The history of women and girls in the sport of baseball, though it goes back to the time of the game’s development in the U.S., has been largely absent from most books, documentaries and other baseball scholarship.
Jennifer Ring, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball (Univ. of Illinois Press, 216 pps.), took some time recently to talk to BaseballDigest.com to reveal some of that history, as well as discuss her motivations for writing the book, the first to delve into this topic.
BBD: Has women’s baseball in other countries developed differently than in the U.S.? If so, how?
JR: I think baseball is more available for girls in Japan, Canada and Australia because it isn’t so closely associated with their national identity…which of course is ironic. If the United States claims to have invented baseball, and if it’s America’s national pastime, why do we resist our girls’ participation in the sport?…
