Jan 5, 2020 3 min read

Born in 1912, Jackie Mitchell was on a baseball diamond learning how to play baseball after barely learning to walk.

Her father, Joseph Mitchell, taught her the basics – baserunning, fielding, hitting, throwing – but it was the Mitchell family’s next door neighbor, Dazzy Vance, who taught her how to pitch, helping her develop what he called a “drop ball,” which was the equivalent of today’s curveball/slider. Vance pitched for five different Major League teams in his 20-year career, from 1915 to 1935, and is the only pitcher to lead the National League in strikeouts seven consecutive seasons, earning him a Baseball Hall of Fame induction in 1955.

Mitchell was just 17 when she began pitching for the all-female Chattanooga Engelettes, after which she attended a baseball training camp in Atlanta. There she was noticed by the Engelettes owner, and owner of the all-male Chattanooga Lookouts, Joseph Engel, who, like his more famous counterpart, Bill Veeck, liked to create publicity stunts to draw crowds. As owner of the St. Louis Blues, Veeck sent a dwarf, Eddie Gaedel, to bat against the Detroit Tigers. Gaedel walked, the crowd went crazy, Gaedel became famous, and his uniform is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Engel signed Mitchell to the Lookouts, and she pitched her first professional game for them in April 1931, becoming the second woman to play organized professional baseball for a men’s team. The first, Lizzie Arlington, pitched for the Reading Coal Heavers in 1898.

Her second game was also in April 1931, an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. After the Lookouts’ starting pitcher gave up a double and single in the first inning, Mitchell was sent to the mound, where the next two batters were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, both first-ballot Hall of Famers.

After taking a ball, Ruth swung at and missed the next two pitches, followed by a called strike, angering him so much his teammates had to restrain him. Next up was Lou Gehrig, who swung at and missed all three pitches. Jackie Mitchell, a 19-year-old woman, had struck out “The Sultan of Swat” (Ruth’s nickname) and the “Iron Horse” (Gehrig’s nickname), two of the greatest hitters in baseball history.

Subsequently, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Landis voided her contract and declared women ineligible to play in the Major Leagues.

But she still played professional baseball, barnstorming with a semi-pro men’s team before finally retiring in 1937, still young, but fed up with being seen as a celebrity and sideshow attraction rather than a professional ballplayer.

She died this week in 1987 and was buried in Chattanooga. Supposedly, a musical based on her life, fittingly called “Unbelievable,” is in development.

Bruce G. Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net @BruceKauffmann