More international baseball wranglings

When international baseball got rejected by softball in their attempt to sweeten their IOC bid for reinstatement into the summer games, they went back to the drawing board. Their latest plan: add women's baseball. My thought on their latest plan: get a new plan.* Women and girls have been dissuaded--by various means--from playing the game. (I haven't read Stolen Bases yet, but it's on my list.) And it appears that they are only encouraged when men's baseball is in some version of dire straits, a la WWII and now when they have been eliminated from the Olympics because of...well...a bad reputation, basically. But that's the tactic they are going with. More details are coming soon, apparently. But the head of international baseball says women's baseball is a growing sport with an estimated 300,000-500,000 women playing internationally. Not sure where the numbers come from, or how they compare to the numbers of female softball players. But remember that it seemed part of the issue the IOC had with softball was low numbers in countries not named USA. I am all for women playing baseball. But I think this is a sneaky move by international baseball, and one that doesn't have anything to go with gender equity. * It also appears that softball is trying the same tactic: adding men's softball. There are a myriad of jokes here...but I will refrain.