In a galaxy far, far away—but actually not that far away—the baseball commissioner barred a woman from doing her job of reporting on the games.
While everyone else was busy watching that yahoo pry the ball out of Mookie’s glove, I was transported back in time to a different Dodgers/Yankees World Series…the one in 1977.
I was listening to author Melissa Ludtke tell the story of how then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn would not allow her access to interview the players, so that she was unable to do her job alongside her male colleagues. Even though she was assigned to cover that World Series. Even though she wrote for Sports Illustrated!
Her employer (Time Inc., who owned SI) sued Kuhn, and Melissa has written the book Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside about these events.
I’m struck by the stories she shared, and the players in this drama. It’s a Who’s Who of recent American culture:
- Her lawyer was F.A.O. Schwartz, Jr. (yes, of the toy family).
- The judge was Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman ever on the federal bench; she won the Supreme Court case that allowed James Meredith to legally enroll at the University of Mississippi as its first Black student. Incidentally, she was also a Yankee-hater! (I couldn’t resist. Though to be fair, she disliked sports in general, but baseball, and the Yankees, were the worst in her book).
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg coined the then-novel legal argument that Schwartz would use: that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which so far had protected only race, also applied to gender.
- Beer (well…non-alcoholic beer) was the subject of the first such equal protection case, the year before the World Series gatekeeping incident. RBG fought—and won—the suit on behalf of men, who were not allowed to buy what was then called “near beer” until they turned twenty-one, while women could purchase it at age eighteen. Not fair! This success for men allowed the legal argument to be taken seriously and gain traction.
- People like Betty White, OJ Simpson, the cast of Saturday Night Live, and many others made fun of Melissa, publicly and repeatedly—making her out to be crazily obsessed with wanting to see grown men naked.
And baseball, of course.
The argument that Kuhn used was that players deserved “sexual privacy” in the locker room. Melissa said, however, that his intention was to keep baseball “a fortress, a bastion for the men.” She’s backed up by the facts:
- The NHL and NBA already allowed women reporters into their locker rooms with no issues whatsoever
- The shower area in MLB clubhouses was completely off-limits to any reporter
- There were seven other off-limits rooms where players could retreat for privacy (of any kind)
Kuhn kind of gave himself away when he also barred Melissa (or any woman) from interviewing players in the locker room during the fifty minutes between batting practice and the start of the baseball game. The players were already dressed then, obviously, because they’d already been on the field of play, but the locker room was where they waited together for the game to start. Melissa mentioned it was well-known as a time and place to get in a game of cards, or to sign merch, not to undress. Female reporters were also specifically barred by Kuhn from eating with their male counterparts in the space where food was served; where’s the need for privacy there?
Kuhn, and baseball, won in public because they leaned heavily into the argument that Melissa only wanted to see naked men. And sex sells, as they say. Cue the political cartoons, and skits, and late-night monologues that involved Melissa trying to peer into showers or look underneath some guy’s towel.
But in court, where it counted in the long-term, Kuhn’s arguments fell apart. Mostly because there was no other argument. When his legal team was asked to come up with alternatives that would allow women reporters to interview players, they wouldn’t agree to any. Melissa said that the judge at one point proposed something like a curtain that could be drawn across the locker room, but Kuhn said no to that and other possible solutions. The only thing they wanted was to keep women out.
Take a look at that photo up there, of Reggie Jackson in the Yankees’ locker room during that Series in 1977. He’s surrounded by non-players (who may or may not be male journalists wearing press passes). I don’t see any naked bodies, just a lot of long sleeves and layers. Huh.
Melissa won her case in court, and other plaintiffs have since used the equal protection clause for gender.
There is a timelessness to this underdog story (I’m paraphrasing Melissa here), and any female sportswriter can attest to the echoes of that culture that still exist in the workplace. Because of the work Melissa has done, that workplace might be in a broadcast booth, or somewhere in the digital space, or on the sidelines of a game, or coaching an Olympic sport.
And I say this even as the Women’s Pro Baseball League has just announced their debut season in 2026. Exciting! Meanwhile, the Professional Women’s Hockey League might be expanding. Awesome.
But I think also if you simply watch and enjoy sports, you can see that it’s still a man’s world (or a boy’s world, in terms of childhood sports.) In response to an audience question, Melissa said she won’t live long enough to see true equity in the workplaces that are dedicated to playing and covering sports. As one example, she invited sports fans to look beyond the public relations soundbytes about the Paris 2024 Olympics achieving gender equity; male Olympic coaches outnumber females by about ten to one.
As Melissa said, we “won the case but we’re still fighting the war.”
The book is a fascinating look at an era that’s not actually too far in the rearview mirror. It’s not “caked in amber,” as Melissa noted; we’re still living in a world that’s working through these issues. If you’re looking for another reason to read it, her author photo shows her inside Fenway Park, and she promised some Red Sox anecdotes and fandom in the book. And by the way, she writes a hell of a dedication:
“To my fellow Red Sox fan and sportswriter—and my Pioneer Valley childhood peer—on we go.” —Melissa Ludtke