Perhaps it was preordained that Deidre Silva would become a baseball fan.
“I was born during Game 6 of the 1967 World Series,” said the Stoughton native. “I don’t remember much of the game, but I hear it was the best day of my life.”
Silva doesn’t know if she was born before or after Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Smith and Rico Petrocelli homered in the fourth inning of that game to help the Red Sox force a seventh game with the Cardinals, but she does know how important that “Impossible Dream” season was in team history.
Growing up in a family of Red Sox fans, it was inevitable she would be one, too.
“I just remember my grandfather yelling, ‘Go, Teddy Boy,’” she said. “I grew up in a Boston family and no matter where you go, you identify with the Red Sox. That’s how it was and how it continues to be.”
Silva’s travels have taken her to the Washington, D.C., area and later to Seattle, where she works as a freelance journalist.
Her love of baseball, in general, and love of the Red Sox, in particular, have never waned, but she’s found herself isolated in the baseball world.
That’s not unusual — she’s a woman.
“Baseball is a taboo subject for men to talk about with women,” said Silva. “Men don’t understand that it’s OK to talk about sports in general, but when women talk about baseball, they have to be really careful.
“So many people know so much that we can look like a fool really fast. There’s an element of trepidation more than anything.
“When the majority of women get into a conversation with a majority of men, women end up shutting down because they feel like idiots. That’s unfortunate.”
Unfortunate indeed, so Silva did something about it. Her book, “It Takes More Than Balls — The Savvy Girls Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Baseball,” just came out and it’s goal is to bring baseball to women. Check that. It’s goal is to bring women into the mainstream of baseball.
It’s a book written by women baseball fans for women baseball fans, and it’s a source to allow women to understand and embrace the game, just as Silva has her entire life.
“I started thinking my husband is a big fan and I’m a big fan, but he has an institutional knowledge of the game because he’s played it for years,” said Silva, who co-authored the book with Jackie Koney. “Millions of women baseball fans come to it later to impress a new date or maybe because a son is in Little League or maybe it’s something to do with their husbands.
“Women come to the game later and for different reasons than guys do. They deserve a book to cover things they need to know at a later point of life.”
Silva admits that Major League Baseball has been slow to reach out to women, and that’s unfortunate because there’s money to be made there. Nevertheless, the sport is still generally popular with women.
According to an ESPN sports poll (these figures were cited by MLB as well), 47 percent of baseball fans are women, making baseball the most gender-balanced of the four major sports. Furthermore, 17 percent of women consider themselves avid baseball fans.
Scarborough Research has found that more women attend Major League games than the combined total of the NFL, NBA and NHL.
And to top that, 46 percent of all purchasers of Major League Baseball-licensed apparel are women.
Those are figures that aren’t lost in the sport, and teams have started to reach out to women to lure them to the stadium.
The Pirates, for instance, have formed a Lady Bucs Club that allows women, for a $15 membership, access to eight pregame parties during the year in the hope of selling the team to them.”
“We’re always looking for new fans,” said Kiley Cauvel, the team’s marketing manager of advertising and promotions. “We’re in a market with a hockey team, a football team and a major college. We have competition. This is one way to attract more women and families that other teams aren’t doing.”
The parties provide services that normally aren’t found at a ballpark. Before games, women can have massages and manicures. There’s live music, celebrities and different themes for different nights. For instance, the Lady Bucs held a Texas Rodeo Night with country line dancing one night last year. Oh yes, and there’s a baseball game too.”
The Lady Bucs started in 2006, and Cauvel said there are 700 members of the club. Of that number, she says half have bought eight-pack tickets for this season.
“It’s definitely a positive,” said Cauvel. “It gives DJs on women’s morning shows a reason to talk about the Pirates. To see on non-party days women wearing Lady Bucs T-shirts, it’s a good feeling.”
Not so fast, says Silva.
“They’re doing what they know, so they’re saying women like massages and pink stuff,” said Silva. “They throw that stuff together and do an event to be a success. Mostly it’s because women don’t have anything else.
“The only thing they’re excited about is that the ballclub is finally recognizing them. That, to a lot of women, is a victory. I don’t think it helps the team create a baseball experience for women.”
To counter that, Silva has started a side business consulting with teams to help attract women fans. With the teams, she set up dates to hold clinics for women and bring in speakers to help sell the game.
“I tell teams that what they want a person to do is find a connection with baseball so they want to come back again,” said Silva. “What those clubs are doing is getting them for one game, and that’s shortsighted.”
Silva already has signed to work with four clubs this season – the Tigers, Mariners, Nationals and Mets.
“Offering a masseuse and spa getaways seem that the club isn’t trying hard enough to capture them for the next game,” said Silva. “If baseball wants to show women value, they’ll come up with a promotion that speaks to them.”
Lost in the desire to bring women to the ballpark are the Red Sox. The club does little in an effort to attract women, but then they don’t have to.
According to MLB, 75 percent of the women in the Boston area are baseball fans and 39 percent are avid fans. That’s more than twice the national average (17 percent) of avid women fans.
Typical of those fans is Maggie Magner of Ayer. Since the Red Sox aren’t coming to her, she’s going to them.
Last month, she and Sue Stofia of Brookline started www.girlsoxnation.com, a Web site targeting women fans of the team. On the site are articles geared toward women, polls for women and opportunities to buy merchandise.
Coming soon will be a calendar posting charity and social events and a chat room.
“We wanted women to have a place where they didn’t get quizzed about statistics to prove they’re a fan,” said Magner. “We’re so tired of that.”
Magner said she’s had hits on the site from as far away as Israel, Brazil, Russia, Ireland and Japan. Plans call for the site to eventually be translated into Spanish and Japanese.
“The notion that in order to be a real fan you have to be interested in statistics, it just doesn’t make sense,” Magner said. “What I hear from many women is that they’re tired of being quizzed about box scores and that they’re not a real fan. We want to talk about how cute Jacoby Ellsbury is and how they decide a won-loss decision.”
Magner and Stofia quit their day jobs and borrowed money to set up the site, and they’re excited about the prospects. They’ve bought URL names for all 30 baseball markets.
“We’re Red Sox fans and started in Boston,” she said. “We’re committed to providing this kind of forum for women baseball fans all over the country.”
Major League Baseball, while doing little to attract women fans, certainly welcome the initiatives. After all, more women fans means more fans in general and more revenue generated.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to attract and retain that audience,” said a spokesman for Major League Baseball. “We’re continually trying to create an atmosphere and products that appeal to females and their families.”
The words are nice, but the action leaves something to be desired. Many teams still have a problem seeing women as hard-core fans and the events they hold for them feed a stereotype that run generations.
Typical is what the Tampa Bay Rays did last year, hosting a wine-tasting event and a needlework exhibit before games last year.
Silva wants to end that. She’s a baseball fan who happens to be a woman, and she claims there’s a vast market of those out there waiting to be involved in the game. Her Web site, www.thesavvygirls.com, focuses on those fans.
“Women control the budget and family time,” said Silva. “We’re the ones who decide whether to spend Mother’s Day in the ballpark or somewhere else. Me, I’ll probably be in the ballpark.”
