If women were umpiring none of this [rowdyism] would happen. Do you suppose any ball player in the country would step up to a good-looking girl and say to her, “You color- blind, pickle-brained, cross-eyed idiot, if you don’t stop throwing the soup into me I’ll distribute your features all over you countenance!” Of course he wouldn’t.
ATTRIBUTION:
Amanda Clement (1888–1971), U.S. baseball umpire. As quoted in Women in Baseball, ch. 4, by Gai Ingham Berlage (1994).
Said in 1907. Clement, the “first official woman umpire in men’s baseball,” worked for semi-professional teams “from about 1905 through 1911.”
