Let's Row Together

Honoring the Sports Bra's essentialness, before we go to action at women's March Madness and women's presence in baseball at Opening Day. Then, Carly Simon sings Katie Casey to her ball game!

The bra.

I wear it when I’m going out. At home, I don’t.

When I row, I do. Then, it’s a sports bra.

My goal: zero movement. The women know what I mean.

The sports bra and I share an anniversary, of sorts, revolving around what made it possible for women to participate more fully in sports.

My contribution occurred in a federal courtroom. The sports bra emerged in Vermont when three women cleverly snipped a pouch from two jockstraps, flipped them to sewed onto straps, and voila, they had their Jockbra:

“Same idea. Different part of the anatomy, right?” Lisa Lindahl, one of its three inventors, told NPR.

Now let’s recall how things were for women in sports in 1977 when the sports bra was invented and I was fighting Major League Baseball.

From the Epilogue of Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside. [Use code RUSA30 to order my book at 30% off and free shipping.]

“The same year that Ludtke v. Kuhn burst into the news, a less heralded and remarkable transformative change happened in women’s sports. Three women did something to stop their breasts from bouncing when they ran. Pain had made it impossible for them to run as fast as they could or go the distance they wanted, so they cut pouches out of jockstraps, sewed them together, and then affixed a thick elastic band along the bottom of the pouches to hold their breasts firmly in place from below. At first, they called it a Jockbra, which was a fitting name since everything about sports revolved around men but then changed its name to Jogbra.

“Sports were conflated with masculinity as women’s sporting feats were filtered through the male gaze. To persuade women to exercise, sports were marketed as “a desirable path to beauty, grace, and sex appeal,” as Danielle Friedman observed in her book, Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World. The men in charge of women’s sports told the “ladies” to look beautiful and act feminine. So, team members in the mid-20^th century’s All-American Women’s Baseball League slid into bases wearing short skirts – ouch! Off the field, they attended requisite make-up and etiquette classes. Friedman concluded that “when women started exercising en masse, they were participating in something subversive: the cultivation of physical strength and autonomy, which scared men. So, when women showed up to compete in sports, the tighter their outfits are and the more of their bodies are revealed, the more men show up to watch them play.”

TODAY’s NEWS: my Q & A with Pete Croatto, published on Poynter.50: “Q&A: Melissa Ludtke reflects on her path from cultural footnote to journalism icon.”

Women in Sports: 2025. (Starting off with a few men.)

Russell vs. Chamberlain

Magic vs. Bird

Ewing vs. Olajuwon

Jordan vs. Barkley

Legendary match-ups carried the NBA to greater heights of fandom. Absent storied rivalries, memories aren’t etched for the stories we hand down. Epic rivalries are yet to be made, and now in the women’s game, too.

Clark vs. Reese met in the 2024 NCAA as their clash of personalities and style of play propelled women’s basketball to record levels of popularity.

Reese pointed to her ring finger near the end of the Iowa-LSU 2023 NCAA Final Four game that LSU won. In the Elite Eight of 2024 tournament, Iowa prevailed.

Will a memory-making match-up emerge in the 2025 NCAA Tournament to lift the women’s game anew?

Until Monday night JuJu vs. Paige was on track as this 2025 marquee rivalry — with USC’s durable, powerful, energetic guard JuJu Watkins to play against the oft-injured, now healthy, Paige Bueckers. But in a blow-out early-round game, Juju went down.

“JuJu Watkins screamed.

“She held her right knee with both hands, squeezed her eyes shut, and screamed.

“A school and a town and a sport scream with her.

“In the history of basketball in Los Angeles, it will be forever known as the night everything changed.

“On a court where she flies, USC’s JuJu Watkins collapsed. In a sport where her contortions are magic, she lay curled up in a ball. At a school where she leads thousands, she found herself very much alone, mouth open, chest heaving, crying and screaming again and again.

“On the saddest of Mondays, the best women’s college basketball player in America suffered a season-ending knee injury that could alter a career, a program, a life.” Columnist Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times

There will be no Elite Eight clash of USC and UConn, teams that drew a season-high 3.8M viewers in their regular season game.

Still in the first two rounds, viewership of the NCAA women’s games averaged 602,000 viewers, the second-highest audience through this point since 2009. Regular season ratings on ESPN and ABC were up 3% from 2024.

ACL INJURIES and FEMALE ATHLETES

In 2022, UConn’sPaige Bueckers tore her ACL; in 2025 JuJu Watkins tore hers.

Female athletes are two to eight times more likely to tear their ACLs than male athletes.

