Today in Herstory: Jackie Mitchell Strikes Out Baseball’s Greats (2 april 1931)

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: Jackie Mitchell Strikes Out Baseball’s Greats

April 2, 1931: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig struck out today, felled by a teenager who needed only seven pitches to earn herself a place in baseball history.



Jackie Mitchell, signed for the season on March 28th by Tennessee’s “Chattanooga Lookouts,” a Class AA minor league team, pitched her legendary “sinker” in an annual exhibition game with the New York Yankees, on their way home from Spring Training in Florida.

Since Major League baseball teams are an Eastern and Midwestern phenomenon (no clubs farther South than Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati and none farther West than St. Louis), Southern fans always pack the stands for the rare opportunity to see big league ballplayers locally even if it’s only for practice. The contest here always attracts a good deal of attention from the local press and comments made yesterday by the “Sultan of Swat” clearly increased the public’s interest even more.

According to Ruth: “I don’t know what’s going to happen if they let women play in baseball. Of course, they never will make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day.” Despite his confidence, he did seem concerned enough to ask a reporter: “By the way, how big is she?” When told she was five feet eight inches tall, he simply said: “Well, I don’t know what things are coming to.” He found out today.

After the starting pitcher gave up a double and a run-scoring single, Mitchell was sent in just as it became Ruth’s turn at bat. Her first pitch was a ball, but the next two were right over the plate. Though the Bambino gave them his best swings, it was to no avail. He then demanded that the umpire inspect the ball. It was found to be in perfectly legal condition, so whatever tricks it was playing on the Babe were due solely to the pitcher’s skill.

. . . .

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/04/02/today-in-herstory-jackie-mitchell-strikes-out-baseballs-greats/

[niyad]

1. update:

(wasn't that nice of the commish???? soooo concerned for women's safety and health! sexism runs rampant)

UPDATE: Soon afterward, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract and justified his ruling by alleging that baseball was “too strenuous” for women. The ban would later become a formal rule of Major League Baseball from 1952 until 1992.

But Mitchell did manage to play ball for an independent male team known as the House of David, that did exhibition games around the country. Though she chose not to come out of retirement to play for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1943, she always remained interested in the game and in 1982 threw out the ceremonial first pitch for her old team, the Chattanooga Lookouts.

[malthaussen]

2. Ah, that anniversary has rolled around again.

It's a great story, but it does bear mentioning that the Lookouts were known for publicity stunts, that the game was an exhibition, and that it is possible that Ruth and Gehrig were paid to fan. OTOH and in fairness to the pitcher, both of them were also known to strike out quite a bit anyway, so it is possible that she k'd them legitimately.

The real story is the footnote, with the Commisioner banning women from organized ball right afterwards. You may be interested to know that three women played in the Negro Leagues and had some discrimination problems with their male teammates, which is irony if you like. cf Toni Stone, Connie Morgan, and Mamie Johnson (Mamie was a pitcher like Mitchell). Of note is that these three women all played in the Negro leagues after Jackie Robinson started with the Dodgers organization. They also all played for the Indianapolis Clowns, which was sort of a Harlem Globetrotters-like organization (Toni, in fact, replaced a guy named Hank Aaron at second base for the Clowns). One of the things that makes Mitchell's story so interesting is that it happened in '31, much before baseball was integrated.

You'll note that the House of David was a barnstorming exhibition team, and not "organized" baseball. An interesting spin on them is that there were also "Bloomer girl" barnstorming teams in earlier decades that usually had a few male players dressed as girls (as HoD had women dressed as men). Some pretty big names played for the Bloomer Girls, who also have the distinction of introducing night baseball to America in 1900. (The first night baseball in "organized" ball was played by the Negro League Monarchs in 1930, against the House of David, which supplied the lights. Slow as usual, the big leagues didn't start playing ball at night until 1935). Just a little sidelight on the story. Baseball history is fascinating stuff.

-- Mal

[niyad]

3. thank you for all that wonderful information.