Lisa Nehus Saxon (born October 28, 1959) is an American professional

sports writer Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the n ...

. While working for the ''

Daily News of Los Angeles The ''Los Angeles Daily News'' is the second-largest-circulating paid daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Southern California News Group, a branch of Colorado-based Digital First Media. The offices of the ''Dai ...

'' from 1979 until 1987, Saxon became the second woman to cover

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), ...

as a full-time beat for a daily newspaper, joining Claire Smith, who started at the ''Hartford Courant'' a year earlier. While fighting for women to gain equal access to press boxes and locker rooms, Saxon endured both verbal and physical abuse: "Going into the locker room, knots would get in my stomach; it was actually a physically uncomfortable thing to do because you didn't know what you would face. At the very least, you would have jockstraps thrown at you, and dirty undergarments. And that was an everyday occurrence. And then you would just build onto that what might happen. And you just hoped for the best when you went in." At one point the abuse became so horrific that Angels players

George Hendrick George Andrew Hendrick Jr. (born October 18, 1949) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder between and , most prominently as an integral member of the St. Louis Cardinals t ...

and

John Candelaria John Robert Candelaria (born November 6, 1953) is a retired Major League Baseball pitcher. Nicknamed "The Candy Man", he played in MLB during the years 1975–1993 for eight teams, the Pittsburgh Pirates, California Angels, New York Mets, New Y ...

stepped in to create a human shield between Saxon and one of her greatest tormentors,

Reggie Jackson Reginald Martinez Jackson (born May 18, 1946) is an American former professional baseball right fielder who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City / Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, and Cali ...

. Saxon said she did not go public with much of the abuse, because she feared that doing so would derail the ongoing efforts to allow women to have equal access to the team clubhouses. Saxon won numerous writing awards during her journalism career, which spanned four decades. She also worked at the Long Beach Press-Telegram and Riverside Press-Enterprise. In 2001, she began teaching Media, accepting jobs at Santa Monica College and

Palisades Charter High School Palisades Charter High School (usually colloquially known as Pali or Pali High and abbreviated as PCHS) is an independent charter secondary school in Los Angeles, United States. The high school serves the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades, ...

. Saxon received a bachelor's degree in journalism from

California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...

in 1983 and a graduate degree from

Mount St. Mary's University Mount St. Mary's University (The Mount) is a private Roman Catholic university in Emmitsburg, Maryland. It includes the largest Catholic seminary in the United States. The undergraduate programs are divided between the College of Liberal Arts, ...

in 2009. She left journalism in 2001 to become an educator. In 2016 and 2017, she was a featured speaker at events sponsored by the Baseball Reliquary. Saxon also appeared in some episodes of "The Sweet Spot, A Treasury of Baseball Stories," an anthology series by Jon Leonoudakis.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saxon, Lisa Nehus 1959 births American women sportswriters Sportswriters from California Living people American women non-fiction writers 21st-century American women California State University, Northridge alumni Mount St. Mary's University alumni