Girls’ League Sues to Level Playing Field in West Hills

The fields of their dreams 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 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 of 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.”

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 suit. But the city’s leagues are open to both boys and girls, he 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 the 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, no concession stand and no 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.

At the news conference, ACLU attorney Rocio Cordova displayed enlarged photographs of Canoga Park High School, where the girls play, and of the Westhills PONY baseball league field where boys play.

Westhills’ pristine fields on Valley Circle Boulevard near Vanowen Street are manicured and the grass is a deep emerald green. The boys wear crisp, colorful uniforms, down to the turtlenecks monogrammed with their team names. Some of their parents sit on fold-out cushion chairs in the bleachers.

Though a similar facility would be paradise for the girls’ West Valley Softball League, softball players said, Westhills officials said the paradise wasn’t handed to them. The electronic scoreboards, the concession stand and the neatly trimmed grass represent 30 years of work by volunteers, said Jeff Kaplan, the league president.

Though the city owns the land, it is leased to the league, a private organization, and no city money is spent on the program, Kaplan said. All maintenance is paid for through team registration, concessions and annual fund-raisers.

“It would be great,” if the girls had a similar facility in the West Valley, Kaplan said. But, she added, “we don’t want to give up our own fields.”

The boy players there Thursday said they would like to see girls their age have a similar facility.

“I think they should be able to play and they should have the same opportunity as us,” said Aaron Levin, 12. “Nobody should like a certain sport but not have a facility. They should have a good field to play on.”

Aaron suggested allowing the girls to play on the adjacent Adam Bischoff Memorial Soccer Fields in the spring because soccer teams use the fields only in the fall.

“When soccer season is over, the fields over there are empty,” he said.

Sports leagues in general are running out of room, Kaplan said. Soccer wants more land and the Westhills league would also like to expand, but there are not enough parks.

For the girls who play on softball teams with names like 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.

“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, like 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.

One reason for the inequities in boys’ and girls’ athletic facilities is that those designing Valley high schools back in the 1960s never imagined large numbers of girls would participate in sports.

“Facilities were not built for girls,” said Carolyn Gunny, who has been coaching high school sports since 1971. “They didn’t think girls could be competitive. Gyms were built just for boys. Girls played in small gyms.”

Since the federal law known as Title IX was passed in 1972, schools have been forced to create equal opportunities for girls. But the battle for improved facilities continues.

Taft High in Woodland Hills has no softball diamond on campus. No space. Canoga Park High’s softball diamond was upgraded with the help of funds and labor provided by supporters of West Valley Girls Softball League.

“I think at some point you have to recognize that girls can get a scholarship in softball just like a young man in baseball,” said Gunny, the softball coach at Granada Hills High. “But girls lack good facilities.”

The girls of El Camino Real High have won 11 City Section 4-A softball titles, but they play on a field with no fence, no electronic scoreboard and no public address system. In contrast, the boys of El Camino Real’s three-time city champion baseball team have a huge scoreboard, a quality P.A. system and new outfield grass.

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 writers Claire Vitucci and Eric Sondheimer contributed to this story.