She Can Play

When I tell my daughter she can be anything she wants to be, I mean it. This week, I umpire a high school baseball game. It was a normal western Colorado high school game; balks, walks, appeals, and baseball that wasn’t of a high caliber. However, one aspect was different. I was surprised to see a girl playing second base.

Colorado plays softball in the fall, and this girl played volleyball which is also a fall sport, so she is playing baseball with the boys in the spring. Here in western Colorado, baseball is very much geared toward guys. It’s usually rare to have a girl watching the games!

I am a huge baseball fan, and most would say that is putting it lightly. So, although I am thrilled playing tea party and putting tutus on my leg, when they told me my baby was a girl (twice), I kind of felt like I probably wouldn’t get the chance to enjoy the pride of watching a son play baseball. Am I stereotyping? Yes. Am I wrong? Probably not.

My wife was a cheerleader and tennis player. She’s very athletic, but she probably wouldn’t ever wear a baseball uniform and my daughters probably won’t either. But that’s ok. I realized when I saw a girl playing baseball in western Colorado, that if you tell your daughters they can do anything they want, that if they work hard they can do great things, and that if you expose them to the breadth of their options, regardless of what they do, you’ll feel that pride.

By the way, the girl could play. She scored twice, had a couple hits, a stolen base, and at least five put-outs from second base with no errors.