Justine Siegal: Promoting women’s baseball in a league of her own

From Jason Kornwitz at Northeastern.edu on December 21, 2012, on SABR member Justine Siegal:

Jus­tine Siegal, the nation’s first woman to coach a pro­fes­sional base­ball team, does not pos­sess the ath­letic ability of an Olympic gold medalist or the unfet­tered imag­i­na­tion of a hall of fame manager.

“There is nothing spe­cial about me,” said Siegal, who for the last 15 years has been one of the most promi­nent advo­cates for women in base­ball. “I’m only 5-​​foot-​​7, with decent ath­letic ability and average smarts,” she added, “but I have pas­sion and determination.”

Siegal’s human­i­tarian mis­sion is to expand women’s base­ball in every corner of the globe. In the late 90s, she founded the non­profit orga­ni­za­tion Base­ball For All, and today serves as the chair of the Women’s Base­ball Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion at the Inter­na­tional Base­ball Fed­er­a­tion.  

Siegal noted that eight coun­tries cur­rently com­pete in the Women’s Base­ball World Cup, which was held for the first time in 2004. “That didn’t exist when I was growing up,” said Siegal, who devel­oped a sharp curve and 75-​​mile-​​per-​​hour fast­ball while playing ball with the boys in high school. “If a girl wants to play, now she can.” 

His­tory fol­lows this sports pio­neer. In the spring of 2009, for example, Siegal signed a con­tract to coach first base for the Brockton Rox of the inde­pen­dent Cana­dian Amer­ican Asso­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sional Baseball.

Read the full article here: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2012/12/justinesiegal/