Finding Renee Richards Book Discussion

A thousand boyfriends could drop their sandwiches hearing me say that. so sorry to those sandwiches you're wrong about where sometimes we are all about sports And it is, I said that weird. And it is baseball Night in America Be A I revealing myself as someone who's never watched a sport aside from figure skating? good, because I am. And we are talking. with Julie Clekman author of Finding Renee Richards about a topic that I am calling crying in baseball. Julie, you are talking to us about some exciting news and sports today and also you are some exciting news and sports because you have a new book coming out. Will you tell us about that I would love to. My new book is a biography called Finding Renee Richards, about Renee Richards, subject of a previous episode on this very show. This very show you say? Yeah, a couple years back, we had a delightful conversation about my pal Renee, who is a transgender tennis player who back in nineteen seventy seven sued for her right to play professional tennis and won a lot of Well, at least two American proxy wars about gender were being fought on tennis courts Interestingly, Right, which we also talked about the other one in an episode of the show. So we've really got our tennis bases covered, but that' weird. There's no bases in tennis to be clear. But there are bases in baseball. You're like don't get confused, Sarah. There are And we're exploring a very exciting topic today, and I would love for you to tell us about that too. Yeah, so I'm really excited to talk to you about the history of women in baseball I think way fewer people know about the history Aside from obviously a league of their own, and that there's no crying in baseball allegedly. Allegedly. Well, exactly, but there is getting drunk and falling out of a hotel window due to a fire you started I also I'm just going to get right out of the way as opposed to be sitting on this question the whole time. My overwriting thought about A league of their own. Every time I watch it, I love that movie. I've seen it like twenty times. As you know, I'm sure it used to be on TNT like continually during the, I don't know, first Bush administration. and Does Dotie love playing baseball? She says she doesn't But doesn't that mean she's afraid of how much she does love it That's my theory, but I don't know. It's a little hard to read for sure. Kina Davis, if you're out there. Does Dotie secretly love baseball or not tend to agree with you Yeah. she plays like she loves it, which I think is an observation Tom Hanks makes, you know. And I feel like there's something in there about like The need to be perceived as a woman And femininity being something that involves not wanting anything too much. Right. And her sister is just in general, like less afraid of that. Yeah, she's tank girl. She's a big ball of wanting stuff. Right, exactly. But yeah, think I think there is something to this idea that it's like not uncool. I don't think that's what she was afraid of, but like scared to put her all into something that defied gender roles, right? Right. And that like people, especially men, have always talked very overtly about gender when women in sports come up. And I was thinking just the other day about like Like don't you think it's this is like a whole other conversation, but I feel like there's been this like interesting TikTokification of marathons, where it's now this thing where influencers are doing like seven marathons a year and you're like, Jesus Christ That seems like too many. It seems like maybe seven too many. Yeahah. really six too many, you know, but this thing where it's like It's almost become through a certain lens like the sort of weird influencer hobby, which I think diminishes the absurd difficulty of it, you know? Ha influencers do a lot of really difficult things when you think about it, and I guess that's one of them And also they get sent too many appliances. Yes. Stop making all these little appliances. We already made enough. It's fine That is the good take. Yeahah, for sure. Yeah. But like, I don't know that it feels like if you look at life through a social media lens Almost anything seems to become mundane and everyday and you begin to think that everyone is like achieving highly in sort of whatever thing you're interested in without you. Right. And so I think that it's it's like we're stepping back and thinking, oh my God, a marathon is like Not only an incredibly impressive thing for any human being to do, and so is a five K in my opinion. I could never run a five K or I could at some point, but I would have to like fundamentally change my level of fitness and approach to life and so on because running terrifies me. Fair, But also it was something that it was genuinely believed by doctors, or at least they claimed to genuinely believe that women were physically incapable of running long distances like u until the seventies, which I think was the excuse used to like try and drag Catherine Switzer out of the Boston Marathon and just this thing that like Marathons were something women literally weren't allowed to do within the lifespan of like Gwen Stefani You know? Right. And I mean, I think that it takes extraordinary circumstances for people to be proven wrong on something like this, which comes up in baseball because literally a world war I can't wait. As you know from a League of their own, a world war is what it took to get women playing in baseball professionally. So ye a literal supply chain breakdown and shortage human men. Right. Exactly So yeah, I wanted to talk to you about women in baseball for a couple of reasons, I guess. Yeah, tell me. One is that I'm a lifelong baseball fan. I grew up in a family that all loved the Mets, unfortunately I don't even understand why it's unfortunate. That's how I mean, look, I'm from Portland, Oregon. We've never had a baseball team. We have famously a terrible, terrible basketball team and we love them so much. And that's what we do. You also have a women's basketball team now, which is fun. We do. and I bet they're not That terrible, which is really against our brand. Yeah, you'll have to kick them out. We'll have to adjust to that. Yeah, O adjust to it. That's the kinder option. Yeahah. Yeah, I would like to do that. Yeah, but so the Mets, I feel like everyone who likes the Mets is long suffering. they're always disappointing us. and you know, we love to be disappointed by it a certain extent. Right. The misery is part of it. Yeah, and that's the Portland basketball thing too, as far as I can tell. Yeah. and I will say also that like I would not call myself a fan of baseball because I don't understand it and I always fall asleep in the middle of the game. But also I'm a fan of baseball fans because I admire people who do something that seems to be somethinghing that takes a long time and involves a lot of statistics. I think that's cool Yeah. And you know, I do want to be clear that You can be a baseball fan even if you fall asleep in the middle of the game. likeike my dad is a great example. Right. And I also feel like I like to be able to be sitting somewhere for a long time on a nice day and to read the New Yorker while people have a good time around me. Sure. That's why I want to go to a baseball game. Yeah, I mean, the vibes are pretty immaculate, whether you're watching the game or not So yeah, so I saw a league of their own at a pretty young age. I can't remember exactly when, but I think That being my only touch point for women in baseball led me to believe that Women in baseball was kind of like a one off like cool novelty thing. as opposed to like a sport that girls and women could reasonably aspire to play Yeah, it made it seem like horse diving in Atlantic City. Sure, yeah, exactly. And so I think the background and history here is a cool thing for us to talk about and understand so that People growing up today like know they have choices and opportunities in sports like regardless of gender. And a cool thing starting august first, there's a womomen's Pro baseball leeague coming to a city near us. Well, not really near either of us personally. Oh but Not in Portland and not in New York. I' sitting near somebody, but who Where is it coming to? It is coming to Illinois. So great. Yeah. D well, not dead metal closer to you, but still can we can meet there. We can. yeah, that would be lovely. So I thought a good starting point would be like, do you know the differences between baseball and softball No, I know I think I know one of them, which I only know because my mom pointed it out to me as a joke that was being made in the tryout scene in a League of their own. All of my baseball knowledge comes back in some way to a League of their own and a tiny little bit to field of dreams. U But where I think in softball you throw underhand and in baseball you throw overhand And I presume that the ball is also larger and softer And that's said. No, are those were like the first two things on my list. Yeah. Great. Softball. You did a great job. Yeahah. Thank you. Softballs are bigger. Softball fast pitch is underhand pitching with that like windmill windup motion that you see. Oh yeah.. And yeah, baseball iss typically overhand The softball mound is closer to home plate than in baseball. Softball has a smaller field overall. There's some different base running rules and softball bats are longer and weigh less than baseball bats. So there are quite a few obvious differences. and I say that