Meet the women of SB Nation’s MLB team brands and learn about the challenges they face

Women are a distinct minority in sports media. While we are seeing more representation of women’s voices creeping in, this industry has a long way to go. The responses we received for this series celebrating the women who write for our team brands backed that up.

But not all of the challenges these women shared were related to gender. Finding work-life balance, bridging knowledge gaps, and mustering enthusiasm about teams that aren’t giving you much to work with — all things most people and definitely most fans can relate to — are some of the obstacles these women have had to overcome.

You can check out the rest of this series, as well as get to know the individual women who shared their experiences with us, through the links below.

Some challenges are balancing writing with life and my job, but probably the biggest challenge has been not throwing my computer out the window while watching some of the games this year. Words matter, and when I’m mad after yet another brutal loss I can’t write a recap full of angry emojis. I try to just let the facts speak for themselves most of the time, but it’s hard when writing about a team you love. The emotion always creeps in.

The main challenge I’ve had since starting with AN in March were learning to write to a new and different audience. I’m used to writing about the A’s, but having always had to gear it to a national audience when I had to learn to remember to write less, give less background information because the people that are reading your writing are HUGE, DEDICATED A’s FAnAtics and the chance that they don’t already know the background information I was used to providing to the random reader is extremely slim. I still get sucked into that pattern from time to time but it has become easier as the season has passed by.

It’s tough. When I first started out I had some friends suggest I should use a fake (male) name to do my writing, but I rejected that idea outright. I’ve gotten my fair share of really awful comments (mostly about my appearance and weight, naturally) and some were downright violent (thanks to a domestic violence article I wrote), but I think it’s important that young women who want to get into this as a career can see women out there doing it actively and not hiding behind a fake name. Women belong in sports media.

I don’t know about unique, but the biggest and most unexpected challenge I’ve faced is how to keep the morale up in a lost season. I wasn’t a part of the site during the glory years of 2015 and 2016, and these past two seasons have been nothing short of a disaster for Blue Jays fans. Two seasons marred by freak injuries, unexpected regression, and one gut-wrenching loss after another can make it pretty difficult to be invested in a team most expected to be competitive. A goal of mine from the day I joined is to try to lighten the mood when times are rough and find little things to be excited about. As someone who is just as emotionally invested as any other dedicated fan, this can be pretty hard to do. However, I figure if we can poke fun at ourselves and laugh through the terrible games together, then we can keep the site an enjoyable place people want to come back to.

The worst experience I’ve had is probably when I was turned away at a clubhouse, a place I’ve been dozens of times, when I was covering the Triple-A All-Star game...right after my male colleague was waved through.

Trying to be the positive voice at the site throughout the last couple of years of really hard times for the fanbase. (Yeah, I know, hard times for Giants fans, no one cares. But 98 losses followed by a season of almost mandatory mediocrity really makes people lose their patience). I am generally the positive voice of the site, and I’m usually okay with that and do my best to keep it up, but sometimes it’s difficult because there is just nothing there to work with.

Being a woman in sports media, I don’t know if anything I’ve faced is truly unique — we are facing the struggle of being a minority in the industry, being second-guessed, and needing to be twice as professional, buttoned-up, and hard-working as anyone else. The most encouraging thing is that the women I’ve met in the industry are supportive and they help lift one another up. It’s been a really supportive community.

I think just in general there’s sometimes a lack of trust with female sportswriters, which is certainly frustrating, but it’s been like that for a long time. That’s a unique challenge to me because I don’t see many differences between the way I write and the way my male colleagues write, yet you’ll get the occasional reader who doesn’t see things that way. I’m no longer a full-time journalist, but I remember at my very first newspaper job, I was told that they believed I was the first female sports reporter they’d ever had. That was such a strange thought to me because I had never even considered that pursuing a degree in sports journalism was abnormal. It was just what I wanted to do, so I did it.

Some of the initial challenges that I faced were the fact that I go by Sam, so when I first started writing I had “Sam Bradfield” as my byline. People on the site thought I was a man and my friends were upset because they thought I was trying to pose as a man to gain respect or credibility, when honestly I was just using my nickname because I don’t like being called Samantha.

I think some other challenges I’ve faced have come from living in a different state, like many of the other Purple Row staff members. Luckily I live in a state with a division rival team and in one where the time difference isn’t egregious, if there is one at all, so I’m still able to keep up with the Rockies but I have to actively seek out news if I need it.

My Purple Row colleagues are much more fluent in sabermetrics than I am — which I intend to address this winter, though I will never be as knowledgeable as they are. On the other hand, I’d like to think my approach as a humanist brings something different to our coverage.

My main challenge with TC is trying to write to an audience that may or may not have ever been introduced to collecting. Knowing that not everyone is interested in cards and memorabilia, I try to be sure my writing is interesting and understandable to most audiences.

The biggest challenge I’ve faced is dealing with anxiety. As a mother of two, I’ve found it difficult to juggle being a mom, writing, plus my day job. It can get overwhelming at times. Staying true to myself and my voice has helped me to overcome any negativity I’ve received and the self-doubt that every writer faces at some point. Finding a balance and inspiration is difficult at times. Baseball has always been an outlet for me, even when the Dodgers are losing, and it’s completely intertwined in who I am.

