Watching baseball with my dad one night, I saw Erin Andrews interviewing my favorite player, David Wright. It was that night that I subconsciously decided what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to talk about sports like she did. I wanted to stand on the baseball field with some of the best in the game.

Coming to college a journalism and mass communication major, I intended to establish myself somewhere in the sports world. While I have done just that, it has not always been easy. Still, my knowledge about the game of baseball is questioned. My intentions to work in baseball are skewed to me wanting to be around the players. Basically, what it comes down to is the sexism in the sports world. I never really identified myself as a feminist until a very successful woman in minor league baseball told me that the sports world is “a giant set of balls.” I laughed, thinking she was being kind of dramatic. Turns out, she was not.

Here are three examples: Mo’ne Davis. Erin Andrews. Jessica Mendoza.

Davis pitched in the Little League World Series, dominating the boys her age. She gained worldwide recognition, while becoming an idol for all young female athletes in every sport. She showed strength, resiliency and competitiveness on the mound during the Little League World Series. That is not all she is known for though. Her name was tainted when a college baseball player tweeted, “Disney is making a movie about Mo’ne Davis? WHAT A JOKE. That slut got rocked by Nevada.” He apologized, and she forgave him, yet that does not take away from that man's attack. He tried to slut-shame a twelve year old girl, essentially because she was playing ball in a man's world.

As I stated earlier, Andrews was my inspiration to be apart of the sports world. I thought, "If she could do it, I could, too." The girl knows what she is talking about with baseball and football. She keeps it calm, cool, collected and fun with everyone she is interviewing. Soon after I came to realize who she was, her peephole pictures were exposed. She did not do anything but mind her business in a hotel while some creep took pictures of her through the peephole. Like Mo'ne Davis, Andrews was slut-shamed.

Mendoza set on a path this baseball season to concur the "man's world." Being the first woman to commentate during a nationally televised game, she received some backlash. Side note: I would like to point out that she is the first woman to do this and it is 2015, so think again if you do not think there is some argument here. Sitting alongside John Kruk and Dan Shulman, Mendoza called the game like any other man would. She knows the game, and she knows the teams. On my own Twitter feed, some acquaintances and guy friends of mine were saying awful things about her. Nothing she said was enough for them, yet I had trouble finding anything invalid about her statements.

Despite how difficult it is to bring estrogen into a world full of testosterone, I am going to do it. I have always been a fan of a challenge. Hell, I am a Mets fan. I refuse to let the closed minds of middle-aged white men determine what I do and do not know about the game of baseball. Once we do get to where we want to be, we need to shut down the slut shaming. Katie Nolan of FOX Sports said, "We need to embrace each other, accept our differences and find the value in every woman you meet. We just need to lift each other up." Powerful women in the sports world could make more of a difference than they think.

So, any woman who wishes to follow the dreams of their young tomboy self, do it. Walk on that baseball field in your heels, smile at the camera, and show the world what you know.