The Boys and Girls of Summer : Co-ed softball in the Valley is a hit, setting stage for new battle between the sexes.

Softball, once a sport that divided men and women into separate leagues and different patterns of interaction, has undergone a face lift in the 1990s.

From on-the-field maneuvering to off-the-field manners, the co-ed game in the San Fernando Valley--and nationwide--has become a big hit, setting the stage for a new battle between the sexes.

“Co-ed softball has just taken off,” said Ron Babb, director of communications for the Amateur Softball Assn. in Oklahoma City, Okla., which supervises dozens of leagues throughout the country. “It used to be that wives watched their husbands play and that was enough. Now, they don’t want to watch. They want to be on the field.”

In 1992, according to Babb, 469 Southern California co-ed teams registered with ASA, up from 111 squads in 1986. The ASA reports a similar increase nationwide.

In the Valley, the story is the same. An average of 160 co-ed teams competed each year between 1989 and 1991 in the Valley division of the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks. Last year, there were more than 200 co-ed teams--a 25% increase--and this year’s turnout shows the same rise. There are 60 all-women teams and about 450 all-men units in the Valley’s city league.

“In many cases, the husbands who already played one night wanted to play another night, so they convinced their wives to play with them,” said John Pierce, senior director of municipal sports for the Valley division, whose spring season runs from late March to July. The fall/winter season goes from September to January. “And for some reason, the exposure has brought so many more people into it.”

Other leagues in the Valley report the same increase in co-ed play.

“It’s growing like crazy,” said Joe Cunningham, who runs the independent American Softball League in Shadow Hills, near Sun Valley.

The sport not only gives hundreds of new players a chance for recreation and competition, it also provides a glimpse of how men and women in the 1990s get along in an athletic environment. Have men become more sensitive to women and overcome age-old chauvinism? Or is the baseball field merely another place for men to assert superiority by disrespecting their female colleagues?

The answer is yes and no, according to male and female softball players in all four city-run Valley divisions that range in competition level from A (most difficult) to D.

Generally, the sexes peacefully coexist, complimenting and encouraging all team members. Shouts of “Get a hit” are uttered equally to men and women, and when a player makes a nice catch or hits a line drive into the outfield, there is little difference in celebration.

Mike Mosley, 40, of Calabasas, a member of the Pickwick Pistols, a C division team that plays Tuesday nights at Shoup Park in Woodland Hills, claims both sexes have grown to depend on each other. “We deal better with stress than all-men or all-women teams,” Mosley said. “We are real nurturing with each other. We’re always looking after each other to see if we’re OK.”

Mosley and his male teammates also appreciate a chance to enjoy softball without worrying that the future of the world is riding on every play. Female players who have participated in all-women squads share that sentiment.

“I wouldn’t play on an all-guys team. It’s way too intense,” said Pickwick’s Jeff Mueller, 28, of Newbury Park. “Half the time, we can’t remember what the score is. Things seem to be going well and you figure you’re winning. . . . In guys’ leagues, men are out to take each other’s heads off. Sometimes they feel like they have so much pride that you can’t go up to someone and say, ‘Oh, you’ll do better next time.’ Here, you can.”

Some men say their association with women on the playing field has actually changed their attitudes about the opposite sex.

“It gives you another side to them,” said Bill Silver of Van Nuys, whose team, Sudden Impact, is in the Valley city league. “You see girls running around in skirts at the office and then they come out here and hit the heck out of the ball and swear, and that’s something else.”

In fact, Silver added, sometimes he even forgets they are women. “At the end of the year, you’ll see them at a banquet,” Silver said, “and they’re all dressed up. You’re used to thinking about them as ballplayers first, women second. But you realize they are women women rather than ballplayer women.”

Michael Messner, a USC associate professor of sociology, said many men who play co-ed softball reported similar consciousness-raising experiences.

“Playing with women has increased their respect of women as full human beings,” said Messner, who last year wrote a book, “Power at Play,” on how sports affects male attitudes toward masculinity. “They no longer see women as just sexual objects.”

Messner recommended men and women play more sports together at an early age. “That’s when we get artificially separated,” he said. “We should be breaking down those barriers.”

The women on the Pickwick Pistols and other co-ed squads in the Valley, while acknowledging those barriers, say they also have gained new respect for men from their time together on and off the field.

“In the competitive area, you get to see a side of a man you don’t often see,” said Drasan Myatt, 30, of Woodland Hills, who joined Pickwick last year. “You see weaknesses.”

Even sexual teasing, which happens periodically, doesn’t seem to bother the women much. Myatt said men at the game have tried to hit on her, but she brushes it off. “In a sports environment, it’s not political,” she said. “I don’t have to worry whether this is my boss. What’s this going to mean? This isn’t where you make your living.”

