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Jackie Mitchell Photo Gallery

Many of you are familiar with the story of Jackie Mitchell striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in 1931. But was it legit or a stunt? Ron Christensen takes a deep dive into the historic event with detailed information. Personally, I’ve always thought it was a publicity stunt dreamt up by Babe’s agent,  Christy Walsh, but you can decide for yourself! -GL

Jackie Mitchell:

The Female “David” Who Slew Two “Goliaths!

“The whole thing was a jest, a ‘Barnumesque’ prank…” – Baseball historian John Thorn

Many of you know the tale of Jackie Mitchell, the second ever woman to sign a professional baseball contract.  And though this fact is itself significant, what makes Jackie’s tale truly historic is that in 1931 while facing the New York Yankees, seventeen year old Jackie Mitchell struck out Babe Ruth on four pitches.  Then, to prove her mettle, she struck out Lou Gehrig with her next three pitches.  Her first pitch to Ruth was a ball inside.  Ruth swung through and missed the next two pitches.  Jackie’s fourth pitch to Ruth was a called strike three, and in response Ruth threw down his bat in an obvious display of anger before storming back to the dugout.  Gehrig then followed, swinging through and missing each of Jackie’s next three pitches.  In just seven pitches, Jackie Mitchell felled the two mightiest Titans of the baseball world, a mythic feat worthy of David slewing Goliath, but without slings and stones.  And in case you were wondering, when it was done she did not cut off their heads in David-like fashion, but instead posed with them for photos.

An incredible story for sure, but let’s add some perspective.  This wasn’t the World Series, or an All-Star game.  It wasn’t a game on the line in a pennant race, even though there wasn’t much of pennant race in 1931.  It wasn’t even a regularly scheduled season game.  It was an exhibition game, played on April 2nd, twelve days before the Yankees would open their season at home against the Boston Red Sox.  The game was played in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a rail-stop in the Yankees’ return to New York from their spring training home in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Their opponent?  The Chattanooga Lookouts, a minor league Double-A club in the Southern Association with no major league affiliation. 

The Lookouts were owned by Joe Engel, a one-time starting pitcher with the Washington Senators alongside Walter Johnson.  An unabashed self-promoter with a reputation for crazy stunts, Engel tried just about anything during the throes of the Depression to generate publicity for his baseball team.  He once traded a shortstop for a 25 pound turkey, which he cooked and served to local reporters.  He staged an elephant hunt in the outfield – with live elephants!  He placed singing canaries in the grandstands, and featured a base-running ostrich.  He was not at all shy about grabbing headlines through the staging of outrageous antics.  Add to this the timing of the game.  Although played on April 2nd, the game was originally contracted to be played the day before, on April 1st, but it was canceled due to cold weather.  Was it intended to be an elaborate April Fool’s joke? 

There’s some further context worth mentioning.  Jackie signed her contract with the Lookouts shortly after Engel scheduled the exhibition game with the Yankees.  The local newspapers ran the story of Jackie signing a professional contract, and even carried a picture of her doing so.  The papers quoted Engel boasting that Jackie would pitch against the Yankees, and the story was quickly gobbled up with much fanfare by the national press.  When the game finally commenced, Jackie wasn’t on the mound.  In fact, she wasn’t even on the field.  Clyde Barfoot started for the Lookouts, and promptly gave up a double to center fielder Earle Combs and a single to shortstop Lyn Lary before being pulled by Engel, who brought in Mitchell to face Babe Ruth.  After striking out Ruth and Gehrig, Mitchell walked third baseman Tony Lazzeri on four pitches.  Lazzeri would be the last batter Mitchell faced, as Engel removed her from the game and reinserted Barfoot. 

It seems pretty obvious that Engel’s plan all along was to have Jackie pitch to only Ruth, Gehrig and Lazzeri, the heart of the Yankees’ Murderer’s Row.  Why else would he take her out after pitching so well to baseball’s immortals?  And why bring back Barfoot, who had gotten off to such a slow start and slowed even further after his return to the mound, losing the game 14-4?  In the end, the 4,000 fans in attendance didn’t care about the final score.  They had witnessed baseball history in the first inning, and that’s really all they, the wire services and the national press talked about in the days and weeks to come.  Most likely, that’s all Engel cared about as well. 

So, was it real?  Or was it a creatively staged publicity stunt?  Whatever it was, it didn’t sit well with Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis.  The following day Landis voided Mitchell’s contract with the Lookouts, declaring that women were unfit to play baseball because the game was too strenuous for them.  Sadly, the three batters Mitchell faced that day would encompass the full extent of her playing career in professional baseball.

Neither Ruth nor Gehrig commented publicly on the legitimacy of their at bats, other than to say that they had no intention of striking out against Mitchell.  Teammate Lefty Gomez agreed, saying that Manager Joe McCarthy would never tolerate such a stunt.  Lazzeri, who batted against Mitchell, said he was up there to hit, saying, “the only thing I was told was don’t hit one up the middle and kill her.  Don’t kill her with a line drive.  That’s all they told me.”  Tim Wiles, the former research director of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, also believed the strikeouts were real, saying “much of batting has to do with timing and familiarity with the pitcher, and everything about Jackie Mitchell was unfamiliar to Ruth and Gehrig.”  He suspected that the rumors of the strikeouts being staged had more to do with protecting male egos.  After all, hitters as great as Ruth and Gehrig might be reluctant to admit they’d been struck out by a seventeen year old girl. 

John Thorn, the official historian for Major League Baseball, disagrees and believes it was all a well-choreographed publicity stunt.  He is on record as saying “

The whole thing was a jest, a Barnumesque prank.  Jackie Mitchell striking out Ruth and Gehrig is a good story for children’s books, but it belongs in the pantheon with the Easter Bunny and Abner Doubleday ‘inventing’ baseball.” 

And what of Jackie Mitchell?  She was actually a well-regarded pitcher in her own right.  Growing up in Chattanooga she was taught to pitch and throw a ‘drop ball’ by her neighbor, none other than future Hall of Famer Dazzy Vance.  Vance, a pitcher for many years with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was the National League MVP in 1924 and led the NL in strikeouts seven consecutive seasons.  Mitchell was a southpaw, and was said to have an unorthodox delivery motion, which might have fooled Ruth and Gehrig, both left handed batters, seeing her for the first time.  The extent of the break to her drop ball might also have had something to do with fooling Ruth and Gehrig. 

After her contract was voided, Mitchell went on to pitch for several years with the House of David, a barnstorming men’s baseball team out of Michigan.  She retired from baseball in 1937, resenting the stories that her conquest of Ruth and Gehrig was somehow staged.  Jackie Mitchell passed away on January 7, 1987, and until the day she died she sincerely believed she had truly struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. 

Was it real or was it staged?  You decide.

Ron Christensen.

REFERENCES:

1. SABR: The Mystery of Jackie Mitchell and Babe Ruth, by Leslie Heaphy
2. com: The Woman Who Struck Out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, by John Banks
3. Wikipedia: Jackie Mitchell
4. com: Teen Girl Jackie Mitchell K’s Ruth and Gehrig, by Kelsie Heneghan
5. com: The Girl Who Maybe Struck Out Ruth and Gehrig, by Erin Donahue
6. Woman Whiffs Ruth and Gehrig, by William E. Brandt
7. Smithsonian Magazine: The Woman Who Maybe Struck out Ruth and Gehrig, by Tony Horwitz
8. Baseball Reference
9. Baseball Almanac

We’d love to hear what you think about this or any other related baseball history topic…please leave comments below.

Gary Livacari 

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