I've always loved watching baseball since I was a little girl, and that's where my love of sports began. My birthday present every summer was to go to a Phillies game. My dad even took me to Phillies farm team games all the way out in Reading, and the Lakewood BlueClaws.

Shane Victorino, Chase Utley, and Jason Werth were my absolute favorite baseball players, hands down. Even after all three went their separate ways, to this day I still have a crush on Chase Utley for sure.

Since being that eight-year-old girl with a Victorino jersey over an Utley t-shirt, I have grown to love watching and playing sports even more. From the time I could hold a bat I was swinging away at a tee, and once I could pick up a bowling ball I was throwing strikes and spares like no other four-year-old ever has before. I built up some stamina, and then I started playing soccer too. I played all three sports up until my senior year of high school, and to be honest I really miss playing.

I've stopped playing sports, but that hasn't stopped me from loving them. About five years ago I saw a picture of the Flyers team, and I remember thinking "Wow, these guys are hot. I should follow hockey", and now I do.

For the first few years I was simply a Flyers fan, and I knew nothing about anybody else. Then, the Flyers started trading the guys I had come to love, and I realized I wanted to watch them play the game regardless of the colors they were wearing.

Sure, I got into hockey because I thought the players were attractive, but loving a sport is so much more than that. It isn't fair to assume that females watch hockey, or any other sport for that matter because the players are "cute". While that is, in fact, a bonus, we watch sports because we love the grit and determination.

We love seeing a fight, we vehemently support the guys (and girls) who play the sports we care for. We love celebrating a winning touchdown, three-pointer, or OT goal.

We watch sports because there is no sound like the goal horn during a playoff game. We watch sports because there is no feeling like bringing home the first Lombardi trophy. We watch sports because we love rooting for a team with people that share the same love of the game.

We DON'T watch sports because we're "obsessed with players' looks". We analyze stats, we keep up on our rosters, we speculate trades and anxiously await the many trade deadlines, and we talk about players like we've known them all our lives.

There are female announcers now, female in-game hosts, and even female executives (shout-out to my girl Kim Davis). While women will probably never be able to play at the major league level as it currently stands simply because it poses a physical risk, we have certainly infiltrated the world of sports.

We care about sports for the same reasons men do. We go to games and buy fan gear because we're equally as dedicated to the game. We are hockey fans, football fans, soccer fans, baseball fans, basketball fans, you name it. We. Love. Sports. And we're tired of accusations that we're not as knowledgeable based on something as insignificant as our sex.

Females are making their presence known in sports more and more now, which is fantastic. We deserve to be heard, our articles deserve to be read, and what we have to say is valid. Just because we have vaginas does NOT mean that we know less about sports. Deal with it.