This is actually a woman’s college softball article, but I decided to share it here anyway. Frankly, these women could very easily be playing baseball (albeit on women’s teams) - they’ve got the skills.
I spent Saturday afternoon and evening watching the NCAA Super Regional Softball Games…winners will go to the NCAA World Series in Oklahoma City next weekend.
I love softball..I used to play it as a teen and on a company softball team as well… but I only watch it on TV when it’s the weeks leading up to the College World Series, as it gets little TV coverage. But each time I watch it, it generates my enthusiasm anew…and if only there were places around here for oldsters to play…
The only beef I have with women’s fastpitch softball is the uniform. They have no names on the back…and I’ve never understood why.
Sure, the players are introduced at the start of the game, and the announcers call their names when they are at bat or when they make a play… but it would be so much easier to keep track of them, and remember them in future, if their names were on their jerseys!
It’s not just women’s softball that does this. Several college women’s basketball teams have removed named from jerseys as well, for example the Tennessee Lady Vols haven’t had their names on the backs of their jerseys for at least three years now, “because it’s a team game,” apparently.
But in women’s sports, where the women are competing against already established men’s teams, they need all the name recognition they can get!
Put names back on the jerseys!
I would thank them, fans would thank them, and I know announcers who get player’s names mixed up in the heat of the moment would thank them!