Boy asks to play softball officially in sisters’ league told no

Normally you hear of girls who want to try their hand at sports usually considered for boys. But a 9-year-old in New Jersey is turning the tables.

Cayden Walsh has strapped on skates for hockey and grappled with wrestling, but those and all of the other sports were either boring or he got hurt, he told NJ.com.

But Cayden said when he tried softball, it was his sport.

Will Walsh, Cayden's father, has been coaching the boy's two sisters. Cayden is a triplet and has been to the practices and signed up for the team this year, WCBS reported.

But despite paying the team fee, the league said he can't play simply because he's a boy and the bylaws state that it is a girls-only league, NJ.com reported.

Officials with the Northern Valley Girls’ Softball League voted over the winter to stand by the bylaws.

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Cayden wrote the league saying it was “segregation,” and that “I believe that we have the freedom to play softball regardless of our gender.”

No one at the league answered Cayden, but his father was told by a league member, "We need your assurance that you're not going to try to play your son," Walsh told NJ.com.

After that he was told Cayden would not be allowed to sit on the bench as he had done before.

But one member of the league said that Cayden should have never been permitted to practice or sit on the bench with the team, but not because of his being a boy, but instead it's against league rules and for insurance reasons, NJ.com reported.

Jim Oettinger said it isn't all about Cayden desire to play, instead telling NJ.com, "It's about the 500 girls that signed up to play 'girls' softball."

Oettinger said that the league is offering a co-ed league, but they need someone to run it and Cayden signed up too late to get it off the ground this season, NJ.com reported.

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