Anything you can do she can do better!

On this day March 20th1934, Babe Didrikson Zaharias waltzed up to pitch in front of thousands of fans. Now in this modern era this would seem to be the norm, however what everyone witnessed on that day was history.

Didrikson was an enigma and perhaps the greatest female athlete to ever grace this world. Despite being an Olympic track and field champion, golfer, swimmer and really a success at anything involving a competitive streak, men grimaced in the stand when she was about to launch a ball towards the home plate.

In a pre-season game for the Philadelphia Athletics, Babe (named after the famous Babe Ruth) was chosen to be the pitcher for the first innings against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Manger of the Dodgers Casey Stengel watched with a mixture of shock and disgust, as did the majority in attendance on that monumental day.

However, Didrikson just stood there emotionless as if this was a normal occurrence which for her it was. She had faced hardship her whole life, from the then male focused world of sport, so this was probably just another day for the goddess.

As she stood on the pitch, the clouds suddenly parted just enough for a beam of sunshine to land exactly where she was about to pitch. Even the heavens wanted to witness what was just about to happen.

Silence transcended the playing field, the batsmen seemed to become frightened as if he was about to be torn apart by a pack of wolves. Babe’s aura could reduce these strapping confident athletes to timid boys.

With one last deep breathe, she pulled her arm back and pitched the near perfect fastball which flew past Johnny Babich on the home plate.

The predominantly male crowd were now her biggest fans, although being in an almost state of revulsion a couple minutes earlier.

From then on in, the first innings was dominated by her as pitch after pitch bamboozled the batters, so much so that she only gave up one walk and no hits.

It is hard to put into words just how amazing this was to witness, from the moment she strolled up to the pitch in an almost peacock like strut, to the look on the stubborn male audience when she threw her first pitch.

The Dodgers weren’t just a team of average players, they were a team of highly trained professional baseball players.

Of course, what we witnessed that day shouldn’t have really come as a surprise because this female athlete had a chameleon characteristic where she just fitted in on any sort of competitive game. But, every time she took to anything, among all the ruckus from society at that time, she excelled.

Although, she continued to break barriers among sport, nothing would ever eclipse what I saw on that day.