Summer of 1955, Goodell Street in Ecorse, Michigan

Kathy Warnes

I pitched my first exhibition baseball game when I was 11 and in love with Stinky Johnson, the star pitcher on our opposing team, the Thunderbolts.

April had arrived for another year, and for another year, it brought spring fever and baseball. My position on our team, the Silver Streaks, was center field and, at least unofficially, relief pitcher.

In our male chauvinist neighborhood, a girl even making the team was unusual, and a girl pitching was as rare as a triple play. But my teammates figured that I’d never be called on to pitch, so what was the harm of appointing me pitcher in name only, just to shut me up?

Besides, they always treated me like one of the boys, and I think that most of them forgot that I was a girl. I suppose the fact that Fingers, our star pitcher, was one of my six brothers had something to do with my playing and acceptance by the team.

Fingers and I practiced for two years, until I was good enough to make the team. Now that I was playing, I knew that the first time I missed a fly ball or bobbled any throws to the infield, I’d be off the team quicker than a called strike. I spent a lot of time practicing and studying baseball, and it paid off.

And to make doubly sure, I dressed and looked the part. At 11, I was still as slim and straight as a boy, and my blue jeans and T-shirt with a zigzag of lightning across it blended in perfectly with my teammates’.

My feet were also housed in sneakers just like theirs. And even though at Mom’s insistence, my hair was long, I always braided it tightly and pinned the braids under my cap, which I wore low over my eyes. The other Silver Streaks didn’t tell on me, and since we mostly played teams from other neighborhoods, my secret was safe.

Then came the exhibition game that was my undoing. The first thing that went wrong that gloomy April day was Fingers breaking his arm two hours before the game was to start. He fell down the basement steps and snap! His arm broke in two places.

Whitey Nelson, our captain, panicked. The other two good players on our team also played shortstop and third base, and they couldn’t be spared. Our only spare player was another center fielder. That left him and our catcher, Dan Jenkins, as relief pitchers.

“Jenkins can catch, but he doesn’t know how to pitch,” Whitey said, as we stood, watching the crowd straggle over and sit on the grass. I showed him my glove and grasped a hardball between my fingers.

“I got a pretty good screwball,” I said.

“We need Jenkins to catch, and besides, he can’t pitch. So who’s gonna pitch?” Whitey moaned.

“Let me throw you a few,” I coaxed him. “Fingers taught me everything I know and everything he knows. That’s quite a bit.”

Whitey shook his head. “I….” He broke off in midsentence to watch the Thunderbolts and Stinky Johnson, their star, race onto the field. I admired Stinky Johnson’s shoulders and the way his muscles rippled when he walked.

“I’m a what?” I asked, my eyes still on Stinky.

“Nothing,” Whitey said. He looked down the field. “Throw me a fastball.”

I threw him two of my best. One was a sizzling fastball that Fingers and I had worked on for months, and the other was a screwball spinner that I’d perfected myself. I raced over to Whitey, who stood, clutching his glove to his heart, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

“Well?” I panted.

“You’re a darned good pitcher. Get in there and get ‘em. We got to win this game,” he told me.

Stinky and I fought a pitching duel for the first four innings. Neither of us gave up any hits. As we were going off the field at the end of the fourth inning, Stinky sidled up to me and whispered, “Hey, when the game’s over, will you give me a few pointers on how to throw that screwball of yours? It’s great.”

“Sure thing,” I said, spitting out of the corner of my mouth just like he did.

Stinky didn’t know it, but he sat right behind me in English class, and even though he read as well as I did, I was a better speller. The only time he ever paid any attention to me was when I answered a question for him and got it wrong. Then he pulled my braids.

Stinky didn’t know it, but I’d had crush on him since third grade, and my heart beat faster every time he sat behind me. I even listened to him breathe.

The top of the fifth was a good half inning for the Silver Streaks. Stinky gave up two runs on three hits. In the bottom of the fifth, I retired the two batters in front of him to preserve my no-hitter. When Stinky stepped up to the plate, my stomach twisted like a caterpillar.

“Get him out,” my competitive side urged me. But somewhere in the unexplored, feminine part of my psyche, I wanted to get his attention with something besides pitching. That’s the only excuse I have for what I did next.

Pretending to bend over the pitcher’s mound and rub my hands in the dirt, I loosened the rubber bands on my braids, pulled out the bobby pins that held them so securely under my hat, and let them go.

Waves of long brown hair flowed around my shoulders. The unexplored, feminine part of me was proud of the way my hair gleamed in the sunlight and the way Stinky stared at me.

My teammates groaned. My secret was out. Would the game be over? Me? I wondered if Stinky thought I was pretty.

Stinky threw down his bat. “I ain’t batting off any girl pitcher,” he said.

“Play ball!” the umpire ordered.

“But she’s a girl!” Stinky protested.

“She’s a Silver Streak! Play ball!” the umpire growled.

“Girls don’t know how to pitch!” Stinky insisted.

“Who’s got the no-hitter going?” I demanded.

“You’re still a girl!” Stinky protested.

“Oh, no I’m not!” While everyone watched, I rebraided my hair and fastened the rubber bands snugly around the ends. I pinned my braids securely back up inside my hat. “I’m a Silver Streak, just like the ump said.”

I rubbed a little more dirt on my braids, and then I struck Stinky out. When we crowded into the pizza parlor afterward, I celebrated just as happily as my teammates, but once in a while, I fingered the braids still pinned up inside my hat thoughtfully.

Kathy Warns is a writer and historian, specializing in Great Lakes history.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 | Email This Post

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