One of the Only Female GMs in Baseball
From SABR member Jane Leavy at Grantland.com on September 13, 2011:
Everyone knows the world would be a better place if women ran the show. But what if women ran The Show?
That tantalizing prospect presented itself to me one beatific night at the close of the 127th season of the woman-centric Cape Cod Baseball League. It was an achingly beautiful evening at Eldredge Park, an emerald bowl nestled in a hollow an echo away from the vacation bustle of Orleans, Mass. The air was so clear the shadows on the outfield grass were as sharp as the crease on a soldier’s dress pants.
This is where baseball cognoscenti come to see the future of the game played against the scrim of the past; where the best seats in the house are beach chairs and blankets splayed on the grass behind first base; where the price of admission is the cost of a raffle ticket. This is where fireflies vie for attention with cartwheeling 5-year-olds and ballpark franks are cooked on charcoal grills hauled to the park by volunteers; where players swing exclusively wooden bats, some made 23½ miles down the road by the Barnstable Bat Company; where major league scouts cluster behind home plate hoping to spot the next Thurman Munson or Nomar Garciaparra; and where women, from league president Judy Walden Scarafile down to Mrs. Firebird, wife of the team mascot, have a loud voice in how the game is played in the most prestigious college summer league in the country.
I found Sue Horton, general manager of the 2011 Eastern Division champion Orleans Firebirds, sitting on a warped wooden bench to the right of home plate, one of the few actual seats in the park. Players call her Miss Sue.
Read the full article here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6963675/one-only-female-gms-baseball
Originally published: September 14, 2011. Last Updated: September 14, 2011.