BY ROBBIE SEQUEIRA
On New York City baseball
fi elds, girls in the fi ve boroughs
can be found honing
their skills in a league of their
own.
Two NYC-based girls baseball
programs — New York
Wonders and Reinas Baseball
— are two of 27 nationally recognized
girls’ baseballs teams
in the U.S. that is fostering
space for girls on the baseball
diamond and potentially
building a pipeline of talent
that could contribute to the future
of women’s baseball.
“It’s about allowing girls
who grow up watching their
favorite Yankee or Mets players
playing the same sport
they are, against other girls
who fall in love with the
sport,” said Gabby Velez,
founder of Bronx-based
Reinas Baseball, which promotes
an inclusive space for
the city’s girl and non-binary
athletes in baseball.
Velez started Reinas Baseball
during the COVID-19 pandemic,
and in its infancy her
mission is to roster a team of
girls who come from all racial,
cultural and socioeconomic
diversity in the girl’s
baseball community.
“You can’t tell me there
aren’t Black and brown girls
who wouldn’t love to play
travel baseball. You can’t
tell me that there aren’t kids
from low-income families in
the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens
who want to take baseball into
high school and college,” she
said.
At New York Wonders,
Joshua Gannon, president
of its umbrella organization
New York Girls Baseball, said
his decision to get involved
with the organization was
due to his daughter’s desire to
pursue baseball after playing
in her local boy-dominated
Little League squad.
New York Girls Baseball
got its start in 2017, with a
recruiting pool of girls from
New York, New Jersey and
Connecticut for its three New
York Wonders teams.
“It’s about investment,
from parents and coaches,”
Gannon said. “When my
daughter said she wanted to
play girls’ baseball — not softball
— it wasn’t because she
hated softball, it was because
she wanted to play a sport she
loved with other girls who
also grew up loving and playing
the game.”
A major milestone for the
athletes of New York Wonders
and Reinas is the summer
tournament Baseball For All,
a nonprofi t organization that
was founded by women’s baseball
pioneer Justine Siegel,
which was held on July 18-22
in Maryland cities, Aberdeen
and Bel Air.
This year’s Baseball for
All tourney hosted more than
500 ballplayers ages 8-19, and
will hold a winter tournament
held in Chandler, Arizona,
in December. Of the 40 teams
that participated, 11 of them
were new programs in 2021.
But what happens to their
burgeoning careers after
that?
For many girls, the pathway
to baseball past Little
League or travel girls’ baseball
teams is extremely limited.
And the prospects for
girls looking to earn athletic
scholarships for bat-and-ball
sports, it’s either softball or
nothing.
“We still have college
coaches who are gatekeepers
for the sport,” said Adriane
Adler, former Fordham Softball
standout and East Coast
Women’s Baseball League organizer.
“No matter how well
a girl can pitch or hit, or how
much better she is than the
boys she’s trying out with,
they will not put them on
their high school or college
baseball rosters.”
In 1972, Title IX was created
to ensure that girls and
women have equal participation
opportunities in high
school and collegiate sports.
Adler said, Title IX created
a “separate but equal”
arrangement in school sports
that virtually eliminated
baseball from girls’ sports, instead
of ushering in softball
as an alternative.
In November 2009, the
NCAA ruled baseball and
softball are two different
sports. However, a school having
a softball team is not a legal
reason why a girl could be
denied an opportunity to play
baseball.
But as many advocates
said, girls want to play baseball
in an environment with
other girls, instead of being
the token “girl” on a boys
team.
Some also argue that softball
is not equivalent to its
male-dominated cousin, due
to the bigger size of the ball
and shorter fi eld dimensions.
“Aspiring female baseball
players contend that baseball
and softball are not at all the
same, given substantial differences
in the size and dimensions
of the fi elds and the
balls and differences in the
equipment, rules, and strategies
of the games,” said Brittany
K. Puzey in her essay
“Title IX and Baseball.”
As more girls join teams
like Reinas and New York
Wonders, momentum and outside
BRONX TIMES REPORTER,8 AUG. 13-19, 2021 BTR
LEAGUE
OF THEIR
OWN’
investment from partners
such as Major League
Baseball’s Take the Field and
MLB GRIT initiatives, have
many advocates and coaches
hopeful that women’s baseball
will soon be legitimized
on the collegiate and professional
level.
Women baseball players
are already showcasing their
talent on the Olympic circuit
— an 18-member USA Baseball
Women’s National Team
was established in 2004 — and
’A
one of its Olympians Meggie
Meidlinger told the Bronx
Times, “college women’s baseball
is a strong possibility” in
the next few years.
Women’s baseball could
follow the precedent set by
the legitimization of collegiate
women’s hockey in 2001
that led to the creation of the
National Women’s Hockey
League in 2015.
“There is a market for
professional women’s sports
and it comes down to how
much talent is being showcased
and allowed to compete
against the best in collegiate
and high school levels,”
Meidlinger said. “It’s a logical
step that if women’s baseball
is sanctioned and put on the
same platform as men’s baseball,
the potential for a professional
league is there.”
Sue Zipay a former player
in the All-American Girls
League — which was the basis
for the 1992 fi lm “A League
of Their Own” — is in the pro-