Players of both sexes said the co-ed league is not seen as a pickup spot. “I would put that way down there on the reasons why people play co-ed softball,” said Lois Maki, office manager at the Valley city division, “although it is a good way to meet people.”

But no matter how supportive their male teammates can be, women players complain that some men in the league still treat them as second-class citizens. The women players say men run in front of them to catch the ball if the score is close in the late innings, ignore their knowledge about the game, and feel their egos have been deflated if a woman makes a great catch or hits a ball over male players’ heads.

Except when the most talented female hitter comes to the plate, male outfielders move in, almost crowding infielders, women say. That aggravates female batters.

“You really want to knock it over his head,” said Lisa McCarthy, who is in her first season for Pickwick.

Sometimes that happens, and suddenly, team loyalties give way to female camaraderie.

“All the women come together on that one,” McCarthy said. “You’re sorry for your team, but you’re happy that a girl showed the guy what she can do. That’s what he gets for coming in.”

Women say the need to prove themselves is always there, even if unstated. Tammy J. Macek, who joined Pickwick last year and has become the team’s dependable left fielder, recalled the pressure she felt in her first few trips to the plate. When she delivered, the rewards were tremendous.

“I hit my first home run, and I heard a few guys saying, ‘I’ve never seen a girl do that.’ It was great,” she said.

The women also feel they have no room for error. When a man boots a ground ball or pops up in the clutch, teammates barely notice, they say. But when a woman does the same . . .

“If you make a mistake,” said Pickwick rookie Cindy Jones, “you’re afraid they’re going to think it’s because you’re a girl.”

For women, the issue of respect isn’t limited to physical skills.

Kathy Hawk, 29, of Northridge, used to manage a co-ed team in Reseda. Occasionally, she asked her male outfielders to move in or back, depending on the batter. She said the men had trouble accepting her authority. “They didn’t listen,” Hawk said. “It was like I was talking to air. I had to tell this big guy on the team to tell them what to do, and then they listened. It was frustrating because I’ve played the game for a long time and I know what I’m doing. I never managed after that.”

Messner is not surprised by that male reaction to Hawk’s instructions.

“From their socialization, men have expected to be in charge on the field,” Messner said. “They grew up thinking the game was their territory. The idea of women having knowledge in this area threatens their basic sense of how men have learned how to bond with each other.”

Hawk still is not completely comfortable on the sidelines. “I still wonder, ‘Will they listen to me?’ ”

Another common complaint among women is that men hog the ball because they don’t think the woman outfielder will catch it. “What’s really aggravating is when they do that and then don’t catch it,” said one female player.

For the most part, the city leaves the teams alone. “They come to us and we put them in leagues,” Maki said.

The rules of co-ed softball were designed in the 1970s to guarantee as much equality among the sexes as possible, requiring each team to have on the field an even number of men and women and alternating between them in the batting order. There’s even a rule discouraging pitchers from walking men.

Sometimes, however, that doesn’t stop managers. In a recent game, Pickwick manager Jerome Pinckney walked a man to face the woman up next. He called it simple baseball strategy.

“There are a lot of girls in this league who I would walk,” Pinckney said.

He may be right. Many of the women players have been competing in softball since high school and often are more skilled than their male teammates. Myatt played in fast-pitch leagues in Oregon before moving to Los Angeles in the early 1980s.

“The women I have played with have all known how to play,” Myatt said.

Like many teams, the Pistols have built a kinship that extends beyond the field. Some of the players go to movies together, and after each Tuesday night game, the team indulges in a few beers and a post-mortem at their sponsor, Pickwick Pub on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. The bar pays the team’s fees for a 12-game season--about $235 per team. Pinckney, an insurance agent who works part time as a Pickwick bartender, assembled the team during the last three years. Most of his recruiting takes place at the bar.

“He just got up one night and asked if anyone was interested in joining the team,” said Jill Himmelstein, 23, of Northridge. “I told him it was my calling.”

Leveling the Playing Field

The rules of co-ed softball were established in the 1970s to help leagues field evenly matched teams. Some of the provisions are that:

* Each team must field the same number of male and female players--five apiece--and the batting order must alternate from men to women.

* A team can have as many as 20 players on its roster; most have 16--eight men and eight women.

* To guarantee against walking men to face women batters, the opposing pitcher must throw at least one strike against a male batter. If he or she throws four straight balls, the male batter gets two bases. Sometimes, though, if the pitcher gets one strike against the man, the manager will decide to walk the guy to face the next batter.

* Outfielders must play at least 15 feet behind the infield. This was designed to prohibit teams from intimidating women perceived as weak hitters.