CROTEAU'S LOVE OF BASEBALL EXCEEDS PAIN OF PAST SLIGHTS -

After all these years, Julie Croteau still loves baseball -- which probably says more about her own resilience than it does about how the sport has treated her.

She still enjoys playing baseball -- something that circumstance and chauvinism have attempted to deny her at different points of her life. She still loves watching baseball -- something that she can do anytime she wants now that she works for Major League Baseball.

Actually, Croteau's whole life these days centers on baseball: Her job with Major League Baseball involves promoting the sport around the globe, to all countries and genders. That means talking about baseball, teaching it, preaching it -- loving it, really.

That, in itself, is ironic in some ways. Because if anyone has an excuse to hate baseball, it would be Croteau.

As a 17-year-old in 1988, her sex discrimination lawsuit against Osbourn Park High School gained national attention. The suit alleged that she had been cut from the Osbourn Park baseball team because she was a girl, which would be a violation of Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded institutions that will be 25 years old on Monday.

Croteau ultimately lost the suit when a judge ruled that "there is no constitutional right to play ball." Along the way, Croteau had to listen to sworn testimony from coaches that she was a truly lousy baseball player who couldn't run, hit or throw. She was ostracized by her peers because she stood up for what she believed.

Her struggles with baseball didn't end there, either. After going to St. Mary's College and becoming the first woman to play NCAA baseball, she quit the team her junior year. She cited three years of dealing with sexist remarks, listening to dramatic readings of pornographic magazines and trying to ignore obscene references to female genitalia.

At the time, she said, "I've spent more time fighting and being emotionally destroyed by baseball than enjoying the game. It's not fun anymore."

But when it seemed Croteau was ready to give up -- to leave being a pioneer in women's sports to someone else, to stop being a martyr for the cause of gender equity and Title IX -- she decided to keep on going. She kept working at the game. She kept playing. And somewhere along the line, she started loving baseball again, too.

"There is a peace I've made with the game and with the institution of baseball," Croteau said. "I've gotten as many good things out of baseball as I have bad things. Baseball has been very good to me."

She has won awards from the National Organization of Women and the Women's Sports Foundation. She has been named as one of the key figures in the women's movement by countless magazines, including the inaugural issue of Sports Illustrated's new Women/Sport.

She has played baseball professionally with both the Silver Bullets, an all-women's team, and the Maui Stingrays, a team in the (previously) all-male Hawaii Fall League. She also was the first woman to coach a college baseball team, as an assistant at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., in 1993.

Not bad for someone who was deemed not good enough to play for her high school baseball team.

"I still glad that I {sued Osbourn Park}, even though I was ridiculed and even though it was miserable at times," Croteau said. "I knew I was right and I knew it needed to be done. I'm proud I did it, and I'd do it all over again if I had to."

In a lot of ways, Croteau is still making the same arguments she did in court nine years ago. She says she still has to prove herself and prove that women and the sport of baseball are not mutually exclusive.

For example, since her playing days were ended by a rotator cuff injury, Croteau has been cultivating a career as a television baseball commentator.

"I have to convince people that I know baseball," she said. "I've found that a lot of times my resume tape gets automatically passed on to the softball people even though my resume says nothing but baseball. . . . Two years ago, my glove from college got put in the Hall of Fame, which was an unbelievable thrill. But people will still look at that on a resume and then look up and ask me a question about the infield fly rule to see if I understand it."

Apparently, she does -- or at least Major League Baseball thinks she does. At this year's All-Star Game, Croteau and Hall of Famer Joe Morgan will be analysts for an international feed of the game that will go out to 175 countries.

Croteau's main job right now, though, is directing Pitch, Hit and Run, an international grass-roots outreach program sponsored by Major League Baseball. She helps organize baseball clinics and promotes the sport in countries everywhere from Asia to Europe to Latin America. The goal is to encourage children in those countries to play baseball and to love baseball. All children are welcome, of course -- boys and girls. PRINCE WILLIAM AND TITLE IX

Monday is the 25th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded institutions. Today and Sunday, Prince William Extra will examine local issues related to the law, beginning with a look at Julie Croteau, the 1988 Osbourn Park High School graduate who became the first woman to play college baseball. CAPTION: Julie Croteau, who once was cut from Osbourn Park's baseball team, now promotes the sport abroad for Major League Baseball.

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