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[Editors Note: After Erin Durant published the post entitled "IOC Names Short List of New Sports For 2020: Baseball and Softball Listed" she was contacted by Amy McCann, a member of the Australian National Baseball team since 2002. Amy was particularly upset about one comment made by Erin in her blog post. Erin stated "But with only one spot available the international federations for baseball and softball are going to have to work together." This post demonstrates the International Baseball Federation (IBF) have turned their back on women baseball players in their efforts to get the men's game back into the Olympics.

By Guest Blogger Amy McCann
I love this week.

All Star Week in Major League Baseball where the best of the best of US men’s baseball slug it out in a home run derby followed by the AL v NL.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw baseball. I was 12 and living on Sydney’s northern beaches and whilst most of my school mates were at the beach, I was usually found out on the street or in the park, hitting any kind of sports ball I could find with any type of bat – cricket, baseball, tennis, fence paling – it really didn’t matter.

I had tried my hand at cricket, tee ball and softball in primary school, but none of them really caught my interest. But then one day, my dad was reading the TV guide and noted that the Major League Baseball game of the week was on at 1 am on Channel 9 and asked if I wanted it recorded. (On VHS that is!)

That game was the 1991 national league series games between the Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates. And I was hooked. Not only did it trigger my (some might day unhealthy) obsession for the Braves, but my passion for the game of baseball.

That very day, I asked my dad to look for a baseball club at which I could play. So he looked in every local newspaper and started calling clubs all around the area.

And there were plenty of baseball clubs back in the early 1990s in Australia as they were still feeling the benefits of the 80s tee ball boom and the Australian Baseball League had just begun.

But for me, that’s where the hard part started. Instead of walking into my local club, paying my fees, getting my uniform and getting out onto the field, I was continually knocked back by every club I tried to join.

That was 1991 and now, I can understand their issues. I was a skinny 12 year old for which they had no program. They had no girls playing at their clubs, nor any women in their leagues, and they were concerned for me playing with boys, and as I ended up doing – against grown men.

But, I was lucky to finally be accepted by a club and although was 45 minutes drive from my house, I didn’t care. I got to play baseball. (Special thanks to the Kissing Point Angels Baseball Club in Turramurra for giving me my start!)

My how times have changed. Move forward to 2011, I am now living in Melbourne and playing in the world’s largest women’s league and since 2002, I have been an integral part of the Australian women’s team and have competed at all four IBAF women’s world cups since 2004, winning a silver medal in 2010.

I am 32, still loving baseball, still learning the wonderful game, although my body seems to hurt a little more than it did twenty years ago.

But as my playing career begins to wind down, I can’t help be concerned that the brick walls I had to scale as a twelve-year-old getting into this sport could become even higher even now in 2011.

And this time it is not a case of clubs turning down juniors girls (although this still happens on a regular basis) it is disappointing that it is the international ruling body of our sport, the IBAF, who seem to be adding height to this wall.

For the third time in a many years, the IBAF have announced that they will be looking to partner the ISF in a joint bid to get men’s baseball and women’s softball into the Olympics.

I was gutted as the next person when, in 2005, the IOC announced that men’s baseball and women’s softball were kicked out of the Olympics.

Although it meant I never had to explain to people I met why women’s baseball wasn’t in the Olympics and softball was, I knew that the very outside glimmering hope that women’s baseball ever had of making it in, had been snuffed out.

But what’s been even more gut-wrenching over the past six years, has been the efforts by the IBAF to effectively ignore half of their own product.

It began in 2009 when the ISF rejected the IBAF’s request for a joint bid for inclusion in the 2016 Games.

Ironically just after they were turned down by the ISF, the IBAF suddenly announced they were ‘100% committed to women’s baseball in the Olympics’ and formed a ‘Women’s Baseball Committee’ aimed at a ‘global plan for women’s baseball and its inclusion in our bid for the 2016 games’. However, just few months after this announcement, the IOC announced that neither baseball nor softball in any form would be included in the Olympic program for 2016.

Now, there is conspiracy theory that the European IOC members were confused as to which sport for which they were voting, and believing softball WAS the women’s equivalent of baseball, they voted no to softball.

But if you look at it the other way, you may think that the IBAF felt that women’s baseball actually lost them the vote.

If that’s not their line of thinking, explain then why in 2010, less than a year after their ‘global plan for women’s baseball’, they proposed yet another joint bid to the ISF (which was rejected by the ISF) and in 2011 are entertaining the thought for a third time?

Add this to the fact that over two years after their ‘global plan’ announcement the resources and development initiatives that were mention are still yet to be seen?

Why this desperation for a joint bid by the IBAF? Do they not believe in their own product, or do they now think they can use the ISF to get the MEN's game into the Olympics (by ignoring the women)?

Yes, I understand their main argument of a joint bid is based on both sports sharing a venue, and there is much merit in this argument when you look purely at the financial concerns faced by a host city to build baseball and softball venues.

But call me stupid, I would have thought from the IBAF’s perspective that it’s even cheaper to not even build a softball venue?

Last week, IBAF President Fraccari was quoted as saying ‘We must convince IOC that baseball is not only a sport fit for people of all countries, all ages and all genders, it is also a commodity which can generate revenues,” adding, “It is our obligation to consider the best interests of our sport.”

So the best way to convince the IOC that baseball is a sport fit for all genders is to promote women’s softball? Huh? How Fraccari is this in the ‘best interests of our sport’?

The inclusion of women’s softball in the 1996 Olympic Games was not so much detrimental to the development of women’s baseball as internationally, we did not exist. However, in 2010 the fourth edition of the IBAF Women’s World Cup was without a doubt, the most successful ever. Held in Venezuela, it boasted a record 12 teams who battled for the honour of being crowned world champions (just 4 teams less than the ISF championships held there a month earlier mind you) with games held in front of record crowds of 20,000 plus. Also, a team from Europe competed for the very first time.

So given this, can someone please explain to me again why the IBAF has again decided to partner softball?

Now I want to make it clear that I have nothing against the sport of softball, nor its athletes. Nor am I saying women's and men's softball shouldn't be in the Olympics. I honestly believe the two sports have such differing qualities; it makes both sports, and the athletes within them, unique and equally amazing.

But I play baseball. Women’s baseball.

And my main concern is not about the actual inclusion of the two sports in Olympics, but the message that the IBAF sends by continually seeking a joint bid with softball.
Even if the joint bid isn’t successful, the writing is on the wall given flip-flopping by the IBAF.

It is effectively an IBAF driven advertising campaign marketing softball as the female equivalent of baseball. How does it in any way promote opportunities and pathways available in baseball for females?

I am 32 now and am not sure how many more world cups I have left in me and even contesting women’s baseball in the 2020 Olympics would be a long shot at age 41.

Now, it’s not about me.

It is about the dozens of 10-11 year olds I coach who ask me whether they will be able to play baseball for Australia when they are my age.

I find it hard to answer their questions as I am not sure myself what opportunities or elite pathways in women’s baseball will even exist when they are my age.

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