Alexander Cartwright: Keep Out The Dugout

Keep Out The Dugout November 24TH, 1887, football fans used boxing gloves and broomsticks to play the very first, official, game of softball. Just a little over four decades earlier, Alexander Cartwright, the “father of baseball” formalized the rules, or codes, of “townball”. What is townball? Who exactly is Alexander Cartwright? What does this have to do with softball? All valid questions you may or, may not have right now. Townball or base are both older colloquial terms used to describe, what would become American baseball. Many news sources such as the Westchester Journal and multiple St. Louis City Directories have evidence of the use of such terms. Alexander Cartwright is the man who, in 1846, wrote the first and most basic formalized …show more content…
It has everything to do with the development and establishment of professional American fast-pitch softball. Fast-Pitch softball although very similar to slow-pitch softball, is not the same. They are both variations of the sport but have major differences. The biggest being that fast-pitch is female only, and slow-pitch is open to all regardless of gender or funding source. The Title IX amendment is a big part of why this has come to be. Softball, like baseball, has had its own unique experiences regarding Title IX and gender separation in young adult sports programs in the United States. While Title IX has allowed for more opportunities for young women to play softball in adequate facilities, with sports trainers and professional coaches, it has greatly limited their ability to play baseball, past the high school level. Baseball is technically branded as a contact sport under Title IX meaning that it is exempt from having to provide gender equality in its program once they are no longer federally funded (National Coalition for Women and Girls in education). The Title IX amendment created an issue for an initially non gender-designated sport when it was passed in 1972. Males, females, were allowed to participate in slow-pitch softball, however fast-pitch became women only. This is a characteristic that is true amongst most elementary to middle school athletic programs. However once …show more content…
Baseball in its early years had a very peculiar dynamic. There were All-American leagues, recreational leagues, women leagues and Negro leagues. The lack in the development of nationwide softball leagues allowed for women to play in their own leagues an=s well as in the Negro leagues. Many professional female Baseball players become well known during this time. There were women like Joanne “Jo” Ogden, Annie O’Dowd, and Marilyn “Corky” Olinger. They all become famous at different times. Ogden was well known between 1953-83, her fame started right before the Women and Negro leagues began to disband. While O’Dowd’s and Olinger’s fame was right in the heat of the leagues’ popularity between 1949-51 and 1948-53 respectively (Heaphy). Then there was Trista Russo much later between 1998-2003 she played for the USA baseball team and also went on to the women’s world series (Heaphy). The thing that links these women together is the timing of their professional baseball careers either before or after the passage of Title IX. O 'Dowd had no experience prior to finishing high school but she was able to easily join the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League or the AAGPBL, an organization that no longer existed after 1954. While Russo had been playing since she was 6, she