I didn't really grow up a sports kid. I was a quintessential indoor child, one that spent more time with her nose in a book than paying attention to anything in the sports world. This means, of course, that my first sports role model was introduced not through the TV, not live, but through words on the page. Young elementary school Bex picked up a book out of the sports bin of silent reading one day and found someone to be inspired by. The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth tells the story of Jackie Mitchell, one of the first female pitchers in pro baseball. Mitchell was a teenage girl in it for the love of the game, and she was damn good too, striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition match against the Yankees in 1931. After that game, Mitchell's contract was voided, with the commissioner calling baseball "too strenous" for women. She wasn't able to play with the Chattanooga Lookouts anymore, but that didn't stop her from playing the game she loved.
I think one of the big ideas that I've grown up with has been: be the best that you can be, and don't let anyone tell you your gender makes you less than. I think a part of that starts with hearing about Jackie Mitchell at such a young age. I didn't know anything about baseball at the time, and to be frank, I still don't know a ton. But I know that every summer for the rest of elementary school, I went to as many local baseball games as I could. It helped that their stadium was two blocks from my house, but that detail doesn't matter. What matters is that I'd sit in the stands and think about what it would be like to watch someone like me out there kicking ass and making grown men angry just by being there.
I think one of the big ideas that I've grown up with has been: be the best that you can be, and don't let anyone tell you your gender makes you less than. I think a part of that starts with hearing about Jackie Mitchell at such a young age. I didn't know anything about baseball at the time, and to be frank, I still don't know a ton. But I know that every summer for the rest of elementary school, I went to as many local baseball games as I could. It helped that their stadium was two blocks from my house, but that detail doesn't matter. What matters is that I'd sit in the stands and think about what it would be like to watch someone like me out there kicking ass and making grown men angry just by being there.