Girls File Suit to Level Playing Field

The fields that they dream of do not look like these: bald patches, clumps of grass and holes that trip the most agile of outfielders. Yet this, say the girls, is where they play ball: on shabby fields that are nothing like those they envision--or the real-life places where boys play.

“They talk about all the wonderful stuff they have, and we have to play on these fields that are dangerous,” said Lindsay Berman, 14, a utility player for the Heat, a team in the West Valley Girls Softball League.

The ACLU took steps Thursday to correct that.

The organization filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the city has violated the civil rights of girls who play sports by denying them equal access to city-owned fields used by boys’ leagues. The suit is believed to be the first of its kind.

Flanked by seven softball players wearing pink, yellow and blue league T-shirts, and holding bats and gloves, lawyers for the ACLU said the suit is “seeking an end to the separate and unequal treatment of girls sports in Los Angeles.”

“The great American pastime is not the preserve of only boys,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “For the past 29 years, the West Valley Girls Softball League has sought and been denied permanent city recreational team softball facilities for its practices and games similar to the permanent facilities used by West Valley Boys.”

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Filed on behalf of the West Valley Girls Softball League, with 30 teams and more than 400 players ages 5 to 15, the lawsuit names Jackie Tatum, general manager of the Department of Recreation and Parks, the city of Los Angeles and the Department of Recreation and Parks as defendants.

Tatum’s office would not offer an explanation of the procedure the city uses to determine use of park fields and referred all calls regarding the lawsuit to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Assistant City Atty. Mark Brown said he could not comment because he had not seen the lawsuit. But the city’s leagues are open to boys and girls, he said.

“From my own personal experience, the city programs that we operate are not gender-biased,” Brown said.

According to the lawsuit, the city’s practice of allocating permits has created two very different worlds on the diamond: one for girls who play softball and another for boys who play baseball.

Of the four boys’ leagues that play in the west Valley, three are sponsored by the city and are guaranteed a place to play each year.

The lone private league has an arrangement with the city under which the league plays on a plot of city owned-land for $1 a year, Rosenbaum said.

According to the ACLU, the city does not sponsor any girls leagues in the west Valley. Members of girls league must apply to use facilities each season and play where they are granted permission. As a result, the girls league has led a nomadic existence, moving from one park to another.

Most often, the girls end up playing on shabby fields at high schools and middle schools, Rosenbaum said.

“Fields are not adequately maintained, groomed or marked, nor kept in optimal conditions,” Rosenbaum said.

On these fields, there is no outfield fencing and very little fencing around the backstop. There is no dugout, concession stand or electronic scoreboard. Because there are no bleachers, spectators must bring their own lawn chairs and blankets.

Parents have spent time and money to improve the fields.

“The girls’ parents, supporters and league personnel have carried their own dirt, pulled weeds, installed bases, and done their best to smooth uneven playing surfaces,” said ACLU staff attorney Rocio Cordoba.

For the girls who play on teams with names such as Girl Power, Hard Candy and Totally Dangerettes, the condition of the fields has become an issue of safety. On an uneven field, balls take odd bounces and some girls say that they have been injured.

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“I’m scared the ball is going to take another bounce and hit me,” said 11-year-old Carly Weber, who plays third base for Hard Candy. “It has hit me in the stomach before, and I know what that feels like.”

On a smooth, well-kept field, “I could play more aggressively,” she said.

Even for spectators, poorly kept fields can be dangerous, particularly when there are no bleachers and very little fencing.

“Last time my mom got hit really hard . . . and it wasn’t pleasant,” said Daria Iglow, who plays shortstop for Totally Dangerettes.

League administrators say they have tried for years to secure a permanent place for the girls. Instead, they say, the city offered impossible solutions, such as using the fields between 9 and 11 p.m.

“Their accommodation is, ‘What we’re not using, we’ll give to you,”’ said Daria’s father Robert Iglow, vice president of the league. “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”

Inequities in facilities for girls and boys is a persistent concern of those involved in girls’ sports.

In Florida, a federal judge ruled that the Merrit Island High School’s baseball facility violated a federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools because of the disparity between fields for boys’ baseball and girls’ softball.

In December the school board said it planned to disconnect the baseball scoreboard, close the concession stand and rope off bleachers because it was unable to offer the same amenities at the softball field.

Dean Crowley, commissioner of athletics for the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section, said some still view girls athletics as secondary or optional rather than as an essential part of a sports program.

“The girls athletics are no longer a figment of people’s imagination,” Crowley said. “They are here. They are competitive and they need to be reckoned with by schools.”

Many of the girls plan to play in high school and earn athletic scholarships to college.

Others have dreams of playing in the Olympics, Cordoba said, adding: “There can be no reason to deny these girls such opportunities.”

Times staff writer Eric Sondheimer contributed to this story.