“It's definitely a higher injury rate [for women], and a lot of that can be attributed to differences in anatomy and training. As women grow up, anatomical differences include different quad-to-hamstring ratios — women tend to be more quad-dominant. Alignment differences versus men, as well as foot pronation, also play a role. But there are other factors, too. As women grow up, there's historically been less emphasis on core strengthening, proprioception, and agility work. That's improving over time.” Dr. Christina Allen, chief of Yale Sports Medicine andACL surgery specialist.

Play Ball! Now We’re Talking Baseball and Women

“Women have been playing baseball in the U.S. since at least the 1860s. At women’s colleges such as Smith and Vassar, students organized baseball teams as early as 1866. The first professional women’s baseball team was known as the Dolly Vardens, a team of Black players formed in Philadelphia in 1867. Barnstorming teams, known as Bloomer Girls, traveled across the country to play against men’s teams from the 1890s to the 1930s, providing the players with independence and the means to make a living.' The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, founded by Philip K. Wrigley in 1943, also offered [white] women the chance to play professionally.” “Women are reclaiming their place in baseball.” by Callie Maddox in Conversation, March 27, 2025

In the mid-to-late 20th century into the 21st, America’s young women tended to play softball, not baseball. Usually, it wasn’t their choice, instead due to social norms and rules put in place by men.

“In 1974, the National Organization for Women filed a lawsuit against Little League Baseball because the league’s charter excluded girls from playing. The lawsuit was successful, and girls were permitted to join teams. In response, Little League created Little League Softball as a way to funnel girls into softball instead of baseball. As political scientist Jennifer Ring has pointed out, this decision reinforced the gendered division of each sport and “cemented the post-Title IX segregated masculinity of baseball.”

“Girls can still play baseball, but most are encouraged to eventually switch to softball if they want to pursue college scholarships. If they want to keep playing baseball, they have to constantly confront stubborn cultural beliefs and assumptions that they should be playing softball instead.” “Women are reclaiming their place in baseball.” by Callie Maddox in Conversation, March 27, 2025 [Bold is mine.]

Now more young women eschew softball, even as the college game is drawing record crowds and TV ratings. My essays here and here and here on girls playing baseball. Some join women’s/girls’ teams while others play on men’s collegiate teams and minor league teams. Women work in Major League Baseball as coaches, trainers and front office executives. They broadcast baseball in booths, not on sidelines. They are baseball writers and produce and direct games on TV, radio and the Web. MLB seems on track to hire its first female umpire (Jen Pawol) this season.

The U.S. national women’s baseball team compete in the Women’s Baseball World Cup, receive scant media attention so they remain unknown to most baseball fans. In summer 2026, the Women’s Pro Baseball League plans to start play with six Northeast teams. More than 500 players from 11 countries have registered with the WPBL. A scouting camp and player draft is scheduled for later this year.

Our OPENING DAY tribute to Katie Casey

In 1908, Jack Norworth wrote “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It’s with his song’s lyrics that I conclude "Locker Room Talk,” recalling the early 20th century:

“… men came to ballgames wearing suit jackets with ties, heads topped by fedoras, and feet tucked into polished shoes. The few women dotting the ballpark crowd showed up in showy dresses and decorous hats. On “suffrage day” at a New York ballpark, it’s possible that Trixie Friganza, a vaudeville star and suffragist, came to show her steadfast devotion to this cause. But even if she never attended a ballgame, Friganza secured her place in history by inspiring a one-time beau to write a catchy song about the baseball-loving Katie Casey. That is the name that Jack Norworth gave his girl in the game’s most popular song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” When Norworth wrote this song, he was having an affair with Friganza; when he published it, her photo appeared on the cover of the sheet music.

“Baseball fans know the words to the chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” But very few of them – myself, included, until I researched my book – have ever heard of Katie Casey and have no idea that Norworth wrote this song about a baseball-mad girl begging to be at a ballgame. As the heroine of his song, Katie rejects her boyfriend’s offer to take her to see a show by telling him she’d rather go to the ballpark to root, root, root for her team.

What if I’d known about Katie Casey when I was a girl who loved to play ball? Or a woman going to ballparks to report on games? Would knowing this have made a difference? Oddly, I think it would have. To not see oneself in the place where you want to feel you belong makes it harder to keep taking those steps inside.” [See Her Be Her women in baseball film, 2024]

[Original lyrics of the first verse of Norworth’s song.]

Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou^[a]
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No,
I'll tell you what you can do"

“Take me out to the ball game …”

“Katie Casey reminds me of my mom.

“And sounds a lot like me.”

Goodbye a Typewriter Repair shop; a dying breed

Here’s my essay about falling in love with my new OLD typewriter.

Last year I bought a ribbon for my old Royal typewriter at Cambridge Typewriter Co., the only place I could find it. This shop was among the last places where typewriters were repaired and restored. To say goodbye, locals staged a type-in event, and WBUR, a Boston NPR station, tells the story as Tom Furrier, owner for 45 years, closed his store after no one bought his business.