Protected, One Way or Another

Melissa Raglin, 12, a baseball catcher from Boca Raton, Fla., was recently benched by league officials because she wasn’t wearing a protective cup.

Melissa turned to the, duh, umpire, took off her helmet and tried to explain the, duh, obvious: “I’m a girl.”

But in the town of Boca Raton--which is a Spanish name, I believe, meaning “City of Protective Cups”--rules are rules.

And league rules specify that all catchers must wear cups, to keep foul tips from making them sing like Michael Jackson.

Well, Melissa is a good kid who obeys the rules.

After missing a couple of games while waiting for the grown-ups to grow up, Melissa came to the next game wearing a protective cup . . . around her right ankle.

She played one inning that way.

League officials--snapping to attention like the lunch crowd at a Florida alligator farm--quickly figured out that something with Melissa was amiss.

I believe this resulted from one league official turning to a second league official and saying something like, “It’s on her ankle.”

And the second official said, “What’s on her ankle?”

And the first official said, “Her protective cup.”

And the second official said, “But her cup’s supposed to protect the other thing.”

And the first official said, “But she doesn’t have the other thing.”

Leaping into action, they ran over to Melissa’s coach, and to the umpire at home plate, to demand that Melissa wear her protective cup where the cup was meant to be worn.

The league’s president, Laura Kaufmann, was quoted as saying, “If it’s on her ankle, then it’s not doing any good.”

It was a keen observation, for as most baseball fans know, catchers from Yogi Berra to Mike Piazza have never been quite as concerned about their ankles as they have about their other thing.

(This is not meant to take anything away from the ankle, a time-honored body part that, when struck by a baseball, can hurt like the dickens.)

However, as Melissa’s mom, Patricia Raglin, astutely pointed out, “If something were made for a girl, we’d have gotten it and she’d be wearing it. But she is not going to wear a boy’s cup over a [thing] she doesn’t have.”

After all, there are certain baseball players who do not require a protective cup--like girls, for instance, as well as the Heaven’s Gate cult softball association.

Melissa said, “I don’t want to wear something that’s made for a boy.”

But that’s not how it works in Boca Raton, the town where One Cup Fits All.

If you are a girl in Boca, and you want to be a baseball catcher, you must wear a boy’s cup. I guess this means if you play basketball, you must strap on a boy’s jock. And if you are a swimmer, well, make sure your Speedo covers more than his Speedo.

I am also pretty sure that in Boca Raton, any two girls who dance together at the school prom must keep several inches of space between them, at all times.

Melissa Raglin simply wants to be treated like any other catcher.

She wants to wear her cap backward. She wants to squat behind home plate. She wants to scratch wherever scratching is needed. A mask for her face, a vest for her chest, guards for her shins . . . this is all the equipment Melissa requires.

The only cup she needs is for Gatorade.

“The cup has nothing to do with a female anatomy,” said Linda Bliden, a local South Florida chapter president of the National Organization for Women, which is a fine group that protects women’s rights, though rarely with protective gear.

Being only 12, Melissa probably should be represented by NOG, not NOW.

She enjoys being a girl. But she also enjoys calling for a 3-and-2 fastball, while telling some dumb boy in the batter’s box that his shoe is untied.

I sympathize with Melissa totally. Common sense is necessary in most cases, not conformity. I guess Melissa now knows how Dennis Rodman must feel, when the NBA orders him to take off that brassiere and those garters.

As it says in our Constitution: “All men are created equal, but don’t forget to wear your cup.”

This is strictly a Boca Raton hang-up. Our national Little League organization makes no requirement for catchers to wear protective cups. Little League World Series rules state only that players should be boys or girls, and that underwear is generally a good idea.