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Jackie Mitchell Photo Gallery
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Jackie Mitchell Strikes Out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig!
“I don’t know what’s going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball. Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate, that’s why. It would kill them to play ball every day.” –Babe Ruth, after being struck out by Jackie Mitchell
Thanks to our reader, Betsy Waterman Gubbels, for calling my attention to baseball pioneer Jackie Mitchell.
In the quote above, perhaps we can cut the great Bambino a little slack for making this politically incorrect statement back in 1931. After all, he had just been struck out by—horror of horrors!—Jackie Mitchell, the first woman to appear in a professional baseball game since 1898. Jackie pitched for the Class AA Chattanooga Lookouts, and the KO’s occurred in an exhibition game against the Yankees. Maybe the Babe was still reeling a bit from the embarrassment of it all!
I love the look on the Babe’s face in the featured photo above. I wonder what was going through his mind just then??
Jackie Mitchell was born in 1913. As soon as she learned how to walk, her father taught her the basics of the game. Growing up, her Chattanooga, Tennessee neighbor was Hall-of-Famer Dazzy Vance who took the young, athletic Jackie under his wing. Dazzy taught her how to pitch, including his “drop ball,” a form of a curve that Jackie later used to great effect.
At the age of 16, wonder-girl Mitchell began playing for the Engelettes, a women’s team in Chattanooga and became a state-wide sensation. The team was owned by former major leaguer-turned promoter Joe Engel, who also owned the Chattanooga Lookouts. Engel was known for publicity stunts to attract crowds during the Depression. He signed Jackie to play for the Lookouts on March 25, 1931; and she made her professional debut on April 2, 1931. On that day, the Lookouts played an exhibition game against the Yankees. Seventeen-year-old Mitchell was brought in to pitch in the first inning after the starting pitcher gave up a double and a single. As fate would have it, the next two batters were none-other-than Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig!
After taking ball one, the Babe whiffed on Jackie’s next two pitches. Was it Dazzy Vance’s “drop ball’ that suckered the Babe? Lefty Mitchell’s fourth pitch was a called third strike. The Bambino was upset…and perhaps just a tad embarrassed? He angrily tossed his bat away and took his wrath out on the umpire, and had to be led away by his teammates. Meanwhile, the crowd loved it and roared for Jackie. Next up was the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig, who swung through the first three pitches, striking out, becoming Jackie’s second victim.
What a debut! In her first appearance as a professional pitcher, Jackie Mitchell had struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession. Not sure if this ranks with Carl Hubbell’s performance in the 1934 All-Star game, but it’s right up there!
A few days later Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis got wind of the event and took action “to preserve the integrity of the game,” and voided Jackie’s contract. He didn’t stop there. He went on to declare women unfit to play baseball, since the game was, in his words, “too strenuous for women.” Landis added the banning of women to the already banned African-Americans as his sad legacy to the game.
Not to be denied, the determined Jackie continued to play professionally, barnstorming with the House of David men’s team. She retired in 1937 at the age of 23, upset that her story was becoming a sideshow. She once was asked to pitch while riding a donkey.
Jackie declined to come out of retirement when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League formed in 1943. The ban on women lasted until 1992, when Carey Schueler, daughter of White Sox General Manager, Ron Schueler, was drafted by the White Sox.
In 1982 Mitchell was invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Chattanooga Lookouts on their season’s Opening Day. Baseball pioneer Jackie Mitchell Gilbert died in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, on January 7, 1987, aged 74.
Gary Livacari
Photo Credits: All from Google search
Information: Excerpts edited from Jackie Mitchell Wikipedia page.
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