All second baseman Paige Sultzbach wanted to do was play in her school’s state championship baseball game tonight.
But because she is a girl, that won’t happen.
Sultzbach is a freshman at Mesa Preparatory Academy, which had been scheduled to play Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in tonight’s Arizona Charter Athletic Association state championship at Phoenix College.
But Our Lady of Sorrows, a fundamentalist Catholic school in Phoenix that lost twice to Mesa Prep during the regular season, chose to forfeit the championship game rather than play a team fielding a female player.
Our Lady of Sorrows school officials would not comment, but Sultzbach’s mother, Pamela Sultzbach, said her daughter and the rest of the team received the news after Wednesday afternoon’s practice.
“This is not a contact sport, it shouldn’t be an issue,” Pamela said. “It wasn’t that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it’s that (they believe) that a girl’s place is not on a field.”
Paige played softball and volleyball in junior high, but because Mesa Prep does not have a girls softball team, she decided to try out for the boys baseball team, with the coach’s encouragement.
From early on, Paige tried to blend in, her mother said. When the coach referred to the kids as “guys and gals,” Paige spoke up and said that they all wear the same uniform, so the coach should just call them all guys.
Her teammates have stood up for her.
During Mesa Prep’s two previous games with Our Lady of Sorrows, Paige didn’t play out of respect for the opposing team’s beliefs, but that wasn’t going to be an option this time, Pamela said.
“We respected their school rule … but she took it hard,” Pamela said. “She didn’t like it and neither did her teammates. They went out and played the best they could because they wanted to prove a point.”
Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X, a group of conservative, traditionalist priests who disagree with the reforms of the Vatican II Council in the 1960s and broke with the Catholic Church in the 1980s.
More stupid right-wing Catholic shit
Recognizing gender equality means that there might be a female Pope someday. Or a female Cardinal, or a Bishop, or a priest even. If that were to happen the ‘Roman’ Catholic Church would revert back to its Gnostic roots. In which case the hierarchy would be desolved and all the Church’s wealth and power would be distributed downward. You really don’t think that a bunch of very old, tight-assed men are going to let that happen without a fight do you? “Play ball.”
Next year every team in this league will present against Our Lady of Bigotry with a female player and they will go 0 for the season.
Can’t really call them tight asses, Im, they were fucked in the ass as children.
It’s worth pointing out that the people who run the school in question aren’t capital C “Catholics”.
They are a breakaway hardline conservative sect called the Society of Saint Pius X. There are lots of things wrong with the Roman Catholic Church but this one isn’t on them.