As I watched the Duke-FSU baseball series this weekend, something really struck me as amazing. It was not the Seminoles' talent, despite the fact that Florida State is the No. 4 team in the nation. It was not how the unranked Blue Devils hung close in the series, winning one game and coming close in another.
The thing that amazed me was the crew of women sitting up on the hill cheering for FSU.
At first, I thought they were just die-hard Seminole fans who had decided to make the 10-hour drive from Tallahassee to cheer on their beloved baseball team, but then I realized they were in Durham on official business.
The Florida State athletic department paid for travel, hotel and food expenses for five of the seven FSU Batgirls in attendance who alternated running out onto the field to pick up the bats of the Seminole players. While not in action, the women sat up on the hill and cheered for their team with the rest of the fans.
It struck me as a bit extravagant that FSU would shell out the cash for five Batgirls to travel to Duke for the weekend, considering that North Carolina pays for only four cheerleaders to make the mere 10-mile trek to Durham for basketball games.
But these women are obviously not cheerleaders--they do much less. The Batgirls do not lead any cheers. They do not undergo rigorous training, and they do not encourage the crowd.
"[Cheerleaders and Batgirls] are definitely not similar at all," Blue Devil cheerleader Stephanie Nye said. "We have to train a lot, cheer for the crowd and promote school spirit.
"We try out based on physical ability, but I don't see what distinguishes them from any other FSU student."
I, too, was unable to figure out their special role. So, I inquired as to what else Batgirls do. First, I discovered that there is a squad of 26 hand-picked Batgirls to complement FSU's baseball roster of just 29 players. I also found out that the Batgirls have the sometimes challenging task of retrieving foul balls.
"Our fans don't like to give them back," junior Batgirl Chasity Bailey said. "They run with them."
Road responsibilities include providing a social outlet for the players and encouraging them off the field, she said.
With just a bunch of nonessential tasks, why does FSU pay for five Batgirls to attend away games? Is this Florida State's idea of complying with Title IX?
One person could easily handle the entire set of Batgirl tasks. And even though Seminole designated hitter Adam Faurot said the players "enjoy being around them," I still find it questionable that FSU funds this attraction.
Some of the Blue Devil fans agreed.
"I think it's sort of sexist that all of the ballgirls are beautiful, large-breasted young women," Duke senior Kristi McClung said. "Why not just get the players to [pick up the bats]? It must [cost] a lot of money to bring them up here, and they serve almost no purpose."
Besides, these girls reeked of every negative aspect of the cheerleader stereotype. In order to become a Florida State Batgirl, candidates had to "go through an interview and take a [written] test that was really hard," freshman Batgirl Jaime Garzaniti said. "There was a lot about general baseball stuff and some stuff about the conference [on the exam]. They asked us questions like, What's a ball,' andWhat's a 6-4-3 double play."'
Considering that a question about balls was challenging enough to leave prospective Batgirls hanging, I was not surprised to discover the existence of "a Batgirl etiquette."
"We're taught to bend at the knee, not at the waist," Garzaniti said.
One Batgirl even perfected her hop to the batter's box so that she achieved noticeable bouncing, and her hair also swirled in a perfect figure-eight.
But when asked if she thought Batgirls were viewed as sex symbols, Garzaniti answered in the negative: "The uniforms aren't that flattering. The shorts aren't even that short."
"The players and the fans appreciate us," Bailey said. "The players really appreciate us."
Some of this appreciation probably stems from the encouragement and the social scene the Batgirls provide.
"They're mainly the people that we hang around with outside of baseball," Faurot said. "They provide social gatherings for us on the weekends. They throw parties, and they set it all up and we just need to come."
So I decided to research the relationship between the baseball players and their Batgirls.
"A couple of [the players and Batgirls] date each other," Faurot said. "It's very easy to get acquainted when you spend a lot of time together, and you're interested in the same things. It makes for easy relationships. But we respect them and don't take advantage of them."
Despite their social roles, Faurot did not feel that the Batgirls were vital to the success of the team.
"It's no big deal," he said. "They just do the little tasks that could be done easily by one of our players. But as long as they're here, we appreciate them."
Duke has no official person or group designated to retrieve bats and foul balls. Head coach Steve Traylor sometimes lets his three-year old son play the role of batboy, but the Duke players are usually responsible for taking care of their own equipment. And they do not foresee any Blue Devil Batgirls in the near future.
"I wouldn't mind some [batgirls] running around," freshman center fielder Adam Geis said. "But FSU is a different school than Duke. I don't see it happening here, but you never know."
Nye agreed: "I don't see it happening [at Duke] because I don't think girls would be interested in that," she said. "I'm actually shocked that these girls exist, and that they get so many benefits when other teams have to train so much to be able to travel and get the benefits."
Nye was stunned by the Batgirl concept. But I, along with over 1,000 fans at Jack Coombs Field this weekend, witnessed this absurdity firsthand.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.