Well today Miss Baseball will find out if I am going to need surgery on my knee. While I am following doctors orders to rest and stay off my knee, I have been bored, but I am finally getting around to watching the Ken’s Burns documentary: Baseball.

In the first inning (episode) about 41.30 in there is a small segment that reached out to me, female baseball in college. The Laurel and the Abenakis were started by a group of freshman at Vassar with the support of a female doctor that believed “exercise was essential for good health” Girls playing baseball in the 1866 standing up to the public ridicule and playing a game they love. As injury is a part of the game, it was deemed too violent, and was quickly disbanded.  To quote the doctor, “if a girl had hurt her leg dancing the public would not condemn dancing.” I find this funny as I have hurt my knees twice with dancing and played a whole season of softball and the only injury was my pride.

The Laurels and the Abenakis