Sunday Morning Surprise

Story about Ludtke v. Kuhn in New York Times Sports Section

In its 2019 World Series coverage, the New York Times editors snuck in this box about my 1977-1978 legal action , Ludtke v. Kuhn, to gain equal access for women reporters, which meant we could fully do our jobs by interviewing ballplayers in the locker rooms, just like our male colleagues had done for decades. This photo is from a book party held in Washington, D.C. (home of my friend Ellen Hume) to celebrate the publication of “On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America.” Maya is pulling on my friend Hillary Clinton’s necklace as my childhood friend Kathleen Kennedy Townsend joins us.

I posted this photo on my Facebook page, accompanied by a brief story of how I’d learned about it from several friends. After a week in which we heard about the demeaning, degrading behavior that targeted three women reporters in the Houston Astros locker room – and saw how the team tried at first to claim that the Sports Illustrated writer, Stephanie Apstein, had fabricated the account – it’s good to see an accurate account of this history of what women have been up against in sports reporting through the decades. Lots of progress seen – hey, terrific women broadcasting games in network booths is one giant leap forward – but then there are these reminders of how this fight for equal treatment goes on.

“My own Sunday morning shocker! First a text from my former Time magazine colleague Claudia Wallis “so cool to come across the article about you and mentioned your “upcoming memoir” as I read this morning’s paper.” What story, I asked myself. What paper? A text back to her led me to The New York Times sports section, and this boxed story on the World Series page. Complete surprise to me. Then, I see an email with the header NYT, and its from Betsy Lipson who rows where I do Community Rowing, Inc. - CRI, and she writes: “I am CRI rower who’s been a fan girl of yours, and I’m so excited to hear you finished your book. Can’t wait to read it.” And like Claudia, she sends me a shot of the story.

Let’s break here just to say that I am not finished writing my memoir, so it will be a while until it is published. Perhaps upcoming is a bit of misleading word, but I am writing it and it will, one day, be published.

Back to this morning, when another text arrives from Ginger Ryan with news that she’d recognized me in the photo before she saw the headline. Well, that’s good since that photo was taken 22 years ago, when my friends Hillary Clinton and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend joined me at a book party thrown by Ellen Hume at her home in Washington, D.C. to celebrate publication of my first book, “On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America.”

And now I see a tweet from my dear friend Lisa Olson who paid much too high of a price in the early 1990 for doing her job in the New England Patriots locker room.

What I love most about this morning is how the threads of my friendships weave together in a knot of solidarity ... from my journalism days (Claudia), from my rowing life (Betsy), from my Mothers Out Front climate activism (Ginger), and from my sports writing life and our fight for equal rights (Lisa). Friendship means the world to me, and thanks to all of you who reached out to me to share in this reminder that the struggle endures, the fight goes on.”

— Melissa Ludtke, Facebook page

In Memory of Christina-Taylor Green: A Girl Who Loved Baseball

Christina-Taylor Green watched over her younger brother, reading to him as a big sister does. in her memory, this sculpture was dedicated and stands in sad remembrance of this girl who was born on 9/11, who died from when bullets aimed at Representative Gabby Giffords hit her. That was on a morning when Christina, who was nine year old, awakened feeling excited that her neighbor was taking her to meet a woman she admired in politics.

Christina-Taylor had just been elected her class president at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona. Her plans were to start a club at her school to help her less fortunate classmates. I knew none of this about her or much about her aunt Kim Green, when in my last blog I shared the photograph of Kim as a girl wearing a baseball glove who then was just about the same age as Christina when she died. Kim had tried to play on her town's Little League Baseball team, but she couldn't because she was a girl. When Christina was nine, she was the only girl playing baseball on her Little League team. She put her glove on to play second base.

When Christina was nine, she was the only girl playing baseball on her Little League team. She put her glove on to play second base.

Christina-Taylor Green

Two days after I published my blog, "Play Ball," this comment arrived from Perry Barber. I didn't know Perry then, but I know I lot more about her now – and this tells me why she wrote to me about Christina-Taylor. More on Perry later. Now the words Perry shared with me:

“Kim Green, the little girl shown in the photo from 1974, is the sister of Roxanna Green and aunt to Roxanna’s daughter, another baseball-loving little girl whose name was Christina-Taylor Green.