to say that not every athlete who loves baseball is going to love softball and vice versa, right? They're entirely different sports with different techniques. Right. So historically, we have funneled girls who play coD baseball growing up like littleittle League or something like that into softball leagues as they get older especially as they want to pursue college scholarships, for example. But that's like a really imperfect and unsatisfying practice. It's like if you grew up playing tennis, for example, and I was like, hey, what about soccer instead? It's kind of like that, right? Or if you're like, hey, what about pickleball? And I was like, no, I really like tennis and I've really spent a lot of time on a court exactly this size and all of them are like this. Right, That's a much better comp. ye, tennis and pickleball. So it's really just kind of Sad? I mean, a lot of baseball players grow to love softball. donon't get me wrong, but it's a totally different thing we're talking about. R and it way, as a kid seeing a League of the Roon and the sort of the way that you know, that kind of uplifting history movie usually works is like, wow, someone did this thing and changed the world forever. because that is kind of how American history is At least was taught, I think us as kids in the nineties as progress being sort of very unidirectional and us at the time in history, I think feeling Like wow, we basically almost licked this whole thing, you know, all these systemic injustices and prejudices and such That's right And then it's like that I think that the twenty teens were like you know opening a closet door and everythingthing in the closet falling out and engulfing the entire house. is like the samee in real Jenius with the popcorn.gus engulfed in popcorn in this house that we felt really smug about having basically cleaned In the nineties. Yeah, although I have to say I love popcorn. I would like to be engulfed in popcorn, but yeah, I would like to be engulfed in popcorn too. So that's a kind of a cheerful metaphor of being engulfed in something. But you're absolutely right.'s like it's not like we had this World War two baseball league and now all of a sudden, great, everyone accepts that women play baseball. Like that's not what happened. Right They accepted it For a while, it turns out, but when I was younger, you know, it's like you see bits of the movie on TV. You don't get as far as the post script. So I feel like at some point I was like, M, where can we see women play baseball? And she was like, no, of course not. We can watch them play softball, but only on ESPN four, probably. you know. Yeah, exactly. And like nothing against softball, but men will always find a way to not care about women doing something impressive You know? That is correct So Billie Jean King has said like, look, I couldn't grow up to be a baseball player. It crushed her, she said. And she said that every girl deserves the dream to play professional baseball, which I would agree with. Yeah. feeles like a fairly uncontroversial thing to say. I mean, I at least wanted to be on the bus reading Eerotica with Madonna and so forth. Right. that is a key part Yeah, which also, I think is an underrated part of the whole team sports conversation, right? And the and of course, your book gets into this from you know in many different ways the debate currently happening and being sort of pushed by bad actors on the right on this alleged crisis we're having about trans kids wanting to play team sports in America. and it feels like what you know O of the things that peopleeople using that idea as a scare tactic and also this idea that trans kids are coming for your scholarships ignores is that I think there's like a human R to community and playing Sports with people is one of the ways that you have that Absolutely. I think that's a huge part of it is that and like something that people either don't understand or refuse to understand is that trans kids are really just trying to play sports with their friends. And you know, women are trying to play sports with their friends. And if they insist on being excellent, then like, I don't know, I feel like we can endure that It seems like not a real problem, correct. But how many kids are really great at soccard? You know what I mean? They kind of, I think a lot of them just want to run back and forth and eat oranges. Right, or like sit down on the grass and like pull it out blade by blade while the game is going on. Well, that was what I was always into. Yeah, the fiber arts aspect of right field and so on Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, like I think this isn't really a complicated story in that sense. Is' that like People just want to hang out. They want to hang out with Madonna on the bus, right? Like if your team happens to have Madonna on it what or your Madonna equivalent. Yeah. Exactly. I think when I was when I was a kid, I failed to understand the rules of softball and like second grade and then since then have always decided that the base related sports are just too technical for me to grasp. Buta wait, can you give Just like for anyone who's insecure about their baseball knowledge to start because I feel like this will be helpful. like what is baseball? It involves bases and a ball for sure. Right. But what else? So It consists of nine innings and each team in each inning gets a turn at bat and a turn playing defense in the field. Cool. And your goal is to have as many people cross home plate as possible. That's how you score runs is by touching home plate after you have already touched first, second and third base So you have someone pitching at you and your goal is to hit the ball, right? So there are a lot of rules, a lot of statistics, but you know, I don't think the basic goal is beyond anyone's comprehension, which ye, which is nice. And I don't think you need like extensive baseball knowledge to enjoy a league of their own or to appreciate the gender dynamics at play here, right Is okay, so is the goal of baseball essentially You hit the ball with the bat and then you want to run around all of the innings on The diamond, which I love that it's called that. I know that that's like the shape that it is, but I like that everyone gets to say diamond all those times. And then you run around all the innings before the opposing team can get the baseball back to whoever receives the baseball? Is that the whole thing? So you you run around the bases. The innings are the way of measuring Oh my God. okay, yeah A thousand boyfriends could drop their sandwiches hearing me say that. I sorry to those sandwiches. Don't make new ones. it's okay. You can put them back together, yeah In a five second rll Okay, you run it Yeah, I knew that. I just couldn't know it at that second. Okay, yes, you run around the bases. beforefore the opposing team can get the baseball back to whoever's at home played or whoever gets it, Is that basically it? Or whoever's at what base? likeike yeah, that yeah, get tagged out by an opposinger with a baseball Okay, yeah. Mh. All right. I like that it's just like extremely simple. and something that can be mastered by S children, not me, but other ones. And yet it's something that like, I don't know, trillions of dollars have been made and lost by. Like, isn't that kind of an incredibly charming and weird thing about humans. We just invent these little games and then pour millions of dollars into them every year. yeah. And yet, there aren't any massive stadiums dedicated to jump roping Which I think there could be. There should be. Yeah. Jump opening can get really technical. Um Okay. so yeah, so that' so Thank you for that. And baseball is like famously can get kind of long. and I know that there was like there was a World Series game this past year that or last year that went into like eight billion extra innings or something like that. Yeah, they can get really, really long because they can't end in a tie Yeah, the way the way they solve that is by playing extra innings. So they can get hours and hours and hours long. Major League baseball has taken a few steps to like kind of curtail the time of the the time of each game make them a little bit shorter. They're trying to get like younger generations more interested in baseball. You know what, young people need long boring things in their lives. We should make baseball longer if anything. That's what I think. Yeah, and more boring. Let's do it Okay. so and when when I Baseball come into existence This was like a little like post Civil warar, something like that I think it had actually been around even longer. But you first see women fielding a baseball team in the eighteen sixties. Vassar fielded a team. So Oh my God. Baseball. Yeah. but the reality is that like whenever sport was invented, women were probably playing it as long as it existed in some form or fashion. Right. But yeah, the first formal team is thought to be Vasser in the eighteen sixties. But the first formal league is what we'll get into now, which was the All American Girls prorofessional baseball League. And that is the league depicted in a league of their own. And that was founded after the start of World War two. after America entered. It was founded in nineteen forty three. Yeah by the chewing gum guy, Phil K. Wiggley. Perfect, which they changed to Harvey Bars in the movie to avoid legal issues, we presume. That's right. So yeah, its you have the situation where men are off serving in World War II and Having