Chicago Cubs: Will women ever take the field in MLB?

Chicago Cubs: Removed all liability with the rules

That’s why MLB has been taking baby-steps toward the subject and legally removed all liability of themselves by adding a note to the official rules and hiring female baseball coordinators on staff.  As John Keilman of the Chicago Tribune reported: through MLB, there are events to try and get more women into baseball, more colleges with women teams and more scholarships for women who can play the game.

“Right now the focus for us is just trying to develop a pipeline, develop these athletes and go from there,” said Sarah Padove, MLB’s senior coordinator of baseball and softball development. “We’re really focusing on this age group, seeing what happens, but we know we’ve got the talent. The focus is to get more of these female athletes playing college baseball if that’s what they want to do.”

Maybe that’s what they want to do, but only if they are going to get the chance to take a crack at the Show. That’s what’s missing out of all this ‘For Love of the Game’ concern for women in baseball: a professional contract at the end of the road. But alas, there’s nothing on the table and MLB says that it’s not their fault.

Really?

Can MLB make teams sign women? Absolutely! MLB has the power through incentives to help facilitate some signings. They could also fine teams that don’t consider women. In 2015, Melissa Mayeux of France was the first woman to be added onto MLB’s international registration list, which allowed her to be signed by an MLB team.

Still, no woman has made it to the Show.  MLB has not done anything to encourage clubs to make that next step for women and have not created any professional league for women, so some have turned to coach in MLB to get closer to the field.

Chicago Cubs: Girls want to play… or coach the Cubs

Girls don’t want to be just fans making googly eyes for Chicago Cubs third baseman, Kris Bryant or first baseman Anthony Rizzo; they want to be more than fans, they want to be teammates.

They have the same love and passion for the game as boys, and so it’s not unusual to see girls from second grade through eighth grade playing Little League baseball explained Keilman.

“What happened is that schools were trying to be in compliance, so they came up with equivalency sports: baseball for boys, softball for girls,” she said. “Effectively, what that did is shut out girls from playing baseball.” Little League, where many baseball players get their start, first allowed girls to play in 1974 following a court fight.

With that rule change in 1974, young Rachel Folden growing up in Southern California, with love for America’s pastime, got to take the field and play. She played in the local Little League and was easily recognized as a future star athlete.

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Like many girls that grow up with baseball, once she got into eighth grade, she had to decide whether to give up her passion or follow a sport that might provide her a career like softball. It’s a hard choice to make, especially if you’re a talented player like Folden, but it’s a choice young girls are making every day, especially with no MLB Women’s League and little support past college.

Folden made the switch and went onto a professional softball career playing five seasons in the National Pro Fastpitch league but always kept one foot in the coaching arena intending to do it full time after she retired.

In 2010, Folden decided to put her training to professional use and opened up her own business in Merrillville, Indiana, called Folden Fastpitch. At her new school, Folden began training the young northern Indiana girls’ softball players in hitting techniques. Although she coached several different things from the offense, defense, catching and throwing, hitting was Folden’s passion and the results were obvious.

The Chicago Cubs had hired Justin Stone, the president of Elite Baseball Training, to help provide instruction for the Cubs, but in 2017 Stone had partnered with Folden and knew she was one of the best. Folden Fastpitch brought her softball expertise to Elite Baseball Training but made sure that Stone promised to let her coach baseball hitting as well.

The Cubs made Stone the Director of Hitting recently, and as the story goes, when one moves up – everyone moves up; Folden got her chance to interview for a hitting coach job with the Cubs and became the team’s first woman coach.

While the Cubs have made an enormous step forward, will MLB make a step toward incentives like draft picks for clubs that hire women to play baseball? Or will MLB take a page from its own history and bring together several all-women’s clubs to create an MLB Women’s League?

For America’s favorite game – it’s way’ past time’.