"THE GIRL WHO STRUCK OUT BABE RUTH"

The fan letter to Virnie Beatrice “Jackie” Mitchell arrived without an address; it wasn’t necessary because at 17 she had made herself world famous by striking out two baseball greats—Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.  The year was 1931 and her Chattanooga Lookouts minor league team with whom she had just signed a contract, was playing an exhibition game with the mighty New York Yankees. The starting pitcher for Chattanooga was replaced and the spotlight was on Jackie.  She didn’t disappoint.  Babe Ruth stepped up to the plate and took the first pitch for a ball.  Three pitches followed—all strikes and the last one caught Babe looking. Gehrig struck out swinging on three straight pitches.  The Chattanooga crowd of 4,000 roared their approval.  A new hero had arrived, and a young woman at that!

So, who was Virnie Beatrice “Jackie” Mitchell and how did she become a female professional baseball player and a hero to thousands, if not millions?  The exact date of her birth is uncertain, but it’s thought to be between 1912 and 1914.  She was tiny at birth, just over three pounds.  She learned baseball from her father in Massachusetts when she was barely able to walk. In addition, her next door neighbor, Dazzy Vance taught her pitching skills when she was only five or six.  He was a minor leaguer then, but eventually played for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was inducted into the Hall of Fame.  He taught Jackie how to throw a “drop ball”, like a breaking ball which dropped just before reaching the plate.  At one point she attended a baseball school in Atlanta, Georgia.  She was a lefthander who excelled in other sports as well. Her father once said of her, “She is one of the greatest little athletes I ever saw.  She has one of the most deceptive pitching deliveries, hits fair and fields way above the average that a boy of her age can field.”

The Chattanooga crowd loved Jackie’s astonishing feat, but the Babe didn’t feel quite the same way.  The local newspaper quoted him as saying, “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 every day.”

Evidently baseball commissioner Landis felt much the same way.  He voided Jackie’s contract and deemed women unfit to play baseball as the game was “too strenuous.”

Jackie went on to play for a team known as the House of David for five years.  She retired in 1937 at the age of 23. 

The 17-year old girl who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig died in 1987.  She lived a long life and once remarked that “not even the best batters can hit them all.” She made sure of that!