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Lordandmaster -> RE: Battle of the sexes (6/3/2006 12:01:51 AM)
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When I was a teenager I was reasonably good at baseball and played in an expat league in a foreign country. We had some real athletes on that team, and attracted the interest of a few locals, who challenged us to a game against the local sports college. We trounced them, and were very pleased with ourselves, when we got another invitation: to play the national women's softball team in a fast-pitch game. We said sure, why not. We thought it would be fun to play a bunch of girls, and everyone knows that a big old softball is easy to hit.
Well, their pitcher was 6'2" and must have thrown about 70 miles per hour. (On a softball diamond, that's practically impossible to hit.) We lost 2-0, but it might as well have been 100-0. We would have been lucky to score a single run in three games against that team. Their fielders were like machines.
On the bus ride home, we were all disconsolate. A bunch of American guys losing a game of softball to a team of girls from some foreign country? What a disgrace! It took me a while to realize that losing 2-0 to a national softball team, male or female, is hardly a disgrace. (Just keeping them to two runs was a triumph in itself.) These were athletes who were devoting their lives to softball (even though it wasn't an Olympic sport back then); we were students who liked to play baseball on weekends and stuff.
I don't know what I really learned from that whole experience, except that playing against world-class athletes is an unforgettable experience, and that some women are 6'2" and throw real fucking fast. I don't think I'm less of a man just because I can't hit a 70-mph softball pitch.
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