At a recent press conference, Hyphenated-Lastname discussed the ways in which baseball reinforces gender stereotypes, advocates colonization of women's bodies, and gouges people for really bad hot dogs.
"In baseball, every man has a chance to have four balls," said Hyphenated-Lastname. "Obviously a macho fantasy."
"Baseball is a patriarchal game," Hyphenated-Lastname said. "In fact, the finest researchers in our organization even found out that there is a baseball team called the New England Patriarchs."
"Baseball contributes to the War Against Women by endorsing a number of derogatory names directed at women: the bats, the bags, the box. The weakest hit in baseball is the bunt, and you know what rhymes with 'bunt.' Coincidence? We think not."
"It is precisely this climate that endorses abuse. But in baseball, when a man fails to hit, it is called a strike. Only men in an extreme state of denial could say that men 'strike out' and still do not hit anything. Some of the people judging these 'strikes' seem to be blind."
"To start the inning, an umpire yells, 'Batter up' which, of course, comes from an old English chant, 'Batter her up.' This derives from the rule of thumb in English common law that said it was acceptable for a man to strike a woman with a stick no larger than his thumb, provided she doesn't roll foul."
"Baseball is a celebration of men exerting their dominance over women's bodies. Baseball is played on a diamond. When men take slaves (wives) they stake out their property with a diamond. The connection is obvious. You don't see it? You're a sexist."
"An "inning" (the opposite of "outing") starts when a muscular man with a big club stands in his place of honor (the batter(er)'s box) and tries to hit the ball. It's a well publicized statistic that nearly 8 out of 10 professional baseball players are abusive to women (World Series Syndrome). Additional research indicates that nearly 7 out of 10 baseball players imagine they are hitting a woman when they swing. The other 3 are pitchers, who either don't hit (AL) or don't hit well (NL)."
"Some backlashers have tried to claim that women batters can be just as violent as men. We disagree. We do know of one case in which a woman softball player literally did 'kill the ump' after a bad call. But psychologists have testified that this woman was a batter. Obviously she suffered from Batter Woman Syndrome."