THE first signs of spring are here. If it’s spring, then
baseball season is nearNew grass on the infields.
Bumper stickers that read: My other car is a chalk cart.
The thump of ball on leather, getting that favorite glove into comfortable shape.
It's baseball season and soon thousands of Little Leaguers statewide will be taking to the base paths. While more and more young girls are choosing America's favorite pastime, most don't stick with baseball past minor league (ages 9-10) and switch over to softball.
This makes sense in that there are few opportunities for females to play baseball, the Silver Bullets notwithstanding. Playing hardball with the guys loses its appeal when there is no future, not with collegiate softball scholarships in the offing.
But from the league that brought you Sid Fernandez and Kenny Harrison comes one 10-year-old who wants to play baseball for at least another year. Gail Matsushima is believed to be the first 10-year-old girl drafted on a major league team (ages 10-12) in the Kailua American Little League.
She probably won't get out of the outfield but, as we celebrate the beginning of National Women and Girls in Sports Week, we celebrate girls like Matsushima. And her parents, Harris and Karen, for encouraging their daughter.
"She's a pretty good athlete," said Harris Matsushima, a KALL product who wrestled and played football and baseball at St. Louis School and was a starting defensive lineman for the University of Hawaii. "I think at this level, the skills are better in baseball and I think she'll get a lot more out of it by staying with the boys.
"She also plays soccer and basketball, and has been able to keep her own with the boys. It will change in a few years, when the boys get stronger and she can't physically compete. But I don't have a problem with it now."
What's nice is nobody else has a problem with it. Her coaches and teammates see a hard-working player who loves the game.
It all started with hanging around older brother Reid, an outstanding athlete in his own right.
"She got a taste for sports and now she can't wait for the season - whichever season it is - to start," said Harris Matsushima.
Neither can I. Like many women my age, the chance to play baseball - even softball - was not there during our adolescence.
Maybe there's some wistful, vicarious living going on here, but it's nice to see young girls getting these chances. And for their parents saying yes.
SPEAKING of gender equity, just why are the rules in collegiate men's and women's basketball so different? It's become worse than volleyball, with its rally scoring Game 5 and the 17-point cap in the men's game.
The shot clock has been great for the game, which was dying of boredom when the four-corner stall was allowed to put the crowd to sleep for an entire quarter. But why give the men 35 seconds and the women' 30, especially when the NBA uses a 24-second clock?
It makes about as much sense as different size basketballs.
And what gives with the women being in the one-and-one bonus after seven fouls but the men going to two-shots-always after 10?
Is this the hoops version of separate-but-equal. Might as well make the women starting playing six-on-six again.
"I'd like to see everyone go to a 30-second clock with no need for a backcourt violation (after 10 seconds)," said Hawaii Wahine coach Vince Goo. "Then you don't have the referee counting to 10. It eliminates one chore for the officials.
"And I don't like the 10-foul bonus. I think that after seven fouls, you should earn every free throw. If you make the first one, then you get the second. It shouldn't be automatic, getting that second."
Goo, coach of the best team hardly anyone comes to see, makes a lot of sense. But until they do change to make it one sport, one rule book, come see what makes the women's game - and Goo's Wahine - special.
Cindy Luis is a Star-Bulletin sportswriter.
Her column appears weekly.