Boys and Girls, Bats and Balls

 Michigan plays Florida starting tonight in a best-of-three contest to determine this year’s NCAA D-I softball champs.  With Clare home over the weekend from Valpo, we watched a lot of softball.

The two of us debate strategy and batting stances, but never the level of talent.  I raised a female athlete and firmly believe women can—and will—play major league baseball.  That’s my take; Clare’s is a little different.  She’s played with and now coached enough girls to argue there isn’t the same level of interest in the national pastime as we have in the Bukowski household.  Many if not most softball players, my daughter thinks, are perfectly happy keeping baseball at arm’s length.  If so, I find that to be profoundly sad, like the old argument that each sex has its separate sphere of expertise, which always struck me as a clever way of saying “separate but equal.”  On Friday, father and daughter shared the couch watching softball.  Occasionally, Clare’s phone would go off with an update of the White Sox-Astros’ game. 

I thought this kind of thing happened in most softball families, but I may be wrong.  I’d give anything to be wrong about being wrong, and I’d give anything to have the best D-I softball team (MGOBLUE—they have 12 of 20 players from states where it snows) work out with a Chicago baseball team, North Side or South.  That might change attitudes some.