Christina was murdered in the same Arizona shooting that severely injured then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords back in 2011. Christina was honored at the very first Baseball For All Nationals tournament in Kissimmee, Florida in 2013; the more than two hundred baseball-playing girls from all over the globe who participated in the tournament, organized by BFA founder Justine Siegal, wore armbands with Christina’s initials in her memory. Christina’s spirit continues to inspire other girls who play and love baseball the way she did, the way her aunt and her whole family has done for generations. ”

I wrote these words to Perry: 

“How remarkable, Perry Barber, for you to introduce me to Christina-Taylor Green and to share her remarkable life with me – a life of such extraordinary promise, beauty and heart, a life which so sadly was shortened by the violence that’s all too horribly visited on children in America today. And to learn from you about her love of baseball, how Baseball for All honored her at its National Tournament, and how the girls playing in it wore armbands in her memory. Your words are leading me to write another blog post that I will be sharing soon, words of mine in honor of Christina-Taylor, a girl I wish I’d had the pleasure of meeting, a girl whose memory will stay within me forever. With gratitude for you enabling me to know her. Melissa”

And then I put Perry Barber's name into Google search and before long I knew why Perry toook the moments she did to write to me about Christina-Taylor. With this girl and woman, baseball became a shared passion.

Perry Barber, MSBL umpire

Soon, I came upon this story, "Perry Barber: Renaissance Umpire," published by the Men’s Senior Baseball League (MSBL)/Men’s Adult Baseball League (MABL), and is my introduction – now yours – to Perry Barber:

“Perry Barber is a very extraordinary lady. This 61 year old dynamo is a Jeopardy game show champion from 1972 when Art Flemming paved the way for Alex Trebek and is also a musician who’s talent took her to the same stage as the ‘Boss’, Bruce Springsteen, as his opening act. She is also an MSBL umpire in her third year of working the MSBL World Series down here in the warm sun of Arizona.”

— Perry Barber: Renaissance Umpire

How remarkable that by reading about a threat allegedly made about an 11-year old girl who wanted to play baseball in New Hampshire, I start this magical chain reaction with stories of girls and baseball. How magnificent, too, that Justine Siegal, who in 2009 was the first female coach of a Major League baseball team (the Oakland A's) after she'd founded Baseball for All at the age of 23, was the person to introduce me to Karen Zerby Buzzelle, the mom who'd founded the all girls baseball team, the Boston Slammers. So when the 11-year old girl from New Hampshire came to scrimmage with the Boston Slammers and inspired me to write a blog post about her, I came to learn about Kim Green's long-ago passion to play baseball and how in 1974 her mom Sheila made it happen for Kim and lots of other girls, as moms like Karen still do. Then, I thought about how 1974 had been the year when I followed my passion for baseball and other sports to becoming a researcher and reporter at Sports Illustrated, and in this job I'd become the first woman to cover Major League Baseball full-time and four years later in 1978 I'd win a federal court case to give women equal access to report on baseball.

For Perry Barber to be the one to introduce me to Christina–Taylor, this girl who loved baseball, is fitting. Feeling Now connected with Christina and with the youthful Kim and her childhood friend Alice, and with Perry, makes me wish for the day when our shared passion won't be a story told only by a few of us who love this game and possess the inner drive to want to share it with others. Instead, my dream is that one day, soon, when more girls and women play baseball that the crowds cheering them on and the media telling their stories will be the equal in size and yes, in passion, to those who gather to watch and report on the boys and men.

Now in my mid-60s I'm writing this blog, my first, and I am writing my memoir, Locker Room Talk, about the time in America's history when I was in my mid-20s and women in America marched to fight back against gender discrimination. I want my 21-year old daughter Maya to know how I was able to play a small role in this social movement for gender equality by opening the baseball's locker room doors to the girls and women whose job it was then – and one day would be – to report on baseball.

These doors, I am happy to say, are ones that many women have walked through. 

Play Ball!

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about an 11-year old girl who loves to play baseball. In New Hampshire, where she lives, she ended up in the midst of a controversy created by adult coaches, after a coach allegedly threatened to "bean" her as a tactic to get her to quit playing.