women play baseball was apparently more appealing than having like no one play baseball The people need their baseball. It's like, we'll let a woman do it if the other option is nobody, basically. But now we can do robots. so we found a way to get to let nobody do it. Right.. So there were like a few key points of the league. One of them being that like everyone had to be super feminine The president, Max Kerry, once said, feminity is the keynote of our league. No pants wearing, tough talking female softballer will play on any of our four teams. It's amazing, Rosie O'Donnell made it on Right And so Rigley literally sent the women to charm school after practice. and he made them wear skirts. What do you think about that I think it's ridiculous. like you can't take like the butchness out of these people, right? Like you can't straight wash it I mean, you can, and that's what they did. You can try to anyway. You can try to. Yeah. There were a lot of queer players in this league, that the players were closeted, as you might imagine. It was a legit popular league, like it peaked at about one million fans attending in nineteen forty eight. Oh wow. We do need to mention that the league was all white. and it lasted until nineteen fifty four And there was never any kind of a league for black women, right? The way that They're actually, you know, were for black men. Right. There were a few women who played in the Negro Leagues, which was, you know, the Negro Leagues were kind of like folded after Major League baseball accepts Jackie Robinson and well accept is a strong word, but after Jack Robinson integrates major League baseball in nineteen forty seven. So yeah, I mean There are very few opportunities for black women in baseball. It's true. And we can get more into that as well. But their a league of their own is like U we'll get more into that too. but for now I'll just say that like the movie doesn't really depict queerness, right? Despite Rosie O'Donnell being in it. there's now Yeah, no, it really doesn't. There's no explicitly gay character or even like implicitly gay characters except that like you can make whatever character you want gay, sure, but like it's not like a spoken or even unspoken like subtext of the movie. Right. And it's not even I would say implied. Right, you know, notot even with Rosie O'Donnell, who right is depicted explicitly as having a boyfriend and learning she deserves. men who actually are interested you know, it's like we specifically orient her towards men. And yeah, and it feels like there is this kind the, you know, these many layers of just kind of having to I don't know, make the inherent queerness of a story sort of farther below the surface and more palatable to bring it to a bigger audience, something like that. I was also thinking about, I guess re read fried green tomatoes. And I think people have talked a lot about how the like explicit Lesbianness was kind of like taken out of the movie. And it's sort of, I think possible to read those characters as friends, Iggy and Ruth, but in In the book as well, it's like it's always like just under the surface, which I think was a big part of why it was such a huge bestseller where it's like they're explicitly named as like the parents of a child And yet no one is, you know, no one ever uses the word gay or lesbian or anything like that. You know, it's just like said that they loved each other. and if you're, you know, so it's more heavily implied and it's like if you're aware of what's going on, then it's Crystal clear But if you choose to not be aware of it, you're allowed to remain unaware of it, which I don't know is very like Southern book from nineteen eighty seven. Right, Re. Yeah. And so there's no queerness in the film. There is a ton of closeted queerness in the league itself. And this is something that the writer, Frankie D La Crereda kind of corrected the record on in twenty eighteen, all the way in twenty eighteen They wrote an article for Narratively about the queerness In the league, like they interviewed these players. A lot of them came out like much, much, much later in life. Like we're talking decades and decades after the league. But the reality of the league was that you could be cut from a team just for having a masculine haircut or masculine shoes because God forbid, you have masculine shoes, right? I mean, that's just gonna Yes. tear the whole league up. That's gonna tank morale when we're at war. Yeah. Right. exactly. For want of a nail, you know etcet. So in nineteen fifty three, so as the all American Girls baseball leeague is winding down, you have in the Negro Leagues this kind of panic because As we said, Jackie Robinson and others have integrated major League baseball a few years before. So it's like they kind of need like a draw to these Ngro leagues. So the Indianapolis clowns sign a few women to play alongside the men. Tony Stone, Connie Morgan and Mamie Johnson. The Indianapolis Cowns is an amazing team name and also I love that in the middle of this kind of exciting story of women getting an opportunity It's like the Indianapolis clowns. Absolutely. And you know, overall, by all accounts, the women played well, but they, as you can imagine, struggle to gain acceptance on and off the field. One of the women, Tony, would apparently stay at brothels when traveling with the team. So that doesn't necessarily seem ideal. Well, and why was that Propriety presumably. So it's it's like better for her to stay in a house full of women than and a house full of ben. I think that was the idea, yeah, or yeah for her own Comfort and safety and potentially presumably also for the men's comfort and safety, unfortunately, right? L Right. I don't know that they were like jointing to stay with women. Yeah. And well, and I realize that there's like, you know, it's probably very different brothel to brothel, but give me a whole movie about that Probably, you know? Oh yeah, absolutely. abbsolutely. I would take a movie on that in a heartbeat. But yeah, so you know, these women in the Negro Leagues weren't appreciated enough in their time, much like with the women of the All American League, right? But the women in the Negro Leagues did wear pants. So at least we have that tiny victory Yeah, the pants victory. Yeah, which is something. Well, and just I For people like me who might not understand the nuances of this enough, like what are the disadvantages of having to play baseball in a skirt? Sure, I mean like If you are someone who wears skirts or dresses, you've tried to run in them probably. and that's less than ideal. And it's also about being taken seriously as an athlete, right? There are some sports in which women do wear skirts, like to this day, like think about tennis, for example But tennis also has like an elitist history of like making women seem proper and stuff. So you know, ideally women should be allowed to play in whatever they want to wear. whether they choose to wear a skirt or not, it should be their choice though, right? Right. I think that's the key thing here. Well, it's like how Debie Thomas, I think was given an extremely hard time at the Calgary Olympics for skating in basically a unitard because God forbid a woman wear effectively pants on the ice, you know, And again, this idea that like it really is fascinating to me how consistently it recurs sort of in the history of women and sports where this idea that like if women are going to be like strong and competent and like clearly have like A strong physical ability to do something Arguably better than men in many ways or in a lot of cases, or at least in a way that kind of shows that something that men pride themselves in and maybe take a lot of comfort and gender identity from is maybe something women can do too. Oh no that like one of the things that seems to come up so consistently is this idea that if women are making some kind of a physical spectacle of themselves that like this sort of you know, policing body, which, you know, generally is run by men ultimately, have to get really particular about what they're allowed to wear You know? Yes. I mean, this comes up in like the history of women swimming a lot and what women are allowed to swim in. Great. Yeah, this is all to say like, you know, I don't think any sport is like totally immune from this problem of how do we make men feel comfortable? No, not at all. I think I think any sport, this could show up in one way or another. It's hard to think of of ones where it doesn't. R reallyally. Yeah. And also that it's also interesting that like so often there seem to be like random bylaws saying that women can't wear something that is like less revealing and or more functional whichich I think is very annoying. It is very annoying, Sarah. Yeah All right, let's continue Yes. So would you like to take a little bit of a detour away from real life baseball and talk about fictionalized women's baseball? Andah really dive more into a league of their own, which I know is obviously a main area of your interests I would love to. ye, this is where I have my best footing for sure. Great. So you know it was released in nineteen ninety two. Many, many decades after the league's You know, portraying on screen. I hadn't watched it since I was a kid until very recently in preparation for this episode, basically. So I was like almost coming at it fresh as an adult, at least. And one of my main takeaways was unfortunately, in a certain sense,'s kind of like a movie about Tom Hanks like learning that women are people. Yeah Very much so. Which like, don't get me wrong, they do that in the most like charming way possible. Yeah, I mean, when I watch it, whenever I watch it lately, I think to myself, if they hadn't have gotten Tom Hanks, they would have been so screwed, you know? because who else could have played such an awful character and given him an actually like a redemption arc that you actually want to happen. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's like this guy, the coach of the team is like this like raging alcoholic, right?? And he' treats the women like garbage for a significant portion of the movie. Yeah. And he finds it specifically very demeaning that he has been assigned to work with women because to him it is like counter to the fact that he used to be real a real ball player before alcoholism destroyed his career. Right. I think he sees this as like a punishment for the way his career went And like fundamentally extremely demeaning. Yeah. and you know And he has great lines like I haven't got ball players. I've got girls. Yep But I think like that character does stand in for like a lot of the attitudes that people had about women playing baseball and probably to some like lesser comedic extent still have about women playing baseball. Yeah. Yeah. So like I would say to listeners, like if you haven't seen this movie in a while, as cheesy as you remember it being, it's at least like fifty percent cheesier, whichich is not a criticism. I respond very well to American cheese, right? Yeah Also it's like, I don't know that we're ever going to have a time when like sort of middle budget family movies had beautiful orchestral scores like that. Oh my go. you know there's yeah, something really lovely about it all. and the worst Madonna song I've ever heard in my life on the credus Yeah. I mean, shout out to Madonna, shout out to Han Zimmer scoring it for sure. And so I want to talk about another scene near the end of the movie actually, where the women are signing autographs after the championship for young kids. And I think We need to talk about that because It kind of furthers this idea that a lot of people still have about women's sports today and female athletes today, where women in sports are expected to be role models and like are specifically there to be role models and to like inspire young girls, which isn't a bad thing on its own, but it is a standard that we've never held men in sports to. So I just think like We can acknowledge and celebrate women playing sports Fine their own goals and their own satisfaction and their own motivations. Yeah, without having to make it like a women are so nurturing and they're inspiring children kind of thing. Yeah, Right, or without making it like fundamentally child oriented like by necessity. where like, it's great if people want to do that, but like onene nice thing that we don't have to worry about is those overpaid female athletes. Well, maybe one day we'll get there, but u Hm Hard to say So you have this kind of like, picture book sort of movie. It's very cheesy, it's very light, it's very delightful. It's very wholesome Obviously like making a movie about queer woman in the early nineties probably would have been a nonstarter, especially in like a Tom Hanks kind of vehicle. I don't think they would have had this like forty million dollars budget had they been trying to make a movie about queerness. I mean, Tom Hanks was in Philadelphia at about that time, but that is true a period when You could make a movie about gay people if someone was dying of AIDS, I think was kind of the caveat at the time. It had to be like a very serious movie. And they had already done that one movie for that year. Right. And also it's just like, yeah, in the nineties they, you know, there were a lot of kind of inroads being made, but it was it would be hard to find a mainstream movie depicting an explicitly queer character who is having fun Yeah, let alone like groups of queer women. Hving fun, right? Right. So yeah, the women are all capital S straight. Most of them are married or dating someone and talking very earnestly about their male partners. Many of them have partners obviously who are at war. One of them, poor Betty spaghetti, her husband dies at war in the film. Poor Betty Yeah, I know. And we have I also love the kind of Hollywood age thing where we have Gina Davis who's like thirty something in real life playing a character who's like living back with her parents on the farm In Oregon, which is another reason why this movie is close to my heart is that it is part of it is set in Oregon and they say Oregon correctly which is important. That is no small feat. It's surprisingly rare. As someone from New Jersey, I said Oregon wrong like most of my life until I, you know, went to college and Learn the error of my ways. It happens. We all say place names wrong. There are like twenty five place names in New Jersey that I would make you laugh if I took a crack at probably. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, it workays. But yeah, I love that we have Gina Davis playing like, you know, she's back on the farm with her little sister and you're like, okay, maybe she's supposed to be like like twenty two or something. and then her husband is Bill Pullman and you're like, Well, how old is Bill Pullman supposed to be? R Is he just like a Old man whoo married littleittle Kina Davis or is he also Is he like, hello Sarn, ma'am, it's me Bill Pullman. I'm twenty two years old and I'd like to marry your daughter if she'll have me. Right. I don't know. It's just but right, they're all like very oriented towards men which I'm sure there are plenty of horny baseball players roving around the country Back then, just like in the movie But also, yeah, it's like they're, you know, they're they're they're on a team. They're roommates for God's sake. Yeah It's like actively hard for me to watch that movie and not think about like Wh might be into who in that cast, right? L of characters. But yeah, this is not something that gets addressed at all. There is I'm curious, Sarah, have you seen the twenty twenty two TV show by the same name? No, I haven't. have you I have seen parts of it. How is it? It's interesting. So it was like eight episodes or something on Amazon Prime and I feel like it was very much trying to find its footing. Yeah. I give anyone enough time these days. Right You know, but they do the thing they do differently is they do try to correct the record on like having a ton of queer characters. And you know, there is like a racial dynamic to this as well. likeike one of the main characters is black and is turned away from the a League of their own all American situation And she's left to kind of like try to find acceptance among men in baseball and you know, black men specifically. And there are yeah, all these white ladies meanwhile trying out for this league. And so it really does a better job at like queerness and erace than the original movie does. Yeah, and has like a little bit of time to work on it. also It's better to do it than to not, but there's something so kind of sadly funny to me about scene in a League of their own where like for thirty seconds, you know, the ball rolls or like ends up out of bounds or whatever you say. and a black woman who's like well dressed like picks it up and like whips it back to Gina Davis and she's like, wow Black lady has an arm. Yep. And then it's over and it's like back to the other stuff. We acknowledge that sometimes Sometimes a black woman has a really good arm, you know, and you're just like, well I don't know you know, but that I guess that to me is like so the sort of like the tone of that era in Hollywood and it's sort of like attempt to do the right thing historically is that like when you do get something like that, it's like, okay But just really, really, really quick. We're going to make we only have time for a really short stop. Okaykay, and now we got to get we got to keep going. We have no time. And, you know, I think there was more time than people acted like there was, but it's also I don't know. It's been interesting to see this evolution in media from the no time era to having like tons of time to now I don't even know how TV works anymore. I feel like another thing is starting. But we just this is why it's good to go to actual history because when you read book it can't be shaped quite as much by the needs of the marketplace preemptively, which is nice Yeah But yeah, so the new the twenty twenty two show, rather, like it does riff on that moment that you just described of like the black woman throwing the ball and Gina Davis going like, wow., in the pilot episode, there's like with the main black character I mentioned, she is trying to, you know join the tryout for the all American League and she just like whips the ball all the way from the outfield and it hits like the stands behind home plate. and everyone just like stares and like is like, whoa. But of course it doesn't change the mind of these like white men running the tryout. But so that's like an It serves as like an entry point instead of being like the one little moment Exactly, exactly. You know, we do have depictions like that in this day and age, even if they get canceled after one season. Yeah, and like I feel like there is this like what do you think is men's problem to cut to the heart of the matter for a moment here. because I guess it feels like there's this like This fear of