Gals and Balls

As avid readers may or may not have noticed, I'm skirting the issues of Michael Vick and Tim Donaghy. Why, you might ask? Because you can get qualified opinions from every single person ever. (Note: all of those links not only go to different articles, but different sources as well. Such a feat better earn me some trackback hits.)

Instead, I will use this post to delve into a much more pressing issue in the world of sports, that being the lack of female fandom.



While it is a nice to see attractive women in probably specially tailored jerseys, how many girls do you know that genuinely care about what happens in sports? At risk of sounding sexist, a female voice, if nothing else, just provides a different perspective, which is always welcome.

That isn't to say there are not already women who care about sports. I was inspired to do this post while reading Babes Love Baseball and thinking that the world could use more writers like them. It may have been because of their gender or style or some other factor, but I just really like their blog. For one thing, they remind me of my friend, Rachael (female, as you may have guessed), who is one of my favorite people to discuss baseball with just because of the extent to which she bleeds Dodger blue (I am pretty much unaffiliated, though I guess you could call me a Red Sox fan).



While writing this post, I realized that there are, in fact, many super fans in that mold (Alyssa Milano, Ashley Judd). I think, at risk of sounding sexist again, that when I think about the female sports fans I know about, I see a satisfying combination of knowledge and passion, which is always very refreshing. So, to revise my earlier statement, I don't actually really care if there is a larger female constituent in the fandom, but rather that I think the existing minority already there exemplifies what being a fan is all about and that there should be more people in general like them.

And thus concludes hopefully the most sexist post I will ever write.