Dream fulfilled, 60 years later
In the US, sports are mandatory for high school and college students. Regardless of the chosen sport, early training and development helps in future career planning of student athletes with the prospect of earning decent amounts of money.
Next to American football, basketball overtook baseball as the second most popular sport in the US, with the NBA being the highest paying pro sports league in the world with an average player salary of $8 million a year.
What used to be termed as ‘America’s favorite pastime’, baseball slipped to third. Founded in 1903, Major League Baseball to date has 30 teams, 15 playing on the National League, 15 on the American League. 29 of them are US-based, with the Toronto Blue Jays as the lone Canadian team.
Like any other sport, baseball has its loyal followers, from children to adults of both sexes. One of them was Gwen Goldman who had been a New York Yankee fan all her life. Since she was a little girl, her father used to take her to Yankee games so in 1961, when she was 10 years old, with knowledge and dedication to the game plus her loyalty to the team, Gwen wrote the Yankees a letter asking them for her to serve as a bat girl.
It’s not a glamorous job and requires quite a lot of work like retrieving bats and balls and other tasks before, during and after games. But it is also a rare opportunity as you get to be up close and personal with the stars of the game.
Then Yankees general manager Roy Hamey said no, saying in reply to Gwen, “While we agree with you that girls are certainly as capable as boys, and no doubt would be an attractive addition on the playing field, I am sure you can understand that in a game dominated by men, a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout.”
For many decades, she kept Hamey’s rejection letter tacked to a bulletin board in her home in Connecticut. Her daughter emailed a copy of the 60-year old letter to present Yankees GM Brian Cashman and told the story of her mother.
Cashman wrote back saying, “a woman belongs everywhere a man does, including the dugout”, adding that it’s “not too late to reward and recognize the ambition you showed in writing that letter to us as a 10-year old girl. Some dreams take longer than they should to be realized but a goal attained should not dim with the passage of time.”
On June 28, 2021, Gwen, clad in full Yankees uniform and tears on her eyes, walked for the first time onto the field of the Yankee Stadium and was honorary bat girl for her beloved team in a game against the LA Angels. She also threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the game.
In an interview with reporters, Gwen said, “It’s been an amazing opportunity. A day of a lifetime I can’t put into words. I don’t know where to start on which was the best, which or what I did enjoy the most. Just the whole piece from walking in the front door of the stadium to coming up to a locker with my name on it, Gwen Goldman, and suiting up and walking out onto the field. It took my breath away, and it’s obviously taking my words away.”
It took 60 years, but Gwen finally was on her field of dreams. Maybe our dreams will do come true, but I can’t wait for 60 years. I’ll be 120 by then.
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