"Locker Room Talk" with Melissa Ludtke and Tommy John

About the Book

While sportswriters rushed into Major League Baseball locker rooms to talk with players, MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn barred the lone woman from entering along with them. That reporter, 26-year-old Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke, charged Kuhn with gender discrimination, and after the lawyers argued Ludtke v. Kuhn in federal court, she won. Her 1978 groundbreaking case affirmed her equal rights, and the judge's order opened the doors for several generations of women to be hired in sports media.

Locker Room Talk is Ludtke's gripping account of being at the core of this globally covered case that churned up ugly prejudices about the place of women in sports. Kuhn claimed that allowing women into locker rooms would violate his players' "sexual privacy." Late-night television comedy sketches mocked her as newspaper cartoonists portrayed her as a sexy, buxom looker who wanted to ogle the naked athletes' bodies. She weaves these public perspectives throughout her vivid depiction of the court drama overseen by Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve on the federal bench. She recounts how her lawyer, F.A.O. "Fritz" Schwarz, employed an ingenious legal strategy that persuaded Judge Motley to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, giving Ludtke access identical to her male counterparts. Locker Room Talk is both