When the game began, it was as much for girls as it was for boys.

So, What Happened?

John Thorn

MLB Official Historian

Nostalgia is curdled history. It is the Vaseline on the camera lens when looking backwards and all kinds of illusions can be not only created but also promoted. And one such myth is that women did not play baseball until the ‘League of their Own’ in the 1940’s.

Leslie Heaphy

Historian

In the 1800s, when women played in college, one of the rules was you had to play where you couldn't be seen. You have to play behind the building so society doesn't know that you're doing this.

Debra Shattuck

Author

Today baseball is a game so highly gendered that even girls who want to play cannot. This in an age when women are sitting on the Supreme Court, flying fighter jets, and running for president.

Justine Siegel

Founder, Baseball for All. Co-founder, WPBL

Albert Spalding, the sporting goods magnate, said women don’t belong in baseball. It really hurt the movement, and softball became more popular for women. It was just shelving women and getting them off the diamond.