7. Women's softball dearly needs more colorful and interesting stars who are non-conformist and non-conventional.
In my view, WAY too many softball players—and especially coaches—are what I call Lou Gehrig and Tom Landry types: conservative, conventional, conforming, and ultimately boring. That hurts the game's appeal.
The sport needs more Babe Ruth / Manny Ramirez / Dennis Rodman types, people who revel in looking and acting different from the norm but still excel on the field.
More teams like the Oakland Raiders of the 1970s and 80s, who were fairly wild but won three Super Bowls, are needed, the kind of teams that looked and acted however they pleased and yet still achieved great things.
As a famous college football coach once said, "I'd rather coach guys that expressed themselves than a bunch of clones." And he won three national championships.
8. The sport needs more of an emphasis on history. MUCH more.
If you ask an avid softball fan who never misses a game who the all-time home run or strikeout leader is, or what's Jennie Finch's career strikeout total, or Lisa Fernandez's lifetime batting average, they wouldn't know or care.
Casual baseball fans, however, know about Babe Ruth's 714 home runs and Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. They know that Ted Williams was the last man to hit .400, and that 1947 was the year of Jackie Robinson.
That is a significant part of baseball's charm, and the fact that softball has none of that hurts its appeal.
9. Another huge factor of the charm and popularity of baseball are the men in the announcing booths who describe the action, from Mel Allen and Red Barber in the 1950s, to Harry Caray's 7th inning stretches at Wrigley Field, to the greatest announcer in the history of sports, the Dodgers' Vin Scully.
Where are softball's announcers that even approach the appeal of the great men? Who describe home runs like the Chicago White Sox announcers do on WGN: "You can put it on the board, yes!"
Like it's lack of historical emphasis, this hurts softball.
10. The sport needs a Major League Softball on the level of the successful WNBA, that is sponsored, owned and run by Major League Baseball—similar to how the WNBA was sponsored by their NBA counterparts during their fledgling years.
There could be 12 teams to start, with six teams in a western and eastern division, located in major league cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. 10,000-seat capacity parks could be built that are models of their baseball counterparts.
If promoted properly, it could work. And work well.
Yes, I know there's a women's professional league, the WPSL, but in my view, it isn't working. The teams are located only in the midwest and the east coast, and there's no real promotion outside of a handful of games on ESPN. Plus, the fields they play on are not quite at the level that they should be.
A Major League Softball modeled after the WNBA would stand a much better chance than what currently exists.
I understand that these suggestions may be met with disdain among softball aficionados and purists out there, who revel in the differences that their game has from baseball. But...
If softball is to approach baseball's appeal and popularity to the average sports fan, like I think it should, then the powers that be who run the sport should strongly consider what I have said here.
After all, it would only help the game and draw new fans, which I feel that women's fast-pitch softball deserves.
0 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete