By Tresa Erickson
Imagine striking out legendary baseball players Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on a spring day in 1931? Incredible, right? Now imagine getting the job done as a teen girl? Impossible, right? Not if you were Jackie Mitchell.
“The girl who struck out Babe Ruth” was born Virne Beatrice Mitchell Gilbert sometime in the early 1900s in Fall River, MA. Her father, Dr. Joseph Mitchell, was an avid baseball fan and began teaching her the basics as soon as she could walk. The Mitchells also happened to live next door to Dazzy Vance, the young man who would go to pitch in the majors and eventually be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Vance taught Jackie Mitchell his dropping curveball pitch, which she relied upon throughout her career.
Mitchell grew to love the sport of baseball, and to hone her skills, she attended a baseball school in Atlanta. There, she caught the eye of Joe Engel, owner of the Class AA minor league team, the Chattanooga Lookouts. Engel offered Mitchell a spot on his team, and she agreed, signing the contract on March 28, 1931. Just days later, on April 2, 1931, Mitchell would face two of the most famed members of the New York Yankees’ Murderer’s Row.
Headed back to New York from spring training, the New York Yankees were scheduled to stop in Chattanooga and play an exhibition game against the Lookouts. After the starting pitcher gave up a single and a double, Engel decided to send in Mitchell. The first player she faced was none other than the “Sultan of Swat”-Babe Ruth. Her first pitch turned out to be a ball, but her next two pitches were good and Ruth swung at them and missed. Mitchell’s last pitch was questionable, and Ruth did not take a swing. According to the umpire, however, the pitch crossed the corner of the plate and Ruth was out. The “Sultan of Swat” was outraged and had a few choice words for the umpire before returning to the dugout.
The crowd was cheering wildly, but Mitchell had no time to revel in her success. Lou Gehrig was up next. Mitchell delivered three good pitches, all of which Gehrig swung at and missed. The 17-year-old had struck out two of the best batters in the history of baseball!
Mitchell had done the impossible, and not everyone was pleased. Afterwards in an interview with a local reporter, Babe Ruth declared the game too strenuous for women to play every day. Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis agreed with Ruth and voided Mitchell’s contract. Major League Baseball would ban women from the sport officially in 1952.
Not one to back down, Mitchell continued to play baseball with the House of David. Feeling more like a sideshow than an athlete, Mitchell retired from the sport in 1937. She was just 23, and when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was formed in 1943, she was one of the first players invited to try out. Mitchell declined and resumed life out of the public eye. She died on January 7, 1987, in Fort Oglesthorpe, GA.