Virne Beatrice "Jackie" Mitchell Gilbert (August 29, 1913 – January 7, 1987) was one of the first female

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

s in professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

history. She was 17 years old when she pitched for the

Chattanooga Lookouts The Chattanooga Lookouts are a Minor League Baseball team of the Southern League and the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. They are located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and are named for nearby Lookout Mountain. The team plays its home g ...

Class AA minor league baseball team in an exhibition game against the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

, and struck out

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

and

Lou Gehrig Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned f ...

in succession.

Early life

Jackie Mitchell was born August 29, 1913 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Virne Wall Mitchell and Dr. Joseph Mitchell. When she learned how to walk, her father took her to the

baseball diamond A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers ...

and taught her the basics of the game. Her next door neighbor,

Dazzy Vance Charles Arthur "Dazzy" Vance (March 4, 1891 – February 16, 1961) was an American professional baseball player. He played as a pitcher for five different franchises in Major League Baseball (MLB) in a career that spanned twenty years. Known for ...

, taught her to pitch and showed her his "drop ball", a type of

breaking ball In baseball, a breaking ball is a pitch that does not travel straight as it approaches the batter; it will have sideways or downward motion on it, sometimes both (see slider). A breaking ball is not a specific pitch by that name, but is any p ...

. Vance was a major league pitcher and would eventually be inducted into the

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

. At the age of 17, Mitchell began playing for the Engelettes, a women's team in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

, and went on to attend a baseball training camp in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. In doing so she attracted the attention of

Joe Engel :''This is an article about the baseball player Joe Engel. For the astronaut, see Joe Engle.'' Joseph William Engel (March 12, 1893 – June 12, 1969) was an American left-handed pitcher and scout in Major League Baseball who spent nearly his en ...

, the president and owner of the

, who was known for using publicity stunts as a way to draw crowds during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Seeing Mitchell as an opportunity to draw attention to the Lookouts, he signed her to the team on March 25, 1931. She appeared in her first professional game on April 2, becoming only the second woman to play organized baseball, behind

Lizzie Arlington Elizabeth Stride (August 31, 1877 – March 1919), known professionally as Lizzie Arlington, was an American baseball player. She was the first woman to play for a professional men's baseball team. Early life Arlington was the youngest of six chi ...

who pitched for the Reading Coal Heavers against the Allentown Peanuts in a minor league game in 1898.

Against the New York Yankees

The Yankees and the Chattanooga Lookouts were scheduled to play an exhibition game in

, on April 1, 1931, however, due to rain the game was postponed until the next day. Seventeen-year-old Mitchell was brought in to pitch during the first inning by Lookouts manager

Bert Niehoff John Albert Niehoff (May 13, 1884 – September 8, 1974) was a second baseman in Major League Baseball who played for four clubs from the 1913 to 1918 seasons. He batted and threw right-handed. Playing career A native of Louisville, Colorado, N ...

after the starting pitcher,

Clyde Barfoot Clyde Raymond Barfoot (July 8, 1891 – March 11, 1971), nicknamed "Foots", was an American baseball player. He played professional baseball as a right-handed pitcher 25 years from 1914 to 1938, including three seasons in Major League Baseball ...

, gave up a double and a single. The next two batters were

and Lou Gehrig. After taking a ball, Ruth swung and missed at the next two pitches. Mitchell's fourth pitch to Ruth was a called third strike. Babe Ruth glared and verbally abused the umpire before being led away by his teammates to sit to wait for another batting turn. The crowd roared for Jackie. 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 "the Iron Horse"

, who swung through the first three pitches to strike out, and Jackie Mitchell became famous for striking out two of the greatest baseball players in history.

Later career

A few days after Mitchell struck out Ruth and Gehrig,

Kenesaw Mountain Landis Kenesaw Mountain Landis (; November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944) was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death. He is remembered for his h ...

voided her contract and declared that women were unfit to play baseball as the game was "too strenuous." However, Mitchell continued to play professionally,

barnstorming Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in t ...

with the House of David, a men's team famous for their very long hair and long beards. While traveling with the House of David team, she would sometimes wear a fake beard for publicity. Mitchell retired in at the age of 23 after becoming furious since her story about playing baseball was being used as something of a side show – once being asked to pitch while riding a

donkey The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a ...

. She refused to come out of retirement when the

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was a professional women's baseball league founded by Philip K. Wrigley which existed from 1943 to 1954. The AAGPBL is the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the Uni ...

formed in 1943.

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

would formally ban the signing of women to contracts on June 21, . The ban lasted until when

Carey Schueler Carey A. Schueler (born April 15, 1974) is the daughter of former Chicago White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler. She was the first woman ever drafted by a Major League Baseball team when the White Sox picked the 18-year-old left-handed pitcher in ...

was drafted by the

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...

for the 1993 season. In Mitchell was invited to throw out the

ceremonial first pitch The ceremonial first pitch is a longstanding ritual of baseball in which a guest of honor throws a ball to mark the end of pregame festivities and the start of the game. Originally, the guest threw a ball from their seat in the grandstand to ...

for the

on their season opening day. Jackie Mitchell died in

Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia Fort Oglethorpe is a city predominantly in Catoosa County with some portions in Walker County in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 10,423. It is part of the Chattanooga, TN–GA Metropolitan St ...

, on January 7, 1987, and was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga.

Legacy

A musical about Mitchell's life entitled ''Unbelievable'' was developed by Kevin Fogarty (lyrics), Rachel DeVore Fogarty (music), and John Robert DeVore (book). It debuted in a staged reading on March 17, 2017, at Skyline Theatre Company in Bergen County, New Jersey. On May 27, 2017, the Chattanooga Lookouts honored Mitchell with a limited edition bobblehead to the 1st 1,000 fans who entered the stadium.

References

External links

Her Curves Were Too Much For Them: the Story of Jackie Mitchell
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, Jackie American female baseball players Minor league baseball players Baseball pitchers Sportspeople from Chattanooga, Tennessee Sportspeople from Fall River, Massachusetts People from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia Baseball players from Massachusetts Baseball players from Georgia (U.S. state) 1913 births 1987 deaths 20th-century American women 20th-century American people