Baseball's First Ladies

Last night as I was watching the Antique Roadshow, an attendee had brought in memorabilia of Jackie Mitchell. Not being a baseball fan, much less a sports fan, I was surprised to hear she was the first woman to have a contract with an all male minor league. My curiosity was stirred so much I had to google her. This is what my quick research uncovered.

As a child, Virne (Jackie) Beatrice Mitchell, was taught how to pitch by her neighbor, Dazzy Vance, who later pitched for some major leagues and was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1931, at the age of seventeen, Jackie signed a contract with the Chattanooga Lookouts, a Class AA minor league team.

A few days later on April 2, 1931, the Chattanooga Lookouts played an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. It was suppose to be played on April 1st but postponed because of rain. In front of 4,000 fans, Jackie was brought in during the first inning to pitch against Babe Ruth. (No pressure there, right?) She struck him out in four pitches. Next came Lou Gehrig. She got him out in three. Some said it was a practical joke since the game was originally to be played on April Fool’s Day. Even I have heard of the tremendous egos of Ruth and Gehrig and feel they wouldn’t let a woman beat them even as a joke. I could be wrong but hey, think about it, am I?

A few days later after that game, baseball commissioner, Landis, voided her contract, stating women unfit to play baseball, as the game was “too strenuous”. She continued to play with The House of David, an all male team. She retired in 1937 at the ripe old age of twenty-three and refused to come out of that retirement when the All-American Girls Professional league was formed in 1943. She died in 1987 and is buried in Forrest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga.

But Virne wasn’t the first to play with a minor all male league, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame website. In 1898, Elizabeth Stroud a.k.a. Lizzie Arlington pitched a game in the Class A Atlantic league. Atlantic League President, Ed Burrow, spotted her when she pitched in an unorganized professional game for the Philadelphia Reserves against Richmond. She also played second base for the rest of the game. “For four or five innings, she had plenty of stuff and control,” said Burrow.

In 1907, the mayor of Vermillion, Ohio arranged a game among the local sandlot teams to watch seventeen-year-old Alta Weiss pitch. She later signed on with a local semi-pro team. After her high school graduation, her father purchased interest in a semi-pro team. She played with them as they barnstormed around northern Ohio, continuing to do so during the summers while she advanced her education attending Starling College of Medicine. She was the only girl in her class to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree.

The first woman to play with big leaguers was Lizzy Murphy. On August 22,1922, she played first base in a charity game of the American League All-Stars versus the Boston Red Sox.

These women had guts to challenge the norms of society and social etiquette of their time. Were you ever in a similar position? Did your actions go against what was socially expected? I was in a slightly comparable situation when I was one of three female mechanics hired for all of Nassau and Suffolk counties by AT&T. I was always in all-male garages. Even though many years had passed between these ladies and myself and those years brought significant changes in thought, it was not always fun because for a few men some things stayed the same – a woman doesn’t belong in certain places.