MLB had a story
and video clip on its website about the couple who lives together and hits
homeruns together, that being the Ozunas, Marcell and Genesis. Marlins’ outfielder Marcell Ozuna hit a
mammoth, 468-foot shot against the Rays at Tropicana Field Wednesday, but wait,
there’s more! This was a gender
doubleheader. In game one, Rays-Marlins’
wives and girlfriends squared off in a 12-inch softball contest, during which
Ozuna’s wife Genesis lined a two-run homer to left. If I had a dime for every time someone
watched the video…
Only this was
unlike any softball game I ever watched my daughter play in high school or
college. Since when does the pitcher lob
the ball underhand? And since when
doesn’t the score count in a game? In
all the stories I read online about Genesis Ozuna, nobody bothered to mention
the score. Why, because it was girls
and/or softball?
Speaking of softball,
I came across an item that didn’t receive nearly as much attention as the
Ozunas. Back in January, MLB appointed Olympic
softball gold medalist Jennie Finch its “youth softball ambassador,” a position
which includes reaching out to girls who play baseball. Huh?
Jennie Finch and baseball? Yes, I
know she’s married to former major-league pitcher Casey Daigle, but promoting
that game to girls might seem like an act of treason, not to me so much as
Finch and her psyche. And yet she seems
to be doing it.
Lost in all the annual
Jackie Robinson hoopla last month, MLB and women’s USA Baseball sponsored a
three-day baseball tournament in Compton California open to girls 16u and 12u,
from the U.S. and Canada. The tournament
drew 96 players, and there was Jennie Finch saying how great it was for baseball-playing
girls to see they’re not alone. I wouldn’t
have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.
Too bad MLB didn’t
publicize it the way it did the Ozunas.
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