Do Women Belong In The Dugout?

SULLIVAN: The answer is a resounding YES! The conversation over this began last week when Mets announcer Keith Hernandez asked on-air what a "girl" was doing in the San Diego Padres' dugout. Hernandez made some silly remarks how "gals" don't belong in baseball. It turned out that the woman he was talking about was a San Diego Padre trainer doing her job and had every right to be in the dugout.

We are not here to slap down Hernandez. He took enough shots in the media over this. My point is that women certainly belong in baseball. The best doctors and massage therapists I ever went to were women. Baseball players would be blessed if they had females on their staff helping them with their health.

But it's about more that that. I want to see a woman playing baseball in a MLB game. Next season, 2007, marks the 50-year anniversary of baseball finally breaking down the race wall and letting a black man take the field in the major leagues. In 1947, Jackie Robinson showed America what it had been missing, and since then, blacks took sports (baseball and others) to a whole new level.

Now women will not do that for baseball. The first female will be no Jackie Robinson. She won't win Rookie of the Year. Upper body strength limitations would hamper any female from being a baseball stud. However, I bet there is a female baseball player out there who could be a fine utility player for a major league team. I've watched woman's college baseball games and some of those women can play baseball.

You wont find one that will hit 30 home runs, but you could get a decent role player out of the females toiling on today's college baseball campuses and I'd bet there is some side throwing slinger female pitcher who could be a spot reliever who could be brought in when a side thrower is needed.

Think of it! In 2007-50 years after Jackie Robinson played a MLB game-we could see our first female baseball player in an MLB game. It would take a forward thinking organization like Oakland or the Mets to pull this off, but it could be done. And it should be done. Give woman a chance!

HOLLANDER: What Hernandez said was "I won't say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don't belong in the dugout." The golden-gloved first baseman, annoyed that he was forbidden (and often fined) to smoke in the dugout, now advocates a "no girls allowed" rule. He's got a point. The dugout is the baseball player's inner sanctum. There, the full spectrum of male behavior-nut scratching, cussing, spitting, etc.-can carry on without inhibition. It's bad enough that a man is forced to unsheathe himself in front of female reporters in the clubhouse. But during the game, players should have one place where the team can bond freely as a band of brothers, without fear of judgment or social convention. There is only one space left in all of baseball where those crucial and uniquely male familial bonds are formed. That last refuge is the dugout.

I will give some credence to your anecdotal claim that the best massage therapists you've patronized are woman. But we're not talking here about the "happy ending" rub joints you frequent on Mott Street. If a slugger wants a little extra pine-tar on his bat, then the clubhouse is the right place for that. Therapeutic medical attention need not be given in the dugout. What's next, a colonic?

We are all well aware that with regard to the fairer sex, your personal motto has always been "If there's grass on the infield, play ball!" But this idea of women in the major leagues needs to be thought through a bit more. Women have already shown how well they can play baseball with men. Fifty years ago, Mamie "Peanut" Johnson pitched professional baseball for three seasons, 1953-1955, with the Indianapolis Clowns. She went 33-8 and batted .273. Along with Connie Morgan and Toni Stone, Peanut was one of three women to play in the Negro Leagues. And, almost a year ago to the day (May 20, 2005), 11-year-old Katie Brownell pitched a perfect game, striking out 32 of 33 batters in an Oakfield-Alabama Little League contest. But like so many other sports, wouldn't it be better for women to have a league of their own? Isn't this just a simple case of "viva la difference"? If you really like a more feminized brand of baseball, then check out the Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen who kisses his players after a victory. Hey, they're the reigning world champs.

SULLIVAN: For the record I have never had a "happy ending" massage and your remarks belittle female massage therapists everywhere. Your whole "Band of Brothers" crap sounds as antiquated as some old-timer telling me baseball was baseball when Babe Ruth ruled the roost. Yeah, he didn't have to face any black players that may have been as good or better than the vaunted Bambino. You are fast becoming the Jim Crow of women. What sanctuary is there in a clubhouse? Most players barely speak to each other. I think a female player would bring some much-needed spunk and hustle to the game. She might be treated as a novelty like in the 1950's when they trotted out the midget, Eddie Gidell, to take a walk. But I doubt it. I think there are some women out there who could compete as role players on a MLB team. Ozzie Guillen kissing makes him no less of a man. It is a Latin thing, Dave, you wouldn't understand. He would beat you like a piñata if he ever caught you saying that in his clubhouse. And he did win a World Series for a franchise that had an 80-year drought of no championships. Dave, the times are changing. Run from woman all you want, but everywhere you go there they are. Get them in a baseball game and see what happens. It's okay to be afraid, Dave, but change is good.

HOLLANDER: Since before Meatloaf conned Phil Rizzuto into being a part of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," women have been integrally woven into the fabric of our national pastime. Your days of yore were filled with adolescent boasts about reaching "third base" with the neighborhood Molly. And it was a moment of shared national pain when Tatum O'Neal was cruelly spiked in her just-forming mammaries while covering home plate for the Bad News Bears. Women have always been in baseball. Now they deserve their own league. How many more young girls would be inspired by seeing female role models, nine on a side? How many are put off by the lack of identification with male superstars? Yours is a limited view, my friend. To relegate the most talented women baseball players to the role of freak, like a midget or promotional novelty, does a disservice to women in the long run. Girls don't want to be like Barry, Derek or Pedro. They want to be Barrie, Denise and Petra. I think Catherine MacKinnon will back me up when I say that like soccer, basketball, tennis and golf, a women's baseball league is what women want and deserve. Now that we're done campaigning for votes, I want to briefly applaud Keith Hernandez. He was (and still is) refreshingly honest. Like it or not, he's a damn sight better than the ass-kissing blather you get on the YES Network.