Here is that girl at bat in a scrimmage of the Boston Slammers, an all-girl baseball team. After the Slammers' coaches heard about her situation with her New Hampshire league, where she was the only girl in her age group, the Boston Slammers invited her to play on their team. On Sunday afternoon, she did. Her father, Dan, drove her an hour and a half from Southern New Hampshire to Boston to practice with the Slammers, and while expressing his gratitude for their invitation, he told me that until the Slammers called he hadn't known that all girls baseball teams and leagues existed. Instead of being the only girl on a team, his daughter is now surrounded by girls her age who love playing baseball as much as she does.

The girls' bats, backpacks and batting helmet.

Meanwhile, back in New Hampshire, the Oyster River Youth Association, who oversees sports activities for youth in this three-town region of Southern New Hampshire, completed their own "independent" investigation of the alleged coaches' threat – that they said they would instruct a player to “bean” this player.  Other coaches had brought this information to the attention of the girl's father. After the association president claimed in a newspaper was false, he arranged for the investigation to take place. On May 2, the association released their findings.  The coach found to have made a comment regarding wanting this player to quit – though he denied proposing that any physical harm be done to her – was dismissed.

Still pending is what will happen in the wake of these investigative findings. In Durham, one of the three towns whose youth play sports through this association, the town council voted to withhold funds until the report was issued.

“The town council in Durham unanimously adopted a resolution Monday night [April 16] that withholds already approved funding for the Oyster River Youth Association pending the outcome of an investigation into a claim that a baseball coach threatened to have a child ‘bean’ an 11-year-old girl.”

— New Hampshire Union Leader

For now the Boston Slammers are this 11-year old's new team.

On first base in her first scrimmage with the Boston Slammers.

On May 18 the Boston Slammers, fielding two full teams, will travel to New Jersey for the regional Baseball for All tournament named after Maria Pepe, whose 1974 legal action made it possible for girls to play Little League Baseball in New Jersey. In neighboring Delaware, two girls, Kim Green and Alice Weldin heard that girls were playing Little League and they wanted to do the same. When they discovered the ruling didn't apply to them, Kim's mother, Sylvia, threatened legal action and then started a Little League team all their own. The girls' team was called the Angels. Kim's father, Dallas, then the Phillies’ director of minor leagues and scouting and would become the Phillies manager in 1979, was asked about his daughter playing Little League with the boys, "he told them if a girl was good enough to compete with the boys, she should be allowed to do it," according to the Washington Post. 

“Sylvia plastered notices around the school and the area: She would hold tryouts for an all-girls Little League team, players ages 8 and 9. ‘One hundred-something girls came out,’ she remembered. ‘Then the first one picked up a hard ball and threw to another one who couldn’t catch a hard ball and boom, smack in the head.’

Sylvia suddenly appreciated the benefits of Little League’s insurance coverage but stuck with her vision and whittled the group down to a team of players with talent and experience, anchored by Kim and her friends. In uniforms of powder blue — not pink — the Angels charged through Midway’s Little League competition. They won the first eight games of the 1974 season against all-boys teams.

Kim’s best friend, Alice Weldin, who has since died of cancer, was the Angels’ catcher. From her spot behind the plate, she could hear the disgruntled mumbling of batters and the angry chatter of boys in the opposing dugout, most often the phrase ‘she plays pretty good for a girl.’

’We changed a lot of reactions,’ Kim said. ‘Parents thinking if a little girl can hit like this, she can play. Nobody was purposely mean about it, but I think it was an educational thing.’

The Angels finished second in the league.”

— The Washington Post

A baseball player's mom, Karen Zerby Buzzelle, founded the Boston Slammers. When I hung out along the sidelines yesterday afternoon and watched the girls scrimmage, it was mostly moms who were sitting with me. Then, there was one dad from New Hampshire who had brought his 11-year old daughter to this neighboring state so she could play baseball with girls. This strikes me as not so different than what happened in 1974 when girls from the neighboring states of New Jersey and Delaware wanted to play baseball, and inspired by each other, they did.

Baseball: A Sport Girls Love. A Sport Girls Play.

