If usually in sports there is a clear distinction between men’s and women’s teams, Marika Lyszczyk, 21, a Canadian catcher who will take the field from next summer with the shirt of Brockton Rox, the American baseball team, will break down all prejudice and conviction. of Massachusetts participating in the Futures League. For now it’s just an eight-man tournament for the summer, but it’s also the gateway to new goals in women’s sport.
The climb in baseball
Having left softball because it was “too soft”, Marika takes up baseball to play with men. He is certain that he will also assert himself on the diamond of the ‘Campanelli Stadium’, meanwhile he succeeds in the NCAA championship, that of the universities, playing with the boys of Sonoma State, a California university.
Of her, the first woman ever to take part in an NCAA baseball match, they write that she is making history and that “she is incredibly talented”. Someone goes further, certain that she can “climb Olympus”.
And the 21-year-old is not afraid of the challenge, also stimulated by the fact that some MLB franchise scouts are following her. “I prefer playing with boys, I quit softball and although there were people who advised me against changing, the idea didn’t scare me at all.”
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However, there is no shortage of female precedents. Among the women who have shined in sports alongside men is Shan Zhang, Chinese champion in volley shooting. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics she beat her fellow men in the Skeet competition, winning the gold in front of the Peruvian Giha and the Italian Rossetti. It was the last time at the Games in which men and women faced each other without distinction of sex in skeet shooting.
Or again, Rebecca Lynn Hammon: a former American basketball player naturalized in Russia, on December 30, 2020 she became the first woman to hold the role of ‘head coach’ in an NBA game, following the expulsion of Greg Popovich during the challenge with the Los Angeles Lakers. Popovich’s assistant Hammon also coached Spurs himself in the summer league. Instead Nancy Lieberman, known as ‘Lady Magic’, was the first woman in basketball history to play in a men’s professional league, the Usbl.
