization seems to be doing nothing intentionally to inhibit or prohibit girls from playing in the Baseball tournaments: I have seen a number of girls on teams in the past 6 months, ranging from 11U-13U.
