...and about Babe Ruth's lack of faith in women.
Taken from Mitchell's Wikipedia page:
"Seventeen-year-old Jackie Mitchell, brought in to pitch in the first inning after the starting pitcher had given up a double and a single, faced Babe Ruth. After taking a ball, Ruth swung and missed at the next two pitches. Mitchell's fourth pitch to Ruth was a called third strike. Ruth slammed down his bat and yelled at the umpire before returning to the Yankees bench saying that will be the last time he will bat against a woman. The crowd roared for her. Everybody was stunned. Babe Ruth was quoted in a Chattanooga newspaper as having said: "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. It would kill them to play ball every day."
Next up was Lou Gehrig, who swung through the first three pitches to strike out.
A few days after Mitchell struck out Ruth and Gehrig, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract and declared women unfit to play baseball as the game was "too strenuous"."
Women's History Month is fast approaching and I wanted to commemorate one of the greats early.
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