I’m the proud mom of Hannah, who was interviewed for the June 10 article on softball players advocating for a new field. This debate is exhaustingly old. At a 2018 Town Hall meeting, 11-year-old Hannah asked if she could speak up at the microphone (front page of the Oct. 26, 2018, Press). She pleaded the case for funding a softball field—to be treated equitably—and she received a standing ovation. Yet here we still are. Our community gave my daughter a proverbial pat on the head and, through years of inaction, has told her to sit back down and be a good girl. Hannah has gotten a front row seat on what it’s like to be a woman in our society. She has been ridiculed at school for playing a sport that’s perceived as “less than” because of the town’s lack of support. She persists, though, and plays with grit and tenacity, gets banged up and bruised and filthy, and is a leader on and off the field. Softball has been her calm in the storm since she was little, most especially during the mental health strain of COVID. That’s what sports do for our kids.
This spring, there weren’t enough girls to field a Bromfield team. Not because there’s lack of interest, but because the town has shut down the pipeline and deprived our girls of the opportunity to play. As a freshman, Hannah made the varsity team as a catcher for Ayer Shirley. She didn’t know a single person. She just wanted to play ball. Every week, we excused her early from school to drive her to practices and games. She missed classwork, I missed work—barriers not every family can manage. A town she doesn’t call home embraced her, yet she still wants nothing more than to represent Bromfield and be a mentor to the younger girls coming up behind her. There are many talented, tough, rising softball players in Harvard. Let’s show them they matter.
Deb Lally
Littleton Road
