Is Softball Sexist?
The conventional wisdom is that baseball is for boys and men, and softball is for girls and women. But women have been playing baseball since long before they had the right to vote. As the national pastime went professional, women were forced out of it — and into softball. Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, also protects equal access to and funding of sports for boys and girls at the school level, and girls have been fighting to play baseball — with lawsuits, if necessary — since the 1970s. But equal access is often interpreted to mean not baseball, but softball.
Both men and women swim, ski, snowboard and run marathons and sprints. Both play tennis and soccer and basketball. Softball, though, is a completely distinct sport, with different pitching — underhand — and different equipment, including a larger ball. It also has shorter distances from pitcher to home plate and between bases, fewer innings and a smaller outfield. Yes, Division I softball is demanding, far from the beery fun of middle-aged weekend leagues. But the women’s version of baseball is not softball. It’s baseball.
Baseball evolved from the British game rounders, played by both girls and boys. Softball was invented in 1887 by men, though it came to be seen as an easier, “safer” and more modest game — more suitable, that is, to ladies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/opinion/is-softball-sexist.html
The author is correct with her last paragraph:
= new reply since forum marked as read
and it's working. 
Sometimes, a joke is just a joke.
Tell me again about your humor.
Which NHL team did your brother play for?
I had a feeling someone was going to ask that.
At the time my parents said that to me, my brother was doing really well and eventually he had plenty of tryouts with WHL teams at age 15. He didn't make those teams, but plenty on his AAA team did (his team had won the western Canadian championships that year) and a few went on to be drafted and play a few games in the NHL. He even went to hockey school with Jerome Iginla. So...it wasn't as if he was a horrible player and had no chance of making it anyway (as it ended up, he peaked too soon and was too short for a defenseman). But yeah, stupid reason to not let me play because even if my brother would've been bad at hockey, he still would've played.
It wasn't even just about NHL either, I believe the wording the mostly used was "You'll never go anywhere" with it. When women's hockey became part of the Olympics, I remember saying to them, "SEE? *I* could be on that team if you would've let me play hockey!" Their sensitive response? "AS if you would've made; it you have to be really good" Well I guess we'll never know how good I could've been now will we. ugh, my parents were terrible on this point. My ex used to call them the 'dream killers'. And FTR I was pretty good...Everyone from coaches to gym teachers to the boys I played with (who were older than me) said I was good and should play. Once I managed to convince my dad to let me practice with my brother's team (he was assistant coach) and afterwards my dad told me that the head coach said I was a smart player and amazingly smooth skater and I should be on a team. My dad shook his head like he thought the coach was insane. In my gym class in high school, the only other girl in my class had a brother who was drafted into the NHL (first round) and she played hockey. In our hockey unit, our teacher asked her, "what team do you play for?" and she said what team. Then she asked me what team I played for. I told her I didn't play. "you don't play?" "no" "Wow. You should. Why don't you?" "my parents said it wasn't worth it to put a girl in hockey" LOL at the look on my gym teacher's face (she was super mean to me all the time, but after that I think she felt bad for me). Once I won $175 because my mom won a raffle at a hockey game for a chance to shoot, from centre ice, 3 pucks into holes in a piece of plywood strung up on the net during intermission and she chickened out and made me do it. I got all the pucks in the small half circle holes on the bottom. 3 for 3. That was nice - I was 18 at the time and I felt like it said to my parents, "I told you I was good, assholes".
Anyway (I'm starting to sound like Al Bundy here, 
) No my brother didn't make the NHL
I wish I could've played. I was seriously obsessed as a child. When I was 6 or 7 I memorized all the players, their stats, positions, shot, numbers, and personal things (favorite food, favorite color) of our local NHL team. I would sit with my dad every Saturday night to watch hockey on TV. I begged my parents to take me to an NHL game (they finally did and I can say I saw Gretzky and Messier play in their heyday). I remember they put me in figure skating, hoping I would stop asking to play hockey. I quit going (my instructor said I skated too much like a hockey player, LOL) and instead begged them to buy me 'boy' (aka hockey) skates. I asked for boy skates for Christmas and birthdays for 3 years before finally getting them. Yeah, now that I have kids, it baffles me at how hard they had to work to keep me from playing. Funny, I have 4 girls and they all hate hockey, LOL. I always thought if I had a kid who liked hockey I might go into coaching. Guess it's not meant to be. 
When in fact they are. So, we won't come to agreement on that.
And yes with baseball women could play on level that men do. They have in the past.
I'm not sure about football, but I'm sure a woman could play basketball on a mens team. It's possible they aren't just afforded the access because they are women. I know that is an extremely radical thought .... but please consider it.
Tournaments to raise money for charities. Double elimination. Always had a big power hitter in the clean-up spot. 
It was a different strategy.
Fast Pitch scares the bejeezus outta me 
whoa!
Have you read about Eri Yoshida and Ila Borders? Both played pro baseball as pitchers. In Little League baseball, there are a few girls who throw knuckleballs, which I've always thought was an ideal way for women to break the gender barrier into "men's" sports because it doesn't require extraordinary arm strength. I had hopes for Yoshida, but the irony is that ML managers don't like knuckleballers much, and women are not going to throw 100 MPH heat any time soon.
Pushing girls into softball (or girls-only versions of sports like basketball, which is equally sexist) is obviously one way to keep them out of the professional locker rooms. Saying women aren't physically capable is another (and reminds one of the excuse once used to exclude blacks and minorities from sports: "they don't have the talent."
. While physical reality does indicate that it would be rare to find a woman who could compete equally with men in most sports, it does seem unfitting that the exceptions should be denied their chance.
But as for Jackie Mitchell, come on. It was Chattanooga, for crying out loud, and the Chattanooga owner was a showman in the tradition of Bill Veeck. If Ruth and Gehrig weren't paid to whiff, they would have been willing to do it for a lark. Kenesaw Mountain Landis totally overreacted (if indeed that wasn't the plan all along).
-- Mal