UPDATE
After this post was written, Dibble made an on-air apology, as transcribed here. Thanks Rob.
ORIGINAL POST
Whether you like Rob Dibble, are indifferent, or think he’s a knuckle-dragging something, it’s clear he touched a nerve with his comments on women and baseball.
Today Dibble responded with a blog post, and I give him credit for that. It was more than I expected.
At Nationals Fangirls, we got a lot of hits and thoughtful comments in response to Rachel’s post on the topic, and I thought I’d chime in on a couple of things:
- Why have so many people been calling for Dibble’s head?
- Maybe it’s time to highlight a few women who love baseball
Torches and pitchforks
Rob Dibble’s comments were neither smart nor insightful. At best, they were thoughtless, and at worst they were exactly the type of provocative blather that MASN and the Nationals knew they were getting when Dibble was hired. I’m not his audience, but some people like his style. Being outspoken and opinionated, as Dibble is, means foot-in-mouth comments are bound to happen.
So why the torches and pitchforks this time? I think it’s partly that Dibble insulted women who are passionate about baseball and tired of being dismissed with outdated stereotypes.
I also think that some people, both men and women, have tired of Dibble’s know-better-than-you tone when offering his opinion. It’s not just that he may see things differently from time-to-time, it’s that he comes off as smug. In his emphatic comments, he asserts or implies a difference in baseball love and knowledge between men and women, former MVPs and regular players, and pitchers and hitters (as Ray Knight might attest). A little of that shows passion, but too much of that is too much.
Women who love baseball
After watching the fireworks, I‘m thinking it’s time to highlight women who love baseball, as Dibble himself did this morning by talking about female baseball fans in his family. We have a visible group of super-fangirls in NatsTown, including:
- Kristen Hudak at MASNsports.com, who started We’ve Got Heart in 2007, when there weren’t many blogs about the Nationals.
- Cathy Taylor, aka Miss Chatter, who shares her love of baseball through writing, photographs, and sometimes video at misschatter.com. She also writes for CSN Washington.
- And Cheryl Nichols, who is always at the ballpark and rarely seen without her camera. Her photos of in-game action and the Nationals family make obvious her love of baseball and can be seen at Nats News Network.
The Web is filled with baseball blogs by women, including a personal favorite of mine, Babes Love Baseball, in which Sooze and Marea offer a mix of savvy talk about baseball, humor, and expressions of love for a player or two.
Beyond these and other women who dedicate countless hours to maintain websites for sharing their love of baseball, millions of women have developed a love of baseball by going to games with their fathers, mothers, grandparents, partners, and friends.
If you read the comments under various stories about Dibble, you’ll find stories about girls who played youth baseball with the boys, women who keep score, and women who think there’s no better place than the ballpark for ladies’ night out.
You give Dibble much more credit than I do. Not surprisingly, he did not apologize for his comments, but rather issued the now standard non-apology: “If any fan of this great game took offense, then he or she should know that this was neither my intention nor my history in the game.” What he said WAS offensive to a lot of female baseball fans, and it’s hard to fathom how anyone could have misconstrued what he said. You are exactly right that Dibble is smug and arrogant. The Nationals should get rid of him. Period.
I’m not saying that Dibble did everything I might have wanted him to do, but he did do something. A journey of a thousand miles …
LOL. You’re right, Jenn.
Dibble’s acknowledgement is fine with me. I was pretty fired up, but didn’t necessarily think him groveling or supplicating to the goddesses of baseball would do any good. Just the acknowledgment and his words on women and baseball are fine.
I agree Rachel. I could do without much of the commentary about what is or is not an acceptable apology. For me, the more important thing is working to move forward. My hope, and my instinct, is that Rob Dibble probably learned something this week.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with commentary about whether an apology is sufficient or not. Sometimes an “apology” just fuels the fire. If it seems insincere or insufficient it deserves to be called out. In my opinion the blog post was insufficient — too full of self-pity and self-aggrandizement. Did we really need to be reminded, again, in an apology, that Dibble played in an All Star game and in the NLCS? But the second one, on-air, actually included the words “sincerely apologize” so I’m prepared to accept it. I agree Jenn that for all of Dibble’s fury at the hateful Internets, he does seem to understand that he said something offensive and hopefully that will affect his behavior in the future … well, one can dream, right? And hopefully MASN and Bob Carpenter learned something as well and will try to discourage, rather than facilitate Dibble’s boorish inclinations.
As I recall his partner, the same guy who has sold many a scorebook to many Nats women warned him at least twice. Carpy actually said he knew of women who came to games without their husbands because the husbands didn’t like baseball?
I suspect Mr. Dibble only listens to himself when he goes off on a rant. Unfortunately, his rants could misrepresent MASN’s and the Washington National’s perspective on women and baseball. He is an official voice of the Nationals. So, yeah, he needs to curb his inner child and he needs to learn to apologize for his comments. Nino “Grease” Minelli (Doug Tracht) tried to use many of the same arguments that are currently in play in defense of Mr. Dibble. Its all about the humor … that outrageous behavior sells? Dibble spent way too much time around Bowden and Marge Schott.