No Man Will Listen to a Woman on a Baseball Field - The Story of Justine Siegal

In the 1990s there was a team called the Colorado Silver Bullets, they were sponsored by a beer company and played against amateur all-star teams and semi-pro teams. At first they did not enjoy much success, but after a few years they were able to put together a winning record before losing their sponsorship and folding. The team was successful in that it brought attention to the fact that women could play baseball and compete with men, but it was a failure because it was simply not profitable enough to continue beyond a couple of years. No players were given any real opportunities to play with men, though a couple players got publicity stunt style appearances at the Minor League level. 

Because of these struggles, a young girl named Justine Siegal set a goal for herself: To play baseball. As a T-Ball player, Justine was one of four girls on her team, but soon after that it was just her and another girl playing baseball. By the time she was 12, she was the only girl left in her peer group still playing baseball. This was not a unique situation for Justine however, she was also the only girl on her soccer team. Justine just loved to play sports and never saw herself as any different from her fellow athletes. By age 13, things began to shift for her. That was the age a coach first told her that he did not want her on the team and that she belonged on a softball field. Instead of giving up, Justine used this exclusion as motivation to excel. 

"My high school wouldn't let me try out until I played against them" Justine said proudly. Her competitive spirit apparent in every answer, Justine simply does not believe in the idea that someone cannot do something simply because society says they can't. Justine began to face more and more barriers as she got older, and she began to realize that playing professional (Men's) baseball was probably not in the cards but she still believed she had what it took to become a professional coach. It was at age 16, after repeatedly being denied opportunities to play summer ball, that Justine got the idea of becoming a college coach. 

"No man will listen to a woman on a baseball field" was what one coach told her when she informed him of her goal to coach college baseball. This did not deter her, it simply gave her more energy to charge forward. "I was shy, but I was determined. It didn't make sense to me that he could say that all men wouldn't listen, so I decided to find my own path." So Justine did what only an extremely determined person could possibly do, she designed her own college major and then got a PHD. It was when she was at Springfield College getting her PHD when Justine became a college coach, but it was actually at a rival school first before she convinced the coach at Springfield to hire her. 

FOR MORE OF JUSTINE SIEGAL'S STORY, LOOK FOR THE SECTION IN MY UPCOMING BOOK: "YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE: STORIES OF DISCRIMNATION AND EXCLUSIONARY PRACTICES IN BASEBALL"