Play ball! I used to hear that call at the old Merchants Park in Denver when baseball was the Great American Pastime and - I think - the only professional sport in town. And now, more years later than I care to admit, that same call introduced to Grand Junction the Colorado Silver Bullets, the first all-female professional baseball team recognized by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues.
Now the Silver Bullets have joined the University of Colorado women's basketball team as my all-time favorites. Well, the Broncos are in there, too.Although we haven't heard much about women and baseball, they've been playing almost as long as the men. According to the Bullets' page on the World Wide Web, the first women's amateur baseball teams were formed at Vassar College in 1866.
A few years later, the Blondes and Brunettes entertained the crowds with bad baseball and basketball-like scores as they became the first women to play for pay. The uniform of the day consisted of fancy blouses, floor-length skirts and high-button shoes. Imagine sliding into third dressed like that.
The Bloomer Girls played serious baseball in 1892 and barnstormed around the country wearing, I assume, the new floppy attire invented by Amelia Bloom-er.
A hundred years later, female athletes are saying that it is finally time for professional women's baseball. The Colorado Silver Bullets gave a very good sales pitch!
Male reactions to the Bullets, who won both games against a local men's team, have been mixed and highly entertaining.
"Girls don't have any business playing baseball," said one man of my generation with something between a shudder and real pain.
But the fathers of girl soccer players enthusiastically say, "Girls can play any game they want to. Hey, did you see my daughter make that save?"
And then of course you always have the whiners, who wanted everyone to know they were only playing for fun when they were struck out by a "girl."
Women's athletics have come of age since the passage in 1972 of Title IX. Now, schools and colleges are legally compelled to offer women's sports on a level with the men's, and it's about time. As little girls, the Bullets were in the first generation to benefit from competitive athletic programs for girls.
They are highly motivated athletes. Thirteen hundred women showed up at the original tryout camp two years ago, and the 24 who made it are talented, tough ball players. They came up the hard way, just like the men, with years of training. They started playing ball as children, many in Little League, and have continued through high school and college. Most of them are college graduates.
I asked one of them how she liked my favorite movie, "A League of Their Own." She was not much impressed. She said the movie made it look as though any woman could become a professional ball player just because she wants to and can throw a ball. That's not the way it works.
The Bullets are excellent role models for the girls coming up in the athletic programs. Wherever they made an appearance, they were surrounded by little girls getting autographs, little girls who may be dreaming of becoming professional baseball players.
I know from personal experience the lifelong value of sports programs for women. I had four years of softball at CU, along with field hockey and basketball, and while they were strictly intramural, they were invaluable. And they were wonderful fun.
Even the social status of the athletic girls has changed. In years past, the girl who was good in a sport was not the one asked out much by the boys. The Bullets tell me that was true even as recently as their high school days. Today, however, the most popular girls are those who excel in sports.
While I look forward to seeing a female president in my lifetime, Billie Jean King, all-time tennis great, has a different goal. "I look forward to seeing, in my lifetime, pigtails in the World Series . . . worn by a woman."
The Colorado Silver Bullets brought a jolt of enthusiasm for the game of baseball. These women play hardball. We hope they'll be back.