Friday, May 19, 1933

We went outside in Gym and played baseball. Last night we played a game and our side won. It was 8-6, I believe.

Seventeen-year-old Jackie Mitchell (left) poses with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig
after striking out both men back to back in an exhibition game on April 2, 1931.
A pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts, Jackie was known for her wicked,
dropping curve ball. A few days after the exhibition game, Baseball Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Jackie Mitchell's contract, claiming that
baseball was "too strenuous" for a woman. In 1933, after barnstorming across the
country pitching in other exhibition games, Jackie signed on with the House of David,
a men's team famous for their very long hair and long beards. Jackie retired from baseball
in 1937, at the age of 23, and went to work in her father's optometry office.