Women?s baseball is not softball. It?s baseball.
That?s the point St. Augustine native Stacy Piagno has been making ever since her days pitching at Menendez High School. She?s now currently a part of the US women?s national team competing in Canada for the IBAF Women?s Baseball World Cup.
?It?s been amazing being with all the girls,? Piagno said. ?Some of them are still in high school and a few are in their 30s, but we all really enjoy playing with each other and it?s gone well so far.?
Having finished pool play yesterday with a 5-1 loss against Venezuela, the US National team plays in the World Cup semifinals tonight with a chance at gold in Sunday?s championship game. Piagno has pitched well in the tournament, using her 80-mph fastball to stifle batters, including a one-hit performance against Cuba over her four innings.
Now at the University of Tampa after starting her softball career at Flagler College, Piagno hasn?t stopped playing baseball despite having to make the transition. Though she grew up and currently fills her role dutifully as a pitcher, Piagno mainly plays the middle infield for Tampa.
And why the position change?
?They?re just two completely different sports,? Piagno said. ?Baseball is my favorite, but I?ve grown to love softball as well. It?s just that I grew up loving the game of baseball and that?s almost impossible to change.?
Piagno failed at her first attempt to make the 2008 squad and decided not to try out in 2010 in order to focus on making the transition to softball, but this past year she successfully made the roster.
?Only 20 girls made the team,? Piagno said. ?I was pretty sure I?d made it after the tryout, but there was still that second-guessing going on until it became official.?
Rick, Stacy?s father, had no such trepidations.
?It didn?t become official until (July) but we pretty much knew she had made it after the tryouts earlier last year,? Rick said. ?It was only her and one other girl that were told to go to Salt Lake City right from the tryouts, and at that point I at least could connect the dots.?
Piagno has been a known commodity as a baseball oddity since she was 14. She first garnered attention by being the only girl in eight different northeast Florida counties playing baseball with the Bullets Police Athletic League team. Her senior year at Menendez was her best, leading the entire pitching staff in innings pitched through February.
She?s not half bad in softball, either. At Tampa this past season, Piagno hit .271 with two home runs and 18 RBIs in 45 games played.
As to why women aren?t more involved in the nation?s pastime is anyone?s guess. Gender lines routinely became pass? ever since the implementation of Title IX 40 years ago, but for whatever reason, the sport most closely identified with American culture has yet to experience the widespread participation sports like basketball and volleyball enjoy.
?Nobody tries to turn volleyball players into badminton players,? said Mary Jo Stegeman, one of the founders of the Chicago Pioneers, an all-women?s baseball league. ?It?s general pigheadedness or ignorance of the differences between the two games. Girls are boxing, playing football, weightlifting in the Olympics, so why wouldn?t they play baseball? They want to play, they?re just not offered it.?
Stegeman admits to standing on a soapbox when the topic of women?s baseball is approached. The mother of a baseball playing daughter herself, she saw firsthand the backwardness and hostility female baseball players received. So with the help of a few people, the Chicago Pioneers were created as an all-girl?s baseball league for women to play the sport amongst their peers, and Stacy has fit in well in that arena as well.
?It mostly comes from two things: One, the majority of people honestly believe softball is baseball for girls, which just isn?t true,? Stegeman said. ?They?re totally different sports, different governing bodies and everything. And also I don?t think the female population has stood up for themselves in the sense of playing baseball. Because of the combo of that and the general misconception of the two sports cripples women?s chances to enter the world of baseball.?
At this point in Piagno?s career, playing baseball is about enjoying herself. There?s no paycheck, no ulterior motive other than doing what she wants at the highest level possible, and making everyone else see there?s nothing that strange about a girl playing baseball.
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