The Slaterettes

The Slaterettes League is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Deb Bettencourt shared with us what the league is all about.

The Slaterettes are made up of three to four teams per division, depending on the year. Each division is based on age. For instance, this year the league is made up of the instructional division with three teams (30-35 girls), the minor division with four teams (almost 50 girls), and the women's division with six teams (about 90 girls). The league took a big hit this year in the junior division because they only have two teams. They try to mix the teams up and let the girls play different positions until next year when more girls move up in the league. Currently the 200 girls in the league play within the league against teams in their division.

Deb talked about competing to obtain players against the boys' Little Leagues in the area. Sometimes it is more convenient for the parents if the girls stay in the boys leagues because it means less driving time at the end of a busy day of work.

"Ideally we try to get them be fore they switch to the boys league… The girls drop out just because they can’t compete. Boys are just physically stronger unless you have a girl that’s really really good…. Those girls are few and far between.

Girls with girls play very well. You know, I’ve never really pushed the issue of playing against the boys because it probably would be a blowout… And that’s not what it’s really about. We aren’t trying to prove we’re better than boys, we just want to prove that girls can play baseball. That’s kind of what we use when we recruit these little girls. We use the whole Jackie Mitchell struck out Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth."

There's not only competition among baseball leagues, but there's talk of a softball league the people want to form in their area.

"There’s people that want to start a fast pitch softball league just for the sake of taking the players. I think once you have a girl that’s playing baseball, she’ll probably play baseball as long as she can except going to college to play softball. All of our players who go to college to play softball all come back and play."

Though the league really can not get any bigger because of the field time and space available to the Slaterettes, Deb still has her dreams of what she would want for the league if there were no money restrictions.

"It’s something you want to make available to everybody…the most important thing would be that I would make it free to everybody."

Currently, the league tries to make it affordable for their players. The money pays for umpires and uniforms. If Deb could, she would get more of things for the girls that boys have. For example, she would like nicer fields, somewhere where they can play later into the summer. She would also want scoreboards, better umpires, and just a big area where everyone could play. Unfortunately, girls leagues get a lot of second rate stuff, which is what Bettencourt would change.

What we found was that Deb is pretty happy with where the league actually is going.

"… For now if it stays were it is, I’d be perfectly content with that. I don’t care if there are five hundred girls in the league. If I have two hundred that are happy, then that’s fine."