Elena Kagan's baseball stance analyzed by major league players

WASHINGTON–Everything about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is being analyzed including her batting stance. This blog was the first to publish pictures of Kagan playing softball during faculty games at the University of Chicago Law School within hours of confirming on Sunday night Obama would tap her on Monday. Other outlets picked up the ball from there.

Over at MLB.com, writer Mark Newman asked the pros about Kagan at bat.

“The reviews by Major League Baseball players were mixed, even yielding some astute advice,” he wrote.

The photo was dug up by my Sun-Times colleague, Abdon M. Pallasch and the detail that caught my eye right away was that she was playing Chicago-style 16-inch softball. For many Chicagoans, no-mitt 16-inch softball with a “Clincher” is the norm, not the 14-inch game played with a glove.

And a big ‘you’re crazy’ to those trying to make something of Kagan’s sexual orientation from the picture. There are, have been and will be tons of women in Chicago who play 16-inch softball; there’s no uniform; everybody wears jeans.