On Tuesday, NBC Sports California announced hiring the first woman to be the primary play-by-play broadcaster for an MLB team. That would be Jenny Cavnar, who will handle the majority of play-by-play duties for Oakland Athletics TV games. The five-time Emmy winner spent the last 12 years as the host of the Colorado Rockies’ pregame and postgame shows. On April 23, 2018, she stepped in and did the play-by-play for a Rockies game. She was the first female to do so in a major league game since 1993.
Cavnar is sure to face criticism. The Athletics’ fan base will probably be ornery under any circumstances. The Athletics stink and are planning to leave Oakland for Las Vegas in 2028, at least supposedly. They may not even be playing games in Oakland after 2024. Cavnar will hear that she never played the game. Of course, neither have most male play-by-play announcers, some of whom are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. She may also hear that women can’t understand baseball, as if it were brain surgery. Let’s face it, guys, women are smarter than men. Compared to women, men are almost three times as likely to die from alcohol poisoning, 2.77 times as likely to die from speeding in their cars, and although no empirical data exists to support this notion, probably at least 10,000 times as likely to burn down their frat house by flatulating into a lit cigarette lighter. Now, who’s smarter?
Getting to Know Her
Cavnar was born in Aurora, Colorado. She grew a staunch Rockies fan when they entered the NL in 1993. Her father had two tickets for the first Rockies game at Coors Field. Cavnar wanted to go. Her older brother got to go instead. She watched sports as a child. She knew what she wanted to do when she saw Melissa Stark reporting from the sidelines during a football game. She knew it was possible to be a woman broadcaster.
2004 Cavnar graduated from Colorado State University, where she played on the women’s lacrosse team. She got her start in baseball in 2007, hosting the pregame and postgame shows for the San Diego Padres. 2012, she moved on to the same gig with her hometown, Rockies. As a child, a career as a sideline reporter sounded good enough for her. She never dreamed of being in the booth, doing play-by-play. When the opportunity arose, she was ready, even armed with a signature home run call. When Nolan Arenado blasted a homer that April 2018 evening, Cavnar exclaimed, “Fire up the fountains! She’s gone!” The male color analysts howled with delight.
The Weather Lady Turned Baseball Broadcaster
The first time a woman was hired as a regular broadcaster for an MLB team was also the Athletics. However, at that time, it was the Kansas City Athletics, and the woman was handling color commentary, not play-by-play.
The year was 1964. Betty Caywood, then a 33-year-old single mother, worked as a weather forecaster for WBKB-TV in Chicago. One day, then-Athletics owner Charles O. Finley, who lived in the area, visited the station to give an interview. When he met Caywood, he offered her a job as a color analyst on the Athletics’ radio broadcasts. She turned it down, protesting that she knew nothing about baseball. Finley didn’t care. He just wanted a woman’s perspective to draw “the dolls” to the ballpark. Finally, he offered her so much money she couldn’t keep saying no.
Her first day on the job was September 16 in Boston. She lasted for the remainder of the season, mainly offering human interest sidelights. Other broadcasters and reporters were kind to her, although she was banned from Fenway Park’s press dining area. Caywood grew fond of baseball and was eager to return for the 1965 season. However, Finley didn’t want her back. His gimmick had run its course.
Bra-less on the Air
In 1973, KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh hired Lee Arthur as its weekend sports anchor. She would also serve as a sports reporter during the week. Thus, she became what is believed to be the country’s first full-time woman sports news broadcaster. Arthur famously covered the US Open in a skimpy tank top and miniskirt. She claimed to have a clause in her contract permitting her to appear on the news bra-less. But she was a serious reporter.
Arthur faced the usual difficulties women encountered when infringing on what was previously male territory. She dealt with athletes hitting on her and turned them down, one by one. She was there strictly as a reporter, she said. The local papers showed that she had her share of fans and detractors between the reporters and the letter-writers. Mostly detractors. She knew sports well, and her reporting was accurate. But one slip of the tongue, such as, “Minnesota beat the Twins tonight,” seemingly caused the entire city to uproar. However, when her good work got noticed and resulted in lucrative freelance offers, Arthur resigned from KDKA in 1975.
Ludtke v. Kuhn
The issue of females in a major league locker room came to a head during the 1977 World Series. That’s when Melissa Ludtke of Sports Illustrated was denied access to the New York Yankees’ locker room. In 1975, then-Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn, a cartoonish figure who could be seen in the Commissioner’s box during frigid World Series night games sans coat, pretending he wasn’t turning blue, had laid down the edict to all clubs that women should be forbidden in major league locker rooms. Female reporters, a woman broadcaster, it didn’t matter.
Ludtke and Time, Inc. took the matter to the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York (Ludtke v. Kuhn, 461 F.Supp. 86 (1978), for all legal scholars out there). Named as defendants were Kuhn, AL president Leland MacPhail, the Yankees, and several New York City officials, including the mayor. Ludtke argued that her 14th Amendment rights and her right to pursue her profession were being violated. Kuhn, a master at stating the obvious, argued that players in locker rooms often appear naked. Allowing women there would corrupt untold legions and be offensive to baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet, Mom, and Kate Smith. Or something like that. The court sided with Ludtke.
But It Didn’t Get Easier
Ludtke may have won the right to enter major league locker rooms. But Lisa Saxon of the Los Angeles Daily News won the war for basic human decency. As a female beat reporter covering the California Angels in 1986, she was subject to all sorts of abuse in locker rooms all over the AL. Players groped her, hurled dirty jock straps at her, and called her names. He ran away when she first introduced herself to then-Angels manager Gene Mauch. Reggie Jackson, then with the Angels, was particularly abusive. According to Saxon, he repeatedly yelled at her, insulted her, and exposed himself to her.
Toward the end of the season, the Los Angeles Times ran a story detailing Jackson’s abuse. The next day at the ballpark, Jackson, furious and screaming, tried to get at her. Angels John Candelaria and George Hendrick stood in his path, telling Jackson he had to go through them. Instead, Jackson punched a wall, injuring his hand for the ALCS, during which “Mr. October” went 5-for-26 with no home runs. Years later, as a coach for the A’s, Jackson tried to make amends with Saxon as if nothing ever happened. Saxon learned it was because Jackson was newly eligible to be elected to the Hall of Fame and needed her vote to get in unanimously. She turned him down, citing a citizenship clause in the voter guidelines.
The Last Word
Now that the way has been paved, Cavnar should do well in her new gig, given these enlightened times. Available online videos of her work reveal a bubbly personality with enthusiasm for baseball and a deep knowledge. How can anybody not root for her?
Main Photo Credits: Kelly Lyell/The Coloradoan / USA TODAY NETWORK
