Callie Batts-Maddox
speaker
31 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Callie Batts-Maddox’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Thank you for having me.
I think it's both. I think it goes hand in hand. The increase for women having on field positions within Major League Baseball or professional baseball more widely has increased tremendously. And that is a result of having more opportunities, coaching, strength and conditioning positions, that on the field action that was really limited to men in the past.
We've seen women being involved in professional baseball in administrative positions quite consistently. But it's really that increase on the on the field positions that is quite remarkable, where we're seeing that interest, the skill level, what women can contribute to the game and their passion for the game as well.
Well, in pro baseball, I think the opportunities will continue to increase. Major League Baseball has done a very good job of opening up pipeline opportunities for women who are interested in working in professional baseball. They do a yearly series that focuses on opportunities for women and really kind of creating a circular pipeline and a mentorship program
So that the women who are involved can be mentors and role models for young women who are interested in coming into that space. So I anticipate there's going to be a very consistent involvement of women in baseball and hopefully some increases. And we're going to see even more women taking on leadership roles.
Well, early on, what we see in the 1860s, women at colleges and universities, so at all women's schools like Smith and Vassar, they were organizing baseball teams. And this was hardball, right? And we've seen baseball has evolved. The early form of the game was very different than we know it today.
but women were playing what we would consider to be baseball and so this started in the colleges and the universities then moved on to what were called bloomer girl teams in the 1920s and they would barnstorm across the country and they're playing hardball and they are enjoying it they are really helping to spread the game and they are quite committed to it
I think that's an interesting question because what we don't often hear about is kind of the time before the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. So we had women playing baseball as early as the late 1860s in colleges and universities. We had the Bloomer teams coming up in the 1920s and the 30s. There was a really robust movement in the 20s of women's baseball
We have a shift to softball that comes along, and then the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League arises in 1943 in the wake of World War II to give women the opportunity to play. And again, it experiences an evolution as well, too.
And it really gave women, many of whom were from the working class, the chance to come and play ball and make a good living and travel and make lifelong relationships and lifelong friendships.
It's a great, great, great question. And the history is a little bit convoluted. And I think it's a story that we don't often hear about. We don't often question women. We have an overriding cultural assumption in the United States that baseball is the sport for boys and men, and softball is the equivalent for girls and women.
Softball was invented in 1887 by a group of men in Chicago who wanted to play during the wintertime. They thought, this is fun. We're going to develop an indoor version of baseball. And it was meant for boys and men to play. Women started to play as well.
But then these connotations and these meanings, these gendered meanings started to be placed upon these two sports where softball eventually emerged as that preferred sport for girls and women because it was perceived to be a surrogate to baseball. It wasn't real baseball, right? It kind of looked like it, but the ball was bigger, the field is smaller.
It didn't take as much of that sort of perceived strength or endurance to play. And softball then becomes that option for girls and women. It's a long story, right? And it is kind of linked to broader changes in how we view gender in society.
Right. Well, the influence and impact of the original A League of Their Own film cannot be overstated. That was tremendously impactful in my own life as well. That was really a strong statement coming out, right? Trying to revitalize this history, revitalize the memory of women playing baseball.
uh and it really kind of set this stage for a lot of people to look back and honor this history and start to question well wait a second why are we not seeing more women playing baseball being involved in baseball and we've seen then the amazon show so amazon had a show based on a league of their own it only lasted one season unfortunately but it did a really admiral job of extending the storyline
to include narratives around race and sexuality that were not addressed in the original film. We see a few documentaries coming out. There's one called Hardball, The Girls of Summer, which is also excellent, which asks really important questions about these cultural assumptions that we have. And then See Her, Be Her, which is taking on the question of the globalization of women's baseball.
This is not just happening in the United States. We've seen a global rise in women playing baseball, women being involved in baseball. And it sets a really exciting future because these types of popular cultural mediums, the media coverage can really reach a lot of people. And I think it just it captures the excitement around this movement.
Yeah, I think there's just still this tremendously stubborn cultural stereotype that we have. Girls and women get kind of funneled off into the world of softball, which is absolutely fine. It's a great sport. It provides fantastic opportunities for young women. But baseball is a different sport.
it's a different game has a different history a different feel to it and we need to honor that and i think one of the big challenges is really chipping away at that stereotype and really seeing that women are invested in the game that we are fans we have a passion for the game and that we really deserve an opportunity to be involved at all these different levels
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