Feats of female athletes featured in trio of books Great performances in baseball, swimming celebrated

When people think of great moments in sports history, they tend to envision the triumphs of male athletes. However, women champions have made their own proud contributions. Three fine picture books provide eloquent testimony to their fine achievements.

During World War II, because the great male players were overseas fighting, Chicago Cubs owner Phil Wrigley was afraid that fans would lose interest in baseball before the conflict ended. In 1943 he started an eight team women’s league. Showing they were anything but fragile, the women played an exhausting four month season with games every night and doubleheaders on Saturdays and Sundays.

The setting of “Dirt on their Skirts” by Doreen Rappaport and Lyndall Callan is the 1946 championship game between the Racine Belles and the Rockford Peaches as seen through the eyes of Margaret, an enthusiastic young fan who dreams of someday playing second base for the Belles like her heroine, Sophy Kurys. The vivid, suspenseful play-by-play description of the game makes this book a genuine page turner. E.B. Lewis’ animated paintings really capture the energy of the story.

Although Margaret and her family are ficticious, the details of the game are real. The authors interviewed four of the players and studied newspaper articles. Sports historians will enjoy the vintage photographs of the Racine Belles and the Rockford Peaches.

Jean L.S. Patrick’s “The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth” is a rare gem: an exciting sports story written for the beginning reader. In 1931, 17-year old Jackie Mitchell signed a contract to become pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts, a men’s minor league team. The next week, they were to play the New York Yankees in a preseason game. Mitchell would be up against Babe Ruth, the world’s greatest slugger.

The day of the game Mitchell watched Ruth warm up, plotting her strategy. She had heard that he felt that women were too delicate to ever make it in pro baseball. She would have a chance to prove him wrong.

Jeni Reeves’ illustrations superbly convey the action and suspense of the game. However, her forte is the face of the characters. From the sneer of disdain on Ruth’s visage as he shakes hands with Mitchell to her look of total determination and triumphant grin the expressions are vivid and memorable.

Baseball is not the only sport in which women have made their mark. For a real tale of determination, courage, and endurance you can’t beat David A. Alder’s “America’s Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle”. At 15, she won her first big swimming race. The next year she beat the men’s record in crossing from Manhattan to New Jersey. She went on to win three medals at the 1924 Olympics.

By 1925 Ederle had set 29 US and world records and had decided to swim the English Channel. Many people have made this formidable challenge; only five men have made it. Sure that she would never succeed a newspaper editorial smugly predicted that women would, “remain forever the weaker sex.”

Ederle’s first attempt in 1925 failed. After nine grueling hours with less than seven miles to go her trainer, fearful for her safety, pulled her out of the water. A lesser athlete would have given up. She found a new trainer and tried again the next year. That afternoon it started to rain. By evening, waves were 20 feet high. As wind and waves became worse her accompanying boats were sometimes pulled away leaving Ederle alone in the turbulent sea. Her trainer told her to give up, but she was determined to swim the English Channel of drown trying.

The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth, by Jean L.S. Patrick, Carolrhoda Books, Inc., Minneapolis, Minn., 48 pages

Dirt on Their Skirts, by Doreen Rappaport and Lyndall Callan, Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, 40 pages

America’s Champion Swimmer, by Gertrude Ederle, Gulliver Books Harcourt, Inc., New York, 30 pages