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“Women in Baseball” Photo Gallery
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Another Edition of “From the Lighter Side!”

Question: “Has a woman ever batted in a major league game?”

Answer: “Well, sorta’…”

You’ll have to read on to see what I mean!

In 1935, night baseball games were still a novelty. The first one had been played at Cincinnati’s Crosely Field on May 24, 1935. The “incident” I’m describing in today’s essay occurred 86 years ago also in a night game at Crosley Field. This one was between the Reds and the visiting World Series champion Cardinals. Played on July 31, 1935, it was just a little over two months after that first night game. 

The Midwest was deep in the throngs of an intense heatwave that summer, with temperatures for this game reaching the 97-degree mark. Was it the excessive heat that made people do crazy things? We’ll never know for sure…but if not, then something was certainly “in the water” that night.

A raucous, sell-out crowd—one that caught Reds’ management completely by surprise—was on hand that night for the game. Unable to accommodate the huge, overflow crowd, and not knowing what exactly to do about it, fans started spilling onto the field. The start of the game was delayed a half-hour while management tried to figure out what to do. Rather than turning the paying customers away, a decision was finally made to allow them to stand in roped-off areas in the outfield and along the foul lines.

One such fan on the field was an avid Reds fan who also happened to be a local nightclub blues singer. She was also, as it turned out, a shameless self-promoter. Her name was Kitty Burke. From contemporary sources, she was apparently a pretty good-looking blonde. Was she a precursor to “The Kissing

Bandit,” of more recent vintage? Some of you may remember the scantily-clad Morgana (how could we forget!) and her “shtick” of sauntering onto the playing field, sneaking up on unsuspecting players, and gleefully planting a “smooch” on them, along with an alluring hug.

Kitty Burke was also an accomplished heckler with a professional singer’s voice she was able to project. She also knew how to get under a player’s skin. And who better to be at the receiving end of her torrent of abuse than a known hot-head stationed within “shouting range” in nearby left field: none other than Joe “Ducky” Medwick. She may have been a pretty good nightclub singer and an accomplished heckler, but her baseball acumen was – shall we say? – “off-base.” She had picked the wrong player to taunt about his hitting prowess.

The surly Joe Medwick, was a hitting machine and everybody knew it. A lifetime .324 hitter, the future Hall-of-Famer was coming off a season in which he hit .319, and then .379 in the 1934 World Series for the World Champion Cardinals. Two years hence, he would be the National League’s MVP, hitting .379 with 31 homers, and 154 RBIs.  Joe Medwick could hit.

From her position on the field observing the action, Miss Burke had been on Medwick’s case the entire game. The two had engaged in a running, back-and-forth heckling dialogue. Rather than ignoring the obnoxious fan’s haranguing and taunts, Medwick had unwisely chosen to respond in kind. According to reports, the banter went somewhat along these lines:

Kitty Burke: “I can hit better than you Medwick!”  

Ducky Medwick: “No you can’t lady…You couldn’t hit an elephant with a broom!”

Meanwhile, back to the game at hand:

In the bottom of the eighth, two Cardinal outfielders collided. That caused a delay in the game as the players were attended by the trainer. During the ensuing delay, and with the allure of career-enhancing publicity flashing through her mind, Burke saw her chance to create a “scene” and decided to make the most of it. Was this spontaneous…or was it preplanned? Again, we’ll never know.

While the strategically-placed ushers were preoccupied watching the activity on the field with the injured Cardinal players, Burke ducked under the restraining rope and ran unnoticed onto the field. Nearing the Red’s dugout, she grabbed a bat from the dumb-founded on-deck hitter, Babe Herman, who wasn’t known to be particularly bright under normal circumstances. Then boldly sauntering up to the plate, she assumed a batting stance and demanded a turn at bat, daring the confused Cardinals’ hurler, Paul Dean, to pitch to her. Was this some kind of a gag? A publicity stunt? These thoughts had to be running through Dean’s mind. Here’s what happened next, as described by Steven Wyder in his SABR essay:

“Paul Dean smiled and went along with the joke, lobbing an underhand pitch to her. Burke swung and hit a grounder back to Dean. She ran part way to first, but stopped when she realized Dean would beat her to first. The umpires apparently didn’t object.” 

Meanwhile, when the raucous crowd finally realized what was happening, they roared their approval. The stunt had worked. The story of her on-field romp made the morning papers. Overnight, she became known throughout the Queen city.  Burke used the incident to her advantage and even started wearing a Reds jersey in her nightclub act. She was now marketing herself as the only female to “ever attempt to bat in a Major League Baseball game.” It was “in” a major league game. Get it? So I guess technically she was correct.

Of course, the at-bat was unofficial, and it goes without saying that neither the umpires nor the official scorer counted this as an official at-bat or and out. But apparently she got her money’s worth and her dutiful “15-minutes of fame” from the stunt.

What ends people won’t go to get some career-enhancing publicity! Too bad the guy standing next to her in the roped-off area didn’t realize what she had in mind and had the wherewithal to grab her before her unceremonious entry onto the playing field: “Don’t even think about it, lady!” 

Lost in the unusual on-field occurrence was that the Reds won the game 4-3 in ten innings! But don’t worry. I won’t let a stunt like this diminish the significant contribution women have made to baseball history. That’s why I’ve put together a nice photo gallery featuring the All-American Girl’s Professional Baseball League. I hope you enjoy it. 

Gary Livacari 

Information: Background information from Steven Wyder’s SABR article about the incident. Click on the link to read more: https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-31-1935-kitty-burke-comes-to-bat-in-cincinnati/; and the Kitty Burke Wikipedia page; Statistics from baseball-Reference.com

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