Can a Woman Play in MLB? (If She Does, She Won’t Need Us To Stick Up For Her)

If you watch the Brewers on TV, you’ve no doubt noticed the following AT&T U-verse ad that asks, “When the first woman pitches in the majors, where will you be?”

The ad has been in heavy rotation lately, I suspect it runs at least half a dozen times during game broadcasts.  When you see an ad over and over, you start asking questions about the fictional universe the ad takes place in.  For one thing, how old is this guy that ground-breaking pitcher Cortez was brought in to face?  He looks middle-aged.  Or maybe he just suffers from GOOFS (Greg Oden Old Face Syndrome).

For another thing, what are the odds that we’ll actually see a female pitcher in MLB?  It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.  Mo’ne Davis got a lot of attention for pitching a shutout in the Little League World Series last year, so it’s easy to think that with the right coaching she could develop into a major leaguer.  Or maybe Chelsea Baker will be the first – she’s got a wicked knuckleball and looked good when she threw batting practice to the Tampa Bay Rays last year when she was 17 years old.  Or it could be Ghazaleh Sailors, the NCAA’s only female pitcher.

If a woman is going to play baseball, all signs point to pitching being the only real option.  The physical advantages that men have over women in terms of strength and speed essentially rule out all other positions.  Fans of NL teams know that pitchers don’t need to run fast or hit well to be productive.  And while there seems to be more pitchers these days that throw 95+ mph, plenty of pitchers can be successful by changing speeds and hitting their spots.  Jamie Moyer was throwing in the low 80s at the end of his career and he still had a job, so big velocity isn’t necessarily a requirement for success.

But even if it’s possible for a woman to pitch in MLB, it seems highly unlikely to happen any time soon.  Young female athletes are generally steered toward softball instead of baseball.  Recent data suggests that only 0.27% of high school baseball players are girls, even though a great deal more play youth baseball.  Girls interested in playing baseball beyond Little League have to work against a pretty firmly established status quo that’s pushing them toward softball.

Still, we live in a world in which social norms are evolving pretty rapidly – about 15 years ago we weren’t even talking about same-sex marriage seriously, and now we’re enthusiastically shaming rural pizzeria owners for saying they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding if asked (which they never would be).  With players like Davis as inspiration, a wave of girls playing high school baseball in the next few years doesn’t seem that far-fetched.  We can imagine the culture shifting to greater acceptance of female baseball players, but the matter of physical limitation still remains.

A 2010 study in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine found that there is about a 10% gender gap in athletic performance between men and women.  Even if a bumper crop of female pitchers blossoms in the near future, in all likelihood they simply won’t be able to compete with the physical advantages of their male counterparts.  That’s not to say there won’t be an outlier who stands tall and breaks the gender barrier someday.  It’s just that it’s hard to make a case that such a day is right around the corner.

Of course, the thing about outliers is you never know when they’re going to make an impact.  It may be unlikely but not out of the question that a female pitcher is drafted by an MLB team in the next few years.  When it does happen, if the media environment is anything like it is currently, we can be pretty sure two things will happen.  One, some semi-prominent (though not necessarily influential) sportswriter will accuse the MLB team of drafting the first female pitcher as a publicity stunt.  Two, that sportswriter will quickly be accused of sexism and be suspended if not fired outright.  (I’m reading “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” by Jon Ronson, so the idea of shame as a tool of social control that can be abused by an online mob is very much on my mind.)

When that happens, it would be nice if we were able to muster as much grace as Davis recently displayed when some no-name college player called her a slut on Twitter and was kicked off his team as a result.  Davis asked the university to reconsider its decision:

“While I admit I was pretty hurt when I read his comments,” she wrote, “I felt sad that he was dismissed from the team. As many people know, my dream is to play college basketball and maybe even professionally. I know how much hard work and dedication it will take to get there, and to have that dream taken away would be heartbreaking. I am sure Joey Casselberry has worked very hard to get where he is and dreams of playing in the major leagues. For this reason, I’m asking you to please allow him back on the team so that he can continue to chase his dream. He made one dumb mistake. I’m sure he would go back and change it if he could. We all make mistakes and deserve to be forgiven. I hope you will give him a second chance and allow him to play.”

When a woman finally does play in MLB, she will have worked harder than most of us have in our careers to get there, and overcome a lot of obstacles.  She won’t need strangers to defend her honor.  Hopefully we’ll keep that in mind and not sully the moment by looking to accuse random Twitter users of chauvinism.