Taking Sides : Baseball Game Would Pit Girls Versus Boys Champs

When the 13-year-old boys on a Thousand Oaks baseball team got all the glory--and the lion’s share of media coverage--for their World Series championship last month, their female counterparts in Newbury Park didn’t just get mad.

The girls, who had just won Bobby Sox softball’s national title, vowed to get even.

Now they may get their chance.

Presidents from both youth leagues have given tentative approval to a matchup between the Junior League boys and the 12- to 15-year-old girls. The game is already splitting Conejo Valley fans along gender lines even though no decision has been made about what kind of ball to use or which size diamond.

“I think our girls will win,” said Joseph Joyce, president of Newbury Park’s Bobby Sox softball league. “They play a very disciplined and strong game. Girls can compete very well, given the opportunity.”

But Bruce Singleton, president of the Thousand Oaks Little League, said the proposed matchup reminds him of the fate of the Silver Bullets, an all-female professional baseball team that got clobbered in competition with male minor-league baseball players.

“The games are totally different,” Singleton said. “If we were to play these girls on a field with 90-foot base paths, they’ve never played on anything beyond 60 feet. And that is a world of difference.”

Singleton paused a second, then added: “However, at that age, girls are pretty competitive.”

While leaders from both leagues are reluctant to call it a grudge match, others say the game reminds them of another fabled battle of the sexes from years past.

“It would be sort of a Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs thing, wouldn’t it,” said Patrick Murphy, an Agoura Hills attorney, referring to the much-hyped 1973 tennis match that the younger King won decisively.

Murphy’s 12-year-old daughter, Jessica, played Bobby Sox softball this year and went all the way to the state finals, he said. Like many parents of Bobby Sox players, Murphy said he was incensed by the expansive coverage given the Junior League boys’ victory in the World Series, because the reporting on the girls’ national title was paltry by comparison.

If the faceoff game helps raise the public’s awareness about girls softball and brings increased coverage to the sport, he is all for it, Murphy said.

“As long as the purpose is to draw attention to the issue of balanced reporting in girls sports rather than to create more tensions among the kids,” he said.

The details of the proposed matchup are still being worked out. But Joyce said the game would have to be played within the next two weeks because the players will be busy with school and winter sports after that.

Brian Angel, a deejay at KNJO radio in Westlake Village, began talking about the possibility of a boys-versus-girls competition after parents of softball players called the station to complain that the girls were being overlooked in sports reports, Joyce said.

Angel called Joyce and Singleton to ask if they were interested. Both league presidents said they would be willing, as long as the game is played for fun and proceeds go to charity.

Players from both leagues will participate on a voluntary basis, the men said. Joyce said besides fielding a team of older girls, he would also like the Bobby Sox league’s younger division, for girls ages 9 through 11 years, to play the 9- and 10-year-old Little League boys.

But while Joyce and Singleton are enthusiastic about the proposed match, the 13-year-old boys Little League manager, Ed Kitchen, said he does not know how a game could be played fairly.

Baseball is played on a diamond with 90-foot base paths and the small, hard balls are thrown overhand by a pitcher. In softball, the game is played on a more compact field with a larger and softer ball that is pitched underhand, Kitchen said.

“It’s like asking ice hockey players to play street hockey,” Kitchen said.

Furthermore, Kitchen said that holding up the coverage of the girls’ victory to the boys’ title is not an apples-to-apples comparison. The boys won a world series, beating out teams from other countries, while the girls brought home a national championship.

And, like it or not, there is an echelon in sports coverage, Kitchen said.

“The Northridge Little League team got 100 times more coverage than we did,” Kitchen said, referring to the team of 12-year-olds whose Little League World Series title game was televised nationwide.

“And we got a lot more coverage than the Bobby Sox league did,” he said. “That might change in 10 years from now, but right now that’s the way it is.”

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What about the players? Do they like the idea of a competition?

Amanda Marino, a 15-year-old Bobby Sox catcher, said she is excited about playing the boys. And she is confident about the girls’ athletic ability.

“It will probably be a close game, but I think we’ll end up winning,” Amanda said. “We will show the community that girls can beat boys.”

Jeff Heyne, a 13-year-old right fielder, was also ready for the challenge.

“The girls that play softball are usually pretty good,” he said. “They’d be good competition.”