Last month’s book club subject was a biography of Satchel Paige and this month’s feature is similar in some ways. That being said, Throw Like a Woman, by Susan Petrone, is just the second fictional book in the Burning River Book Club after Shoeless Joe (the source material for the movie Field of Dreams).
While trying not to give away any spoilers beyond what is on the covers, Throw Like a Woman is a story of a woman in her 40’s who discovers she can throw in the upper 80’s and eventually becomes a Major League relief pitcher, the first female player in Major or minor league baseball.. It came out in Spring of 2015 and was written by one of the co-founders of It’s Pronounced Lajaway, an Indians blog that we have worked extensively with through the Tribe Time Now podcast. It is an enthralling story and, if you plan on reading it (and you should) you may want to avoid the rest of the commentary until you are done. I will try to remain fairly spoiler free, though.
The most curious part of this whole story is the age and upbringing of the protagonist, Brenda Haversham. While she had training as a child, she didn’t even play softball in high school or college and essentially didn’t throw a baseball for 20+ years before she was clocked in the 80’s by a RADAR gun at over 40 years old. It is this part of the story that is unbelievable, not that a woman could play professional baseball, but that the person who would break that barrier wouldn’t be a 25 year old phenom out of college, but an out of shape housewife who just happened to throw batting practice to her kids one day because their father didn’t show up for his weekend with his kids.
Beyond this single point, I found the book to be incredibly accurate and realistic as far as I’m aware. I’ve been close enough to the game that I believe her descriptions of player interactions to be accurate, particularly considering how individuals would react to having a woman on the roster. The reactions of fans were less realistic in my mind as I can’t imagine people actually protesting a woman playing in the Majors (a major motivational plot point), although the acts of individual personal and online interactions were almost certainly accurate. Based on personal observations, people are much braver with online anonymity, but would not risk being seen as socially backwards by actually showing up to an event with signs against women in sports.
The subject of a woman playing in professional baseball has been one I’ve thought of for a long time and am personally, completely for. In general, it’s always been assumed that if a woman were to break in, she would have to be a pitcher (Haversham is lucky she plays for an AL team as she admits she can’t hit) and would have to get by exclusively with breaking pitches. Petrone breaks this mold by having the short work reliever throw heat, eventually hitting the mid-90’s once she reaches the Majors. Despite all this, and ignored completely in the book, there have been women who have played professional baseball and they weren’t all pitchers.
Toni Stone (2B for 50 games with the Indianapolis Clowns and KC Monarchs from 1953 through 1954), Connie Morgan (2B, Clowns, 1954) and Mamie Johnson (SP, Clowns 1954) played in the Negro Leagues and saw a measure of success although they were more like a minor league by this point. Of these, Johnson was the most comparable to Haversham as she was a little older (22, not 40+) and she reportedly threw as hard as her male counterparts. The women were supposedly hired as a gate attraction, similarly to Haversham in Throw Like a Woman, but in neither case were they embarrassed by their performance.
Back to the fictional story, embarrassment was an extremely important part in the Indians signing/promoting/playing Haversham in the book and to the pitcher herself. As a breaker of a real or imagined barrier, she set the standard for all women in the future. It could be this reason that Petrone chose the elevated age of her star. Similar to how Jackie Robinson was chosen to break the color barrier, the player had to be mature and handle extreme amounts of harassment without recourse. That in addition to being talented enough to prove the those who say that an entire race or gender is inferior incorrect.
In this, comparison to Satchel Paige‘s rookie year in Cleveland is a more fair comparison to the young Robinson. The difference here is that Paige had decades of success, but as far as dealing with issues of age and being ostracized, it was similar. In particular, the way the character handled problems with teammates and “fans” was likely at least partially thanks to her age and experience and this has changed my opinions on the subject.
I still believe this is a barrier that will be broken in my lifetime and instead of a 22 year old junk thrower with impeccable control, I wouldn’t be surprised if the breakthrough athlete is nearer or past 30 and can throw some heat. In fact, we may already be working towards this as two women, Kelsie Whitmore and Stacy Piagno, were signed by the Independent League Sonoma Stompers just a few months ago. There was also Melissa Mayeux from France, who was added to the international registration list in 2015 making her eligible to sign as a free agent. The potential barrier breaker will likely not be one of these women, but they are all making the small steps necessary to make a woman in Major League Baseball possible.
Maybe this is another unrealistic aspect of the book, but it sounded about right to me when I read it. Haversham begins her professional career with the Lake County Captains (making this probably the only fictional book ever that devotes a significant amount of time to the minor league franchise that is deserving of more attention), is then promoted quickly to AAA, then straight to the Majors. I’m not saying anything against this progression in the book, and again it is likely due to the fact that her age limits the length of her playing career, but the Indians almost never promote anyone directly from Lake County to Columbus without at least a year in Lynchburg and Akron. Again, if a 40 year old rookie spent as much time in the minors as the Indians usually would prefer, they would be too old to play by the time they made the Majors. This could be more evidence to show that signing a woman (in the book) was just a promotion to increase attendance in a losing season than an effort towards equality, but why couldn’t it be both. She did strike out Jorge Racine after all, didn’t she?
This subject matter is one that I could talk about for much longer and I’ve tried to actually avoid the book directly as it stands for itself. Don’t let her age bother you, the book is very well written and a seemingly accurate representation of what will hopefully be reality in the near future. There are some slow points, particularly prior to her signing, but things pick up very quickly and it is very difficult to put down once she makes it to the Majors.
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