Indiana Teen Prefers The Company Of Men, Baseballistically

First, we had a Queens debutante come out as a special teams leader for a New York City high school’s football squad. Yesterday we learned of a young lady in Indiana who prefers baseball to its more feminine counterpart.
Logan Young, a 14-year-old freshman at Bloomington South High School, wants more than anything to play baseball with the boys. But her state’s athletic commission has not been forthcoming with a waiver, since her school also has a perfectly adequate softball team.
As one might expect, we now have a lawsuit.

“In this day and age, a girl should have the opportunity to participate on an equal footing with the boys in high school sports and the IHSAA precludes that,” Tae Sture, one of the family’s attorneys, said Monday.

“Our feeling is, quite frankly, there’s no rational reason for it,” he said.

An IHSAA rule prohibits girls from trying out for baseball if their school has a softball team on the basis that the sports are comparable. But the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis argues that baseball and softball aren’t the same sport, so girls should be able to try out for baseball.

The suit seeks to have the IHSAA rule thrown out based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and Title IX, the federal law that mandates equal educational opportunities for boys and girls.

One major point of the lawsuit is to argue that baseball and softball are not the same sport, so therefore the rule should be put aside. We don’t necessarily disagree, since the bulk of our slow-pitch experience has revolved around cheap beer and barbecue. That’s not exactly the formula for high-level athletic competition.
Still, if there is one argument for keeping men and women separate on the field of competition it would be this: they have different physical traits. Men are bigger and stronger than women, and therefore would have an advantage. Because of this, any woman that was successful at a male-dominated sport would have to be something very special.
And if the best female athletes are competing with the men, then why would anyone care to tune in to the all-female league to watch inferior action? Hmmm…
Indiana girl sues for chance to play baseball [AP]
Image [Amazon]