Wellesley softball and the fight for equal lights

Emily Willrich, a Hunnewell Elementary School 5th grader and self-described “freedom fighter,”makes her case as to why Wellesley softball teams deserve more respect, starting with a field along the lines of the town’s beautiful Reidy Field (shown here), which is used for day and night baseball games. A reader wrote in to us, letting us know that the letter “has been causing quite a stir!”

Things came to head for Willrich recently when her team’s scheduled under-the-lights game at Hunnewell Field didn’t happen after the lights wouldn’t come on and the ump didn’t show.

She wrote in part: “It isn’t fair. What do we softball players get? Uneven dirt, lights that are out, like in my game tonight, cold metal benches, and umps that decide at the last minute not to show up. No electronic scoreboards. No announcers. No nothing. Sadly, for Wellesley’s softball players, this is as good as it gets.”

Here’s a link to her entire letter in the Townsman.

We hit up Scott Stewart, senior softball commissioner for Girls’ Softball in Wellesley, for some reaction and he says a task force involving Willrich is in the works: “Field conditions have improved over the years but there is always room to improve further.  I think coaching availability and expertise are the most important ingredients to a successful program and we continue to enhance those areas.  Regarding a Reidy-like softball field, if we can get a capital campaign going combined with a planning task force, we can make progress in that area.  As important, we are offering more training programs, including WHS-run clinics with the help of [WHS coach] Emily Hunt.”