Did a Woman Strike Out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig?

From Tony Horwitz in the Smithsonian Magazine comes the true story of a woman who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back in a baseball game in 1931. Back in those days it was more common for today to have professional teams that existed outside of the structure of the major leagues. The Harlem Globetrotters are the only example of this today that I can think of and though they have a rich competitive history, today they rarely play games against major league teams. The Chattanooga Lookouts (who still exist today as a minor league affiliate of the LA Dodgers) were an independent team with an entertaining history. Reports Horwitz, “The Lookouts’ new president, Joe Engel, was a showman and promoter whose many stunts included trading a player for a turkey, which was cooked and served to sportswriters.”

In 1931 Engel signed 17 year-old pitcher Jackie Mitchell to a contract days before playing the New York Yankees in two exhibition games. On April 2, Mitchell got her chance to pitch after the Lookout’s starting pitcher gave up hits to the first two batters he faced:

First up was Ruth, who tipped his hat at the girl on the mound “and assumed an easy batting stance,” a reporter wrote. Mitchell went into her motion, winding her left arm “as if she were turning a coffee grinder.” Then, with a side-armed delivery, she threw her trademark sinker (a pitch known then as “the drop”). Ruth let it pass for a ball. At Mitchell’s second offering, Ruth “swung and missed the ball by a foot.” He missed the next one, too, and asked the umpire to inspect the ball. Then, with the count 1-2, Ruth watched as Mitchell’s pitch caught the outside corner for a called strike three. Flinging his bat down in disgust, he retreated to the dugout.

Next to the plate was Gehrig, who would bat .341 in 1931 and tie Ruth for the league lead in homers. He swung at and missed three straight pitches. But Mitchell walked the next batter, Tony Lazzeri, and the Lookouts’ manager pulled her from the game, which the Yankees went on to win, 14-4.

Was it real? Horwitz tries hard not to take too strong of a position on either side but it seems to me that he favors it not being completely honest. He notes the game was originally scheduled for April 1 (for those wondering, April Fool’s day is apparently really old; like 1392 old!) and that Ruth’s reported rage seems, in the few remaining photos of the game, to be a little tongue-in-cheek. For her part, Mitchell always insisted that it was real. Of striking out the two hall-of-famers, she said:

“Why, hell, they were trying, damn right,” she said of Ruth and Gehrig not long before her death in 1987. “Hell, better hitters than them couldn’t hit me. Why should they’ve been any different?

Hope you enjoy the article here and you can follow the Smithsonian magazine on twitter @SmithsonianMag. Thanks to Deadspin.com for leading me to the article on their post here.