People don’t take me seriously. My website, Twinkie Town, has a very humorous vibe, which it has had since before I took over. I feel like that combined with me being one of the only women bloggers currently in the Minnesota baseball blogosphere makes people think I don’t consciously plan or know what I am talking about. I very much do, and our brand is very intentional. I luckily don’t get too much explicit misogyny to my face, but I can say I get invited to speak on podcasts and radio shows frequently, but they are never any of the local ones.

I’ve honestly been tremendously lucky on this front. I feel like 95% of the interactions I have with readers are thoughtful and come from people who have the best intentions. I had also been part of the BCB fan community for a long time, so it helped tremendously that I already knew most of the frequent site contributors and commenters when I started. That said, there have been some odd moments, I remember going to a meetup hosted by another site last year and being *keenly* aware that I was one of maybe five women in the room. It took about an hour for people to believe I was there to talk about baseball, and then another thirty minutes or so of answering questions before I felt comfortable. I definitely spend more time answering baseball trivia questions than my male friends (special shout out to the guy who mansplained Lester coming into the game during Game 7 of the World Series to me). I’m also very cautious about separating my personal and political views from baseball because I’ve seen how women in this industry take heat for that.

My main challenge is fitting this work into a schedule that includes a full-time job and other commitments, but that is hardly unique!

It’s hard sometimes to be taken seriously as someone who knows about baseball and is female. Most of the community on Halos Heaven have been great about that and don’t treat me differently than the guys, though. Women can know baseball. Women play baseball. I’ve done both and that’s hard for some people to get a grasp on at times, but I think that is improving. I’ve had many “wows” from guys I talk to when they realize I actually understand what I’m talking about. I don’t think guys who talk about baseball get that same reaction.

I’m going to assume this is alluding to my challenges as a woman, somewhat peripherally, in baseball, and not my eternal quest for a gluten free happy hour option at Safeco Field ... that said, I don’t think any of the challenges I’ve faced as a woman in baseball are particularly unique. If you are a woman or non-binary person who likes baseball — or any sport, really — you will intimately know the feeling of attempting to fake comfort in a space that is never quite yours. Your opinions (and often your facts) are questioned, the legitimacy of your fandom is questioned, your motives for even being in the sports space are questioned. You double and triple-check your stats, because any minor error could damage your carefully-won credibility; your work overall is simply more suspiciously regarded and critiqued. I’ve been extremely fortunate in my experiences thus far, but even still it can be taxing. Those bad days are when you just have to shut everything down and go outside to play some catch.

My experience isn’t limited to the fact that I write about baseball — women and non-cis men sports fans are often criticized both on and off of the internet about sports views and fandom. There’s a toxicity to comments like that which begin to negate a side of someone they hold very dear and personal, and as both a girl watching a game at a bar and a journalist I’ve felt that sting. As far as within my journalistic career, there’s always the lingering fear of no one taking you seriously. That’s something I’ve personally struggled with. I also had some stylistic boot camp I needed to endure. When I made to jump to sports writing, I was writing about fashion and culture, so integrating a completely different langue into my style gave me a learning curve.

Honestly, I encounter much more sexism off of the internet than I do on PSA. The fact that I avoid Twitter probably helps with that, but very rarely do I feel like a site member has crossed the line into personal attack, or is criticizing a story just because I am a woman.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised about the reception I’ve received as a female writer. Many people have reached out to compliment my work. I know that there are those who belittle females in the industry, but I try to look past those and do my very best.

Sometimes random people get really mad about baseball and think that we run the team or something. I get some weird e-mails, and most of them are fairly sexist. They don’t really bother me though, I just find it surreal that I’m visible enough for anyone to take time out of their day to hurl insults at me. So, I guess I really only face the same thing every other writer does: The ceaseless snapping maw of self-doubt.

I consider myself lucky to work for SB Nation, in the fact that I haven’t faced many challenges that I know so many others in the sports writing world have. The aforementioned feedback is typically in good nature, but there are also some not-so-nice things said on occasion — and almost all of them stem from me being a woman. If one was going to question my baseball knowledge, I would not try to stop them; I would request, however, that they find something other than my gender to use against me.

As a woman, sexism presents a major challenge when writing about sports. My knowledge of the sport has been questioned since the fourth grade, when boys in my class would quiz me on random facts to prove I truly was a fan. I find myself constantly questioning my own abilities, harshly critiquing everything I say and write because I cannot afford to be wrong, not once, not ever, for risk of not only setting myself back, but all women in sports. I think nearly everyone woman has shared similar thoughts and experiences. I think many of us have questioned whether it is worth it. I know all of us would say it is, every single time, because we love baseball.

For most of my time spent in the online baseball world, I’ve hidden my identity as a woman (or at least I haven’t made it widely known). It’s difficult having your opinions dismissed out of hand because you’re a woman, so I initially tried to play down that aspect to have my opinions judged on their merits. I’ve been told things like “You talk too much about the game ... You are better to look at than to listen to.” And that’s some of the more pedestrian stuff! Once you get online, there are thousands of anonymous people who want to demean, condescend to, or dismiss you for the audacity of being a woman with an opinion about baseball. You’re facing an uphill battle: first to convince people that it’s normal and okay for you to have an opinion, and THEN you have to convince them of your opinion on its own merits.