Professional Hitter

LaMond Pope of the Tribune did an interesting piece Sunday on White Sox phenom Yermin Mercedes, from a scouting and development perspective. Senior director of baseball operations Dan Fabian said “it’s a nice organizational win to see him producing at the big-league level.” The rest of the story concerned how the Sox tracked and developed Mercedes, picked by the team in the Rule 5 draft back in 2017. When Fabian said, “Hats off to the guys in our scouting department,” it got me to thinking. Fabian all but called Mercedes a professional hitter, something a stranger once said of my daughter watching her hit for the first time as a high school junior. But maybe he was just being nice. OK, then answer me this. How can the Sox—or any major-league organization, for that matter—spend so much time and effort on a player pretty much buried in the lower minor leagues and not see one, one, female ballplayer of equal talent? I just don’t get it. This isn’t on Mercedes; may he have a late-starting career as good as Bill Robinson’s. But I just want to know why organizational wins in baseball only refer to one gender. Someone, please explain it to me.