12-year old Michaela Silher was the only girl playing on her Little League team in Port St. Lucie, Florida. "It's hard being a girl and going into baseball because you don't get the respect sometimes that you want," Sihler told the TC Palm, on a day when she was also the only girl on any team in the baseball tournament,

This headline stopped me cold:

Report: New Hampshire Youth Baseball Coaches Planned To Bean Their League's Lone Girl Player Into Quitting

A girl playing baseball is so threatening to a team or league that hitting her in the head with a pitched baseball seems a good idea? Even verbalizing such an idea, even if you don't intend to go through with it is dangerous and extremely worrisome.  

I read of this threat in Deadspin, in a story picked up from Foster's Daily Democrat, a local newspaper near the girl's hometown, Madbury, New Hampshire. An 11-year-old girl's father had contacted the local baseball association officials to say that "two coaches said they would instruct a player to 'bean' his daughter — strike her in the head with a baseball during practice — in order to intimidate her into leaving the baseball program." His allegation was based on what he'd been told by other coaches who attended the meeting where the plan was discussed.

His daughter is the only girl playing in her age-bracket of this baseball league. She was also reportedly the last player drafted when the coaches met to select their teams. She's played T-ball and baseball baseball and T-ball with teams in this region since 2012, mostly without incident. At younger ages, several other girls were with her on baseball teams, but as they reached their pre-teen years, her female peers switched to softball – while she stayed with baseball.

The matter is being investigated, according to the story, but it is unclear what the investigation revealed or what steps, if any, are being taken to remedy the situation.

My reading of this story coincided with an invitation to spend a few hours on a splendid Sunday afternoon at the Boston Slammers practice. The Slammers are three all-girls' baseball teams – 11 years old upper age, 13 years old and 18 years old – organized by Karen Zerby Buzzelle. a mom. The teams' summer season include a bunch of scrimmages, mostly against boys' teams, and a regional girls' baseball tournament in New Jersey in honor of Marie Pepe.

“Girls can play baseball today because Maria Pepe stood up for their right to play,” said Ms. Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach with a Major League Baseball organization and founder of Baseball for All.

“Maria Pepe, at that time, was a little girl that did not realize what the future would hold as far as playing little league baseball and the controversy it would bring. With her ability to play baseball and her determination, she stood up to the controversy. Because of Maria’s courage and fortitude, she won the court case,” says James Farina, her Little League coach.

In 1972, Maria Pepe, then 12-years old, was selected for her Hoboken, NJ Little League team. After playing three games as a starting pitcher, she was told she could not continue to play under Little League rules dating from 1951 that prohibited girls from playing Little League baseball. With support from her coach, James Farina, Maria Pepe fought for the right to play. The National Organization for Women filed a gender discrimination case on her behalf and won. Her case led to the nationwide acceptance of the right for girls and women to play sports, which aided the passage of the 1975 federal regulations that ensured equal rights to sports in education in accordance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

— Baseball for All press release about Maria Pepe girls' baseball tournament

In the first week of August, the Boston Slammers will travel to Rockford, Illinois, the one-time home of the Rockford Peaches in the  All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, for the national girls' baseball championship.

So meet the Boston Slammers – with a few photos and videos from their indoor practice on Sunday. I'll be hanging out with the girls through the summer, so stay tuned. More stories to share ahead. But first a shout out to Justine Siegal who founded Baseball for All so girls could play the game they love, for steering me to my new hometown baseball team, the Slammers.

“I was 13-years-old the first time I was told I shouldn’t play baseball because I was a girl.

My coach explained to me that he didn’t want me on his baseball team and that I should play softball instead. It didn’t matter that I was one of the best players on the team, that I loved baseball, or that I practiced way more than any of my male friends. It only mattered that I was a girl.

The day my coach told me to quit was that day I decided to play baseball forever.

Too many girls are still told they can’t play baseball because they are girls. I founded Baseball For All to empower girls to believe in themselves and to keep playing the game they love. I fear if you tell a girl she can’t play baseball what else will she think she can’t do? I then worry what else boys will think girls can’t do?

Baseball For All is leveling the playing field for girls across America by addressing the social justice issue of gender inequality. I want girls to know they can follow their passions. That they have no limits. That their dreams matter. ”

— Baseball for All, message from Justine Siegal

Meet the Boston Slammers

Pitch Like a Girl, the Boston Slammers

Catch Like a Girl, Boston Slammers

Two hour practice begins with drills.