Women in baseball

Women have a long history in American baseball and many women's teams have existed over the years. Baseball was played at women's colleges in New York and New England as early as the mid-nineteenth century;^[1] teams were formed at Vassar College, Smith College, Wellesley College, and Mount Holyoke College.^[2] An African American women's team, the Philadelphia Dolly Vardens, was formed in 1867.^[3]

A number of women's barnstorming teams have existed,^[4] and women have played alongside major league players in exhibition games. On April 2, 1931, 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell (originally known as "Virne Beatrice Mitchell Gilbert") of the Chattanooga Lookouts struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game. Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract as a result.^[5] The first girl to play on a boys varsity high school baseball team was Nellie Twardzik, on April 24, 1935. Twardzik started at first base for the Bartlett High School Indians in Webster, Massachusetts from 1935 through 1937. Her high school letter and glove are on display in the "Diamond Dreams" exhibit featuring women in baseball at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

In 1946, former player Edith Houghton became the first woman to work as an independent scout in Major League Baseball when she was hired by the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League.^[6] In 1989, NBC's Gayle Gardner became the first woman to regularly host Major League Baseball games for a major television network. In 2015, Jessica Mendoza was the first female analyst for a Major League Baseball game in the history of ESPN, and Margaret Donahue (1892–1978) was the first non-owner female front office executive in Major League Baseball, starting as a stenographer for the Chicago Cubs in 1919 before becoming the team's corporate secretary in 1926 and team vice president and executive secretary before she retired in 1958.^[7]

Effa Manley, the only woman member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame (inducted 2006), co-owned the Newark Eagles baseball franchise in the Negro leagues from 1935 to 1948.^[8]