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70-Year-Old Serves as Yankees Bat Girl, Was Denied 60 Years Ago (Original Post) Dr Vegas Jun 2021 OP
NA x 16 🦇👧🏻! Silent3 Jun 2021 #1
Awwweeesssome. Butterflylady Jun 2021 #2
another source Dr Vegas Jun 2021 #3
Why are there no women playing major league baseball? hunter Jun 2021 #4
For the same reason I'm not. Captain Stern Jun 2021 #6
I think professional teams would settle out to around 20% women... hunter Jun 2021 #13
I don't think that would happen. Captain Stern Jun 2021 #15
I think it is more questionseverything Jun 2021 #18
If a woman could throw a 100 mph fastball former9thward Jun 2021 #10
That's awfully reductive JackintheGreen Jun 2021 #16
When I was Younger Dr Vegas Jun 2021 #5
I will post one name and encourage people to google it. Stinky The Clown Jun 2021 #9
Do you really think softball is the same as MLB? former9thward Jun 2021 #11
No relation to the National Enquirer's Bat Boy? lagomorph777 Jun 2021 #7
What fun! Sanity Claws Jun 2021 #8
ABC featured her last night. GoCubsGo Jun 2021 #12
It's A Great Story ProfessorGAC Jun 2021 #14
What a wonderful thing! Good for you, Gwen Goldman! crickets Jun 2021 #17
what a great smile Skittles Jun 2021 #19
This message was self-deleted by its author ExTex Jun 2021 #20

Captain Stern

(2,211 posts)
6. For the same reason I'm not.
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 09:25 AM
Jun 2021

I can't play baseball as good as any of the guys that are playing Major League Baseball.

hunter

(38,838 posts)
13. I think professional teams would settle out to around 20% women...
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:38 AM
Jun 2021

... if women commonly played baseball and all the players were selected entirely by skill and statistics.

Just throwing it out there.


Captain Stern

(2,211 posts)
15. I don't think that would happen.
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:58 AM
Jun 2021

I could see that maybe happening at the high school level if young women were encouraged to play baseball at early ages, rather than being steered towards softball.

But the players in Major League Baseball are the best of the best of the best of the best. The very hardest female throwers can't throw anywhere near as hard as the hardest male throwers. The very fastest women in the world can't run anywhere near as fast as the fastest men. The women with the strongest swings in the world can't swing near as hard as the men with the strongest swings.

I think the best chance a woman would have of making a major league roster is if she developed a killer knuckleball. There have been a few men that stuck around quite a while in the majors just because they could throw a good knuckleball, and weren't exactly elite athletes.

former9thward

(33,424 posts)
10. If a woman could throw a 100 mph fastball
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:07 AM
Jun 2021

they would be playing.

They just don't have the upper body strength or speed at the professional level.

The science:

But in one way, the sex difference is stark: Men are physically stronger than women, on average. A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that men had an average of 26 lbs. (12 kilograms) more skeletal muscle mass than women. Women also exhibited about 40 percent less upper-body strength and 33 percent less lower-body strength, on average, the study found.

The researchers found that height and weight differences between men and women could explain only about half of the difference in strength. Researchers reporting in 1993 in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that men's brawn could also be attributed to a larger cross-section in individual muscle fibers. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies]


And a 2006 study in the same journal revealed that men had much stronger grips than women — the difference was so big that 90 percent of the women scored lower than 95 percent of the men. The team also looked at highly trained female athletes who excelled at sports requiring a strong grip, such as judo or handball. Though these women did have a stronger grip compared with other women, they still performed worse than 75 percent of the men on this task.

In general, men are also faster than women. The fastest woman in the world, Florence Griffith Joyner, ran the 100-meter dash in just 10.49 seconds in 1988, and that record remains unbroken. Yet her fastest time wouldn't have even qualified her for the men's 2016 Olympic competition, which requires competitors to finish the 100-meter sprint in 10.16 seconds or less.


https://www.livescience.com/52998-women-combat-gender-differences.html#:~:text=Women%20also%20exhibited%20about%2040,on%20average%2C%20the%20study%20found.&text=And%20a%202006%20study%20in,95%20percent%20of%20the%20men.

JackintheGreen

(2,036 posts)
16. That's awfully reductive
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:59 AM
Jun 2021

R.A. Dickie was a fireballer drafted by the Rangers. Due to a medical issue he never could be a power pitcher in the majors, yet he had an entire career as a finesse pitcher with the knuckleball. His fastball topped out in the mid-80s, yet he had a whole damn career. While Greg Maddux threw a great a two-seamer, his off-speed stuff made his 20+ year career. The examples are endless. Finesse pitcher is a thing.

Dr Vegas

(456 posts)
5. When I was Younger
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 09:19 AM
Jun 2021

it took a long time to accept the fact that my younger sister was SMARTER than me and she was BETTER Athlete than I ever hope to be. Once I accepted these facts our bond became stronger. That was back then, but NOW there is no excuse why women can't play in Major League Baseball.

BTW have you ever seen Women's Softball Pitcher Pitch?

Stinky The Clown

(68,445 posts)
9. I will post one name and encourage people to google it.
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 09:54 AM
Jun 2021

I saw her play any number of times:

Joanie Joyce

former9thward

(33,424 posts)
11. Do you really think softball is the same as MLB?
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:10 AM
Jun 2021

Even in solfball men pitch much faster than women.

Pitchers throw the ball with an underhand motion at speeds up to 77 miles per hour (124 km/h) for women and up to 105 miles per hour (169 km/h) for men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastpitch_softball#:~:text=Pitchers%20throw%20the%20ball%20with,from%20that%20of%20slowpitch%20softball.

GoCubsGo

(32,936 posts)
12. ABC featured her last night.
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:11 AM
Jun 2021

It was a great story! I'm sure they have it posted on their site and/or on YouTube. She got a uniform, and threw out the first pitch, too!

ProfessorGAC

(69,643 posts)
14. It's A Great Story
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 10:54 AM
Jun 2021

I saw part of her postgame press conference on ESPN.
Charming lady!
She said it was the thrill of her life!

crickets

(26,148 posts)
17. What a wonderful thing! Good for you, Gwen Goldman!
Wed Jun 30, 2021, 02:29 PM
Jun 2021

Good for her daughter for writing in on her behalf, and for the Yankees for handling it beautifully. So cool.

As for women playing pro baseball - a couple have. The first was Lizzie Arlington, followed by Jackie Mitchell.

https://calltothepen.com/2017/07/05/baseball-history-lizzie-arlington-becomes-first-female-player/

Arlington came to prominence as a part of the Philadelphia Nationals reserve team. Discovered out of the Pennsylvania coal region, she played baseball with her father and brothers against other competition. She would end up playing second and pitching for the Nationals, where she proved to be just as good as her male counterparts.

History was made on this day in 1898 when she suited up for the Reading Coal Heavers, now known as the Reading Phillies, of the Atlantic League. With Reading holding a 5-0 lead over the Alentown Peanuts, Arlington entered the game in the ninth inning.

Her appearance had quite the rocky beginning. Arlington allowed two hits and a walk to load the bases before retiring a batter. However, she settled in after that, retiring the next three batters and emerging without allowing a run. Newspaper reports said that Arlington did not have the command needed to perform well at that level, but nonetheless, her outing was a success.

Arlington was expected to appear against the Hartford team, but was not allowed to. Local authorities forced Reading to cancel her appearance, as Hartford was concerned about losing to a female. Afterwards, Arlington disappeared, fading away into obscurity.


It has been claimed that women are 'too delicate' for the game, but it could be that men are often the ones who have a hard time competing against women.

https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/Jackie-Mitchell-was-the-only-professional-Female-Baseball-player-to-Strike-Out-Babe-Ruth-and-then-Lou-Gehrig

Jackie Mitchell was born on August 29, 1913. Her full name was Virne Beatrice Mitchell. She was only the second professional female baseball player in the history of the game. The first was Lizzie Arlington. She pitched in a game for a team known as the Reading Coal Heavers in 1898. [snip]

The Chattanooga Lookouts were scheduled to play an exhibition game with the New York Yankees. It was played on April 2, 1931, after being rained out the previous day. Jackie Mitchell took the mound in the first inning as a relief pitcher. The starting pitcher was Clyde Barfoot, and he'd just given up a single and a double. The next two scheduled batters were baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Mitchell was throwing her trademark sinker. Her first pitch to Babe Ruth was called a ball. During the next two pitches, Ruth swung at both and missed. He asked the umpire to inspect the ball. A new one was thrown out to Mitchell by the umpire. The fourth pitch delivered to Ruth was a called third strike. Ruth was furious. He glared at the umpire and started screaming at him. Other Yankee players had to come onto the field and lead him away. He was calm by the time he reached the bench.

During this time, the crowd was screaming their approval for Mitchell. After the game, Ruth told a Chattanooga newspaper that he didn't know what would happen if women were permitted to play baseball. He felt they were too delicate, and it would be too difficult for them to play every day. [more]


Another good article covering Jackie Mitchell:
https://www.mlb.com/news/meet-jackie-mitchell-the-girl-who-struck-out-babe-ruth

The misogynists -- or at least Mitchell's detractors -- had their day nonetheless. Elsewhere in The Times, it was written that Ruth "performed his role very ably" by striking out and that Gehrig "took three hefty swings as his contribution to the occasion," the occasion implied being yet another promotional stunt from Engel in which the sluggers allowed Mitchell to strike them out. The fact that it was originally scheduled for April Fools' Day was another data point cited against the authenticity of Mitchell's feat.

If Gehrig or Ruth did strike out on purpose, neither owned up to it in subsequent years. While it would surprise no one if Ruth were in on such a setup, it would be out of character for Gehrig. Given Mitchell's tutelage from Vance and the fact that her sidearm lefty delivery gave her the platoon advantage against both sluggers, it's not a huge stretch that she struck them out on merit. [snip]

It was widely reported that baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell's contract in the aftermath of the game, citing that baseball was too strenuous for women. Though there is no proof of this, it wouldn't exactly be out of character for Landis.

Response to Dr Vegas (Original post)

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