being forced to watch a woman be excellent at something. Yeah. Why don't they like that? So doesnn't it just like, I mean, men call in, but I feel like it just don't call in actually, but I think it just like threatens their masculinity, right? on a basic level to see like something that they encoded deep in their brain as being like a men's activity, like cooking steak or something, right? Like But you know what's interesting is that like men, like most men who are watching Baseball have never been good at baseball. I know that some of them have, right? But like most most of like statistically, most of us watching a sport have never been that good at it objectively. Right. And so why would we be threatened by anyone being good at it if we've never been good at it? That is such a good point, but I think it's too logical, I know. Right. It's definitely too logical. And I don't know if you've ever seen like these polls that like someone will like poll men about whether they could like win a point in tennis off Serena Williams. Oh my God. And a very large proportion of men think they can. No Right. So it's almost irrelevant to them if they're not personally good at a sport. They still think they have the potential to be and it's still threatening if you as a woman are better. Yeah. R. It's just it's yeah, it's so interesting The way that causes a feeling of psychological harm or like threat to some men, it seems. and that it just feels like Women do so many athletically like shockingly impressive things that I would like to be able to watch on TV in a bar like once in my life. Yeah. Well, the beautiful thing is like we do have these women's sports bars crapping up That's true. Yeah But I'd like to be in a terrible bar. I want to be in I want to be in like a Jimmy John's in an airport, you know, and they've got the All American Girls World sereries. We wouldn't call it that no. That would be a bit much. Right. But you know, or something, competitive cheerleading, anything Yeah, you want to be in a Jimmy Johns, which is an interesting thing to unpack. But yeah. Maybe that's for another episode though. I want to be in an all American unplace with like a mounted TV. Yeah where I'm waiting for an order that should have been ready and yet it's not because something terrible seems to have happened behind the scenes. Right And I get to watch people analyze competitive careerleading and that's what's on. I miss the concept of something being on because in America O anywhere where TV was, you would just turn on the TV and something would be on and that was what you watched. And I think everyone is so tired now because nothing is ever on anymore. We all have to pick what we watch and we're so tired because we're always picking things because nothing is ever on. because we now have the job that the TV programmers used to have and we're not qualified That's what I think There's a lot more active decision making needed to just like unwind now. It's very true. Yeah. If you're consuming media, you're making potentially hundreds of decisions a day. and the decision used to be TV on TV off channel up, channel down. you know? Yeah, there was something beautiful about that. Yeahah. And that was how you would end up watching The House of Yes on Portland's ABC affiliate at four PM on a Sunday because that was what they were showing inexplicably There you go, yeah Anyway, I just that's my complaint is that I feel like I love getting to watch men play basketball when I'm in a bar eating a cheeseburger. But what if that wasn't what was happening in every bar I ever went to? Right, I think that's such a fair desire. Let it be on This is reminding me of the time where I was at a sports bar in Philadelphia several years ago And I had asked for the WNBA game to be put on. But like every other TV was on, I think it was like the Kentucky Derby and they just needed this like umpteenth TV on the Kentucky Derby. So they kept switching it back to the horses. And I'm like,, we can't have one TV for women amongst all the TV's for horses. was A little comical. Yeah. And right. I feel like There's enough angles for the horse TV's that everyone could probably have been perfectly happy. Right. Yeah that's That's like a very like eighteen hundreds kind of like woman V horse. Who is the fairer creature? Yep. woman versus horse. Okaykay U It's a Supreme Court case. It's been going on for many years now. Oh man, I think we know how that Supreme Court will rule unfortunately. Yeah horse It's always horse. Nothing against nothing against horse. sorry to this horse, but Okay, so we so we have a league. Is that where we are? and the girls and the girls are gay. They're roommates you know, and so we have briefly a professional women's baseball league and the girls are traveling together and Many of them are gay and we love that for them. Yeah, and the league last what I think is a surprisingly long time, like into the fifties, into fifty four. That is surprising to me too, 'cause it was past the point where they had the war effort excuse. Right. Then they were just treasonously watching women run around and yet they tolerated it. Exactly But yeah, so I mean, there isn't, I don't know if this is going to be surprising or like the least surprising thing you've ever heard, but That isn't really a formal attempt at another women's League until nineteen ninety seven It is both surprising and unsurprising where it's like But why? And also and so does it How does the original league And is it just kind of like a slow dwindling and they eventually decide that they're not making enough money, something like that? Yeah, that's my understanding of it. Like these things just like kind of peter out, right? Eventually. It's a fad like the lumbata. Uh huh. And So I think a League of their own renews some interest in women's playing baseball when it comes out, which makes sense, right? You have this really high profile movie It does very well at the box office. It certainly did for me personally. It also makes a good choice in depicting baseball mostly in a series of montages where exciting things happen Yes, I did note that when I was watching, I was like, wow, everything's a montage. Yeah. such a big band music. Yes. And the thing about me is I do love a montage But I also feel like we kind of like skipped over some of the fun parts. Like tryryouts didn't need to be a montage. I could have just been like, I could have watched like twenty minutes of them trying out to be honest with you. You would I guess want like a doesz but length cut of a league of their own where we can see all the specific stuff. Yes. yeah. Definitely. So you get this league in nineteen ninety seven, ladies League baseball. It was extremely short lived. It's often not even mentioned in like articles about the history of women's baseball. Yeah, I sure missed it. Yeah It only lasted like a season and a half. It had really bad attendance. It was losing money, but I do want to note that like all new leagues in their early years, men's leagues and women's leagues lose money. like you can't expect right anything like this is going to succeed right away So we're sort of getting working our way slowly to the present moment after taking that like big leap in time, right? And I think we should talk about Little League and Monet Davis. haveave you heard the name Monet Davis so who's Monet Davis? So she is the name of the woman in baseball that I think if our listeners have heard of any woman in baseball, they're most likely to have heard at least in passing of Monet Davis.. She was a little leager And she became the first girl to pitch a shutout at the Little League World Series in twenty fourteen. So she wasn't the first girl to play in the Little League World Series. That's been happening since the eighties. But she really like achieved this level of like fifteen minutes of fame that these other woman before these other girls before her did not I will send you a cover of Sorts Illustrated, which she graced. So look at that. It says like Monet, remember her name as if we could ever forget. And you know, I think sadly like people kind of did forget, but she achieves this level of fame where she's on Jimmy Fallon. she published a memoir Mike Lee made a documentary about her. Wow. Yeahah. Well that m Oh wow. Oh yeah, you got the cover upp? Yeah. yeah. it's a really great shot think he's just like Totally in motion, like about to pitch I guess or at the very start of pitching. Yeah. And what is a shutout and brief? Why is that especially impressive? I know that it is from the way people talk about it, but know I understand what it is the way a little kid does. Yeah, so it's you haven't allowed the other team to score any runs. and that is Pretty remarkable. Even the best pitchers give up hits, even the best pitchers give up home runs. So it's like a step on the way to like a perfect game, which was not this game, but like a perfect game is like you don't have any base runners, which is like this heralded thing in baseball. But a shoutout is a really cool achievement, especially like think about it. you're playing one of the best kids baseball teams in the world, right? Right. And you're not allowing them to score. There's something super powerful about that. Yeah No, that makes sense. And as a shout out also like is piching a shout out something that you could be Like really great at baseball for your whole life and just never do Yeah, I think that's a fair thing to say. And, you know, a shutout requires a lot of stamina too because you're pitching like a lot of pitchers get pulled. It's uncommon to pitch an entire game to begin with. We should say that. So you're showing a level of like durability and stamina and you're seeing the same batters over and over again, right? overver the course of a game. And so they have opportunities to learn your secrets and try to like crack you as a pitcher, right? But not allowing any runs to score means no one really cracked her and the defense. So it's a really cool achievement. And I think a sports illustrated cover even in twenty fourteen was still like a sign that like you've made it in sports. Oh yeah. I mean, I think I don't know. I know that everything is different around magazines and everything, but I feel like that's still understandable today It would be nice if there was like more of those landmarks for people now, you know? likeike the way that it, you know, it was like this historic thing when Bruce Springsteeen was on the cover at both time and Newswek. Right. the same week U you know but Yeah, and also that it's She looks about like thirteen. likeike what what age is she? So I mean, Little League is like a sport for like ten to twelve year olds. So She's very young. How young? Let's She was born in two thousand one Wh which is wild. Yeah So she would have been about like twelve, twelve, about. Yeah. So it's really quite a young age to have like this national spotlight on you. Yeah. but also I think just, I don't know, to be celebrated for somethingomething that involves like not just physical ability, but I think a lot of mental toughness as well. I don't know. There's something really rare and cool about that, especially for for an adolescent girl You know? Yeah. And you would think like seeing this SI cover, you know, she got a book deal, all this stuff. like in most sports, you'd be like, oh, this This girl is like on her way to something Yeah, some illustrious career, right? in her chosen profession. Yeah. Like LeBron James or something. Right. But like so many people are she was you know, basically forced to pivot to softball in college. manan Yeah. And so I think she thought she'd never play baseball again. And she's in her mid twenties now and she's going to be part of this new baseball league that I mentioned is starting up in August Hy, this is this is a very good pivot. Yeah It's perhaps telling, though, that she thought the league was fake when she first saw news about it on her phone. Wow. Just because I think that says a lot about the state of women playing baseball, that like she can't even trust her eyes when it's like right in front of her that this league is starting So Monet Davis, one of many littleittle Leagers little league girls to play in the World series and to play obviously like on a random littleittle League team like You know, it's not a given that there will be a girl, but it's probably more common than people think, especially in recent years. We're gonna take another detour though. if that's al right with you. Absolutely. So in twenty sixteen There is a TV show on Fox called Pitch, which features a Monet Davis type of woman pitching in major leeague baseball. This show also only lasts one season and it's like sneakily the whole reason that I wanted to do this episode because I've seen it and loved it dearly and no one else has seen this. Yeah. Like I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have talked to me about this show. What's What's your sales pitch for Yeah, so there's like a steamy romance brewing. Of course like she appears to be straight in the show, but there's like this really great like grumpy older catcher who's like near retirement and, you know, that's the catcher she's assigned to work with. And it's kind of like a little bit of like an enemies to lovers thing. So I think that's really just fun frrankly, really fucking fun and also I think the production value is really high. like MLB cooperated in producing the show, which is why they're allowed to say she plays for the Padres. They filmed in a stadium. It's a bit soapy, more than a bit soapy actually, but it's very fun. So of course, it only lasted for one season. We can't have nice things I wrote this was fall of twenty sixteen, so at a very particular time in our history. And I wrote a ringer article about the show and it was given the headline, Where with her If that tells you anything about where we were in terms of like a long time ago. national politics, a very long time ago It was a simpler time then. Something like that. Yeah. the popcorn hadn't popped yet or something. Exactly, exactly. was it was still, you know, just in the microwave or whatever. It was still being lazed. Yes So while this is happening, there were two women in an independent baseball league on a team called the Sonoma Stompers.. I want to highlight Kelsey Whitmore, who is one of them. She's kind of the face of women's baseball today or one of the faces of women's baseball today alongside Monet Davis. And so she plays in this independent league for the stoppers. and in twenty twenty two, she plays for the Staten Island Fairy Hawks which is in the Atlantic League, which is an MLB affiliated league. So that's a very cool milestone. So we have like In the background of these like fictionized depictions, I wouldn't say there's like momentum because I think that's like a strong word for something like this, but you do see like some progress happening behind the scenes. Kelsey Whitmore has opportunities on an international level. so There is a womomen's Baseball World Cup that's held every other year. And so You see women like Kelsey have this opportunity to play baseball. Internationally, but domestically, right? The opportunities just really aren't there. She's like shoehorning herself into men's teams when she can. What countries are there opportunities in for women Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's like typically like Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Japan's a big baseball country in general. Mexico, like these are the kinds of teams we see in the World Cups. we gotta get with it. Yeah. I mean, so what's really nice is that the Women's Baseball World Cup has its group stage this summer in Rockford, Illinois, which you will know because Rockford is the home of the Paches, a team featured in a leeague of their own. Of course, love it. Yeah, you have like these incremental like kind of start and stop bits of progress, both in real life and in fictional depictions, which like I'm a big believer in like representation as corny as that sounds. L I do think when You can see people We like corn here. Yeah, we do. That reminds me that in a League of their own, the TV show, the black woman is from Rockford actually and she's like, you know, she's telling the guys like There's no peaches there. You should call the team the corn. And the men she's talking to are just very unamused by that. I am very amused. The cobbs would also be good. That would be an elite name, yes. So you know, we've started seeing more girls and women playing baseball in real life and fiction. And we've also, I do w to note, we've seen women slowly trickle into non playing roles As umpires, as coaches, we've even seen a general manager in major League baseball. So we are seeing these little bits of these reasons for hope And that's what all leads us to this current moment of this baseball league starting in August. It's called the Women's Pro Baseball League, and it is starring our pals Monet Davis and Kelsey Whitmore, which is really cool. Yeah What's amazing. Better late than never to get these opportunities. Everyone start doing research for the biopics right now. These are exciting times. Absolutely. And you might be delighted to know that this new league held an open tryout last year, so a League of style. Yeah But what if one of the girls can't read? So this tryout drew more than six hundred people. So there is an appetite for this, right?? You can tell. Yeah. Well, I mean, I just think that Pople watching other people do cool stuff and that One of the things that's always held us back is, you know, networks and conglomerates and leagues and whoever peopleople whose job it is to guess what the American people want because I think that people in those positions consistently underestimate the level of interest that people have for things that are new or feel a little bit unprecedented because maybe the desire has been there but the people who get to make the important decisions don't believe that the desire is there because they're all Men. Yeah, ye. I mean, like imagine that. people have like an appetite and a tolerance and an enthusiasm even for things that don't seem familiar. And people like to try new things. I mean, an example that pops into my head is when do you remember when like Food Network and like the late nineties was like, we're gonna start playing Iron Chef. And we're just gonna see if people watch it because presumably We kind of only have like so much original programming, we need to bulk out our schedule And then people, including me and my mom got obsessed with Iiron Chef, you know, And that was something that I'm sure plenty of people would have been like the American people aren't capable of enjoying iron chefs It's too subtle. but you know, but that was a huge hit in my household and I think pretty objectively too as an import. and there's just something about like I just think it's important to let people try stuff out and see what they like rather than deciding what people are capable of liking and not offering them things that you've decided you don't want to bother with, you know? becauseight this is like an objectively cool thing. It's so cool. Yeah, and I want to send you a cool picture that it would be great if you could describe to people what you were seeing and then I'll tell you more about it Oh, okay, I see A younger looking fem presenting person with long hair, tall Baseball cap looking like very smiley and I don't know. Nice tan like young and healthy and very happy in front of some screens that say women's pro baseball League. and it's hugging A very, u Florida Grandma type with visor sunglasses and fluffy white hair and there're and the Florida Gramma type is like holding this person's hand like with her hand and it's just, I don't know, it's just lovely. It's like a it's a it's an intergenerational hug Yeah, it's just a really beautiful picture. and it was taken by the journalist Howard Magdll at the tryouts for this league. And that is Kelsey Whitmore is the younger woman you just described. And the person she is embracing is Mabel Blair from the original All American League I Blair was ninety eight at the time of this picture. And just like, imagine how cool it would be to see your dream come full circle like this. Yeah Um, I'm thinking of that stupid Madonna song that I don't even like, which is especially annoying because it's over footage of these like jacked old women playing baseball together, which I just love And Yeah, there's just I think that there's, um There's like two things that this is making me think of that I feel like have been themes in my head the whole time we've been talking. And one is that I feel like The way American men talk about baseball has always been fascinating to me because I feel like they see it as some kind of sacred ritual of masculinity. And I think that there is like some kind of special reluctance to allow women and queer people And you know, anyone who isn't sort of along the David Strathn orientation on this character grid, I guess You know, this reluctance to let in non members of the club because of this idea that if other people get to experience this as a rite of passage, then it won't be as powerful for us anymore or something like that. And I don't think that's how any of this has ever worked, but it's a good excuse for denying people opportunities, I guess. And I think that that's one of one of the themes here, you know, this idea that If baseball is so central to masculinity, then how can women do it? How can people outside of the mold that we've always looked to done it, although actually kind of men who play baseball and are allowed to play baseball have changed a lot both in terms of racial integration and the fact that you don't really see guys who look like Bab Bruth anymore, I don't think But maybe we should. But anyway, I'm getting in the weeds. But you know, I feel like there's a sort of this sense that like baseball is kind of an American religion. and that has allowed there to be some sense that it' it's just to keep it exactly the same as it has always been to the greatest extent possible, while of course also projecting logos ono the pitching mound or whatever which I Think is gross. That is something that I would like to not be different, but I don't know, that like the arguments people come up with to resist change, I think maybe a lot of the time are gesturing toward this idea that If we share something with more people, then there willll be less of it to go around. And I don't think that's true generally. and certainly not of baseball, which is by definition an intangible concept. Yes, that there is not a limited amount of in the world and be just looking at this picture just makes me think of like, I'm glad to have kind of ve gotten out of this very nineties idea of what progress looks like and this idea that you win you win something and that is yours forever. nothing ever back pedals because You know, certainly in the last ten, twenty years, we've seen not just back pedaling, but just like I mean, I think American progress in many ways can be accurately described as a crazy straw, you know? And if you realize that you're inside of a crazy straw, it's muchuch better to understand that and to understand how it works than to think that you should be going straight upwards and If you're not doing that, like if you're not on a ladder, then you must be in a shoute. And it's like, No, it's not a shoot. It's a crazy straw. We just kind of we win something and then we lose it, and then if enough people fight hard enough for it and if the timing is right, then we can get it back again. And you know the fact that ground that people once gained has been lost, has been taken back by you know, by people who want to keep the world as it once was That doesn't mean that you can't win it back again, you know I love that. Yeah, it's kind of like you said, like it's all about knowing like tryrying to recognize where you are in the crazy straw and plotting a path Tward a better arc through it, right? Yeah. And That doesn't happen overnight. Well, and also isn't kind of the worst thing that can happen in a way in sports to be a team that starts out strong And then he stays strong. And then you finish strong and then you win and no one has a chance against you and you're the New England Patriots. That ye I don't know much about sports, but I do know that. You did land that pretty well. Good job. Yes Thank you. Absolutely. It's just it's boring and no one wants that, right? Like you want to see the struggle, the struggle is a part of sports. Right. And I guess maybe that's a way of showing us like, you know, not that we want to like create fake reasons to struggle because that's what the Liver King was all about or something. That was about a lot, really. you know, that It's maybe something that reminds us that you can't predict how things are going to go and that your sense of identity can come not from what you have at any given moment or what you've done at some time in the past, but how you're able to react to whatever you're dealing with at the second and in the next second And also to not celebrate something when there's three seconds left on the clock because you never know Right, That's way too early. But yeah, no, I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I think baseball is a sport that's all about how you react under difficult circumstances and under pressure If you let someone on base, well, I guess you better refocus on the mound and get the next person out, right? Like throw strikes. like there's no way out but through. and I think That is true for this fight to gain acceptance as well. Yeah What has it been like for you to grow up with baseball And in terms of just sort of, I don't know the way that it has maybe contributed to your your understanding of life or your perspective, you know, ' I like I've thought an embarrassing amount about figure skating when I am sort of entering high pressure moments in my life. I'll tell you that. Yeah, I think sports are great because They're there, they're consistent. And I have loved like the rhythm of baseball and having baseball on in the background at various points of my life. Like I think that baseball teaches you patience, you know, even just watching it. like I never played baseball, but justust watching it, you can embrace the slowness of it. It's a feature, not a bug. And you can embrace the fact that despite its slowness, you have to pay attention every single second because you never know when like a hit is going to break out or know You'll see a series of run score, anything like that. It's preparing you for toddler parenting potentially, I guess. To the extent that anything can prepare one for that, yeah. Well, yeah, that's true. But yeah, so it's just nice and it is something I want more people to experience, whether that's playing or watching or both. I think there's a lot to be excited about with a sort of scrappy new league They held spring training this year. They have a co founder and commissioner named Justine Siegel. and she's long been a major driving force behind getting girls and women interests and opportunities within baseball She has a nonprofit called baseball for All. For those wondering, as I said earlier, the teams will play on a neutral site in Springfield, Illinois But they represent Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. There's also some kind of like, I don't want to be a downer in this episode on kind of like a sour note, but there are some like early questions and curious things about this league. Like, we love a sour note on this show. That's true. Yeahah. I mean, there's some early reporting out there from one of the only journalists who's closely following the league. Their name is Jen Ramos Eisen They've put forward a lot of questions to the league about what may happen beyond twenty twenty six, whether they have plans to move out of the neutral site into their home cities Jen also pointed out to the public that there were unpaid internships listed on the league's website including for some pretty key positions like clubhouse manager We're like That's not really an intern's job. It's certainly not an unpaid interns job Also, like there's questions about how much these players are going to be paid for their time and their sacrifices. like each team apparently has a salary budget of only ninety five thousand dollars, which sounds like a salary for one person, but they have to roster fifteen players with that money. Oh my gosh, they're not grad students. Right.ich is that is what you would pay grad students, which is also a travesty, that that's a different topic. yeah. Right don't know if the money is being split evenly among each player, but if it was, that comes out to about six thousand three hundred per player for the season. I mean, even if it's being split. unevenly. Yeah, there's like no there's no good outcome with that figure. Yeah. I mean, this is the kind of thing where it's like, well I hope it works out, but the strength of the idea can't float for execution if that's what we end up with, you know and that matters too. It always does. Yeah. so like I have my doubts here about if this is like the answer we've all been waiting for, but you know, it's certainly a step in the right direction.'s I'd rather have someone like Kelsey Whitmore or Monet Davis get these opportunities and get none at all. So, you know, I think whether or not this league is a longstanding success, it's only the beginning for girls and women in baseball, really. There's going to be a lot more to come if any of these people who we've been talking about have anything to say about it. Yeah. and the answer is, you know, not any specific league or specific you know, financial backer, you know given how those can come and go like a summer's dayay, but trying, you know, and continuing to try and seeing the value in trying to build that and giving people that opportunity and accepting you know, change and and temporary failure is part of that, I think Right. so I would say at this moment, we don't exactly know like where we are in like the loopy loop of the crazy straw we're in. But with any luck, it's somewhere on the upswing, you know, I don't know. Yeah But I mean, I don't know, the point is that Women want to watch other women do cool stuff. and dare I say it, lots of other people want to watch women do cool stuff. as well also you know, despite some of those loudmouths who want to give you all a bad name I think that that people just fundamentally and this is where we get into maybe this kind of one of the bigger zoom out topics too, where it's like the more you talk about gender and sports and the differences that it creates and the sort of different cultures that we built over time around it. like what you kind of come back to, I think in the end, is the irrelevance of it, ultimately, you know, and just the sense of like, well, at the end of the day people like to watch people do cool stuff and then it makes them think about doing stuff and then maybe they'll try it, maybe they'll watch more of it. But we just like we as human beings, we like to see each other and it feels like we Like if we're allowed to consider womomen in sports It's almost like that's what it takes for me anyway to sort of zoom out and articulate like I love talking about women in sports, but it brings me back to ultimately the sense that like it just completes the picture to show sports is not really a gendered thing at all, but just something that is there for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, we've said things to this effect on this show before, but like gender, it just goes to show that gender does not need to be like the organizing principle of sports anyway. Yeah. The organizing principle of sports needs to be who feels like doing it that day? Yeah. I love that though. I really do Yeah. And some of us would like to sit quietly under a tree and read. And that's fine too. Some of us probably would have been better served by doing more solo activities where they couldn't have been hit in the face by a ball that they didn't see coming possibly. Yeah, I'm all for people not getting hit in the face. Yeah. It's also just great for people to have like as many choices as possible. to find the things that they love doing and that can kind of help them to have the relationship with their body that they deserve, you know? because I I don't really like exercising in a team capacity fundamentally because I think that like understanding social dynamics and moving my body around at the same time is just like even just thinking about it makes me feel like freaking out a little bit because those are two things that I that take seventy five percent of my capacity And so I'll be like at one hundred and fifty percent the whole time. But if I can just like if you like point me in a direction and tell me to start walking, I can just kind of keep going. until I h had a body of water. And that's what I've always liked doing. And Also, if we're allowed to listen, we kind of know what feels good to us. and I think having as many things open to us as there can possibly be is also what we deserve just as physical creatures that exist in space. Yeah. I mean, I hear this again and again from friends who like didn't click with team sports growing up necessarily or didn't click with a certain team sport. and then as adults have found like types of exercise and movement that really work for them And they're very surprised to know that they don't actually hate fitness or hate moving around. It's They just hated the few options they had at the time. Right, yeah, becausecause gym in school for a lot of people is like eight forms of social hell and parachute week. Parachute Wek, yes. Yeah Also I could never climb a rope Not once like there was never like even the suggestion that it might happen, you know? It was it was so clear that that was not gonna I was not going to climb that rope. Did your gym have one because my gym class did not and I'm so grateful for that. We yeah, it at least came up when I was in like later elementary or middle school, I think. And there were and there were like other there were like most of the other kids could do it They were also much shorter. ly, I'm just, I don't know, thank you for listening to a lot of my disjointed ramblings about topics that I only slightly understand. and telling us the story and preparing us for our summer of sports watching Tell us again about Any books that you might happen to have coming out? Oh yeah, it's funny you say that because I do happen to have a book coming out.. And more than that, it's a book about someone finding her place in professional sports. So it's called Finding Renee Richards. You preorder wherever you find books, but if you want a signed copy, preorder from my hometown astoria bookshop here in Queens That's so fantastic. Yeah. I loved reading it and kind of being immersed in this period of I don't know, American sports history, but also really just history broadly that I feel like I had never encountered before before I talk to you about Renee. and also, you know, to for people who've listened to that episode that we did I think it'll be really wonderful to see you then get to enter that story that you had been telling us about because you ended up interviewing Renee for, I mean, pererhaps countless. Hours? Yeah, yeah, many, many, many hours. Yeah. And there's just there's something so fascinating about being someone who is interested in a life that someone has led. And when that door kind of opens, it feels like the thing in Beetlejuice where you like draw a door and then a door is created where there was no door before. and you are able to then talk to that person and ask them the questions that you have And you really like you depict this you know, this relationship that you developed with her as as you were writing about her life. and I really loved especially time that you dedicated to kind of showing the two of you kind of developing this understanding of each other, it seems like. Thank you, Sarah. Yeah. I really appreciate that because I did think that was part of the story. it's not even a blip on the, you know trajectory of her entire life story. But I do think I do think it's part of it and I wanted to show interacting with professional trans athlete and grappling with her changing opinions, changing views And I'm glad you feel like I accomplished that. Yeah, no, I did. And I feel like there is because there's something so interesting about I don't know, writing itself as a discipline, writing memoir, writing biography and nonfiction where it's like there's certain you know, best practices and kind of conventions, but at the same time, everything is up in the air sometimes in terms of the best way to depict what the story seems to encompass, I guess. And part of that, I think is, you know you as a younger queer person Tking to someone who broke new ground in her time and now is living in a world that progressed I think you could say because of her actions and has grown into something that You know, she doesn't entirely understand, but that you're both trying to understand each other. I don't know, I just really loved. I think that the depicting the trying is really I loved getting to see that and I would always love to see more of that Thank you, Sarah. Yeah And I guess just to Tie a nice bow on it, both the book and what we've been talking about in baseball are to state the obvious, showing that sports aren't just for men. They're for people, like you said. Yeah, and the book is called Finding Renee Richards and When is its publication date? when can we read it? august eighteenth. August eighteenth, Oh my gosh. and Julie, thank you for coming on and teaching me how baseball works and telling me what an inning is and writing this book. It's been so wonderful