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Women’s History Month: Jackie Mitchell

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Mar 26, 2021
4 min read

Spring training has been around for more than a century. In preparation for baseball’s regular season, major league teams went south to Florida to prepare–where they weather would be warm and pleasant…much harder to prepare under a foot of snow…which can happen up north in March. Long ago, the regular season would begin in mid-April. As teams made their way north from spring training, they would play exhibition games. Occasionally these would be against Negro League squads, but usually they’d be against minor league teams also preparing for their competitive seasons.

The New York Yankees were scheduled to play one of those games on April 1, 1930 (yes, April Fool’s Day). The weather played a prank and the game was rained out, so the Yankees wound up playing the Chattanooga Lookouts the next day instead. The Lookouts’ starter was Clyde Barfoot, a 39-yr old who for the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals, but was mainly known for starring in the Pacific Coast and Texas Leagues (both high levels of competition in the first third of the 20th century). But these weren’t PCL players. These were the Bronx Bombers at the peak of their ability.

The first batter was Earle Combs who smacked a double off the outfield wall. The second batter was Ben Chapman who lined a single. Two pitches and it was already second-and-third, no one out. The Lookouts’ manager, John Niehoff (a former MLer who picked up 1,500+ wins as a minor-league manager) knew Barfoot had no chance–he called for a quick hook and brought in a new pitcher.

That pitcher was Jackie Mitchell. While there are many men who’ve played ball with the name ‘Jackie’, Mitchell wasn’t one of them–because Mitchell was a 17-yr old high school senior…who happened to be a young woman.

The next batter was Babe Ruth. Lou Gehrig stood on deck. Ruth took the situation as a publicity stunt. He took the first pitch. Ball, low. The second pitch? Ruth swung with all his might–nothing but air. Strike One. The third pitch? Whiff…strike two. One-two count, Mitchell went into her wind up. Ruth took the pitch as it curved over the plate for a called strike. Mitchell struck Babe Ruth out (In 1930, Ruth went 359-49-153). Ruth was furious–yelling at the ump that the ump needed to remember who Ruth was. The response–a strike’s a strike.

Now Lou Gehrig stepped into the box. Gehrig was younger than Ruth and was ready to pass Ruth as the most dangerous hitter in baseball (Gehrig put up 379-41-173 that season). Gehrig had no intention of waiting. He swung at the first pitch. And the second. And the third. He never made contact. With seven pitches, Jackie Mitchell had struck out the two greatest hitters of the 1920s-30s.

This shouldn’t be totally surprising—I’ve just left our a bit of the story. Mitchell had loved baseball from the moment she could walk and played with anyone who was willing. She’d play ball or play catch, too. It helped that her neighbor liked her and talking baseball with her. That neighbor happened to be a major leaguer, too (he’d lead the NL in ERA in 1930 and was put in the Hall of Fame in 1955). He was Dazzy Vance, a pitcher famous for his off-speed pitches and a ‘drop ball’. When he wasn’t off with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Vance was happily teaching Jackie Mitchell the intricacies of pitching–including the drop ball, so that when Mitchell took the mound, Ruth and Gehrig weren’t just facing some schmoe 17-yr old…they were facing a girl who had been taught multiple pitches, how to work the strike zone, and how to disrupt a hitter’s timing.

Afterwards, Ruth poo-pooed Mitchell, saying women were too fragile to play. Three days later, pressured by the Yankees’ ownership, the commissioner of baseball voided Mitchell’s contract with the Lookouts. She was no longer permitted to play for a team with any sort of affiliation with the major leagues. This should sound a bit like the story of Moses Walker… Eventually, in 1952, MLB banned women officially from being permitted to sign contracts (a ban that lasted 40 years)

Mitchell toured with a barnstorming team called the House of David for six years, quitting when the teams they played made a mockery of the game–asking her to pitch in a skirt rather than uniform, with a tiara, or from the back of an animal! When they formed the women’s pro league during World War Two, the league immediately came to Mitchell (who was only 30 then). She refused and remained retired.

Someday, perhaps, there will be women in the major leagues. It’s probably a tough road given the ever-increasing speeds and strength involved. The beautiful thing–women are being permitted in anyways, as teachers and managers (Kim Ng was just named the first female GM in history for the Miami Marlins)

Finally–I love baseball, but I’d never heard this story. How’d I find out about Mitchell? When one of my volleyball players mentioned her as a role-model/favorite athlete. I’d never heard of Mitchell, so I searched for her…and came across the amazing story….so a lot of thanks to Kate for exposing me to a part of baseball history I’d never seen before.

That’s this year’s set of Women’s History stuff. If you missed the other stuff on Women’s History, they are here:

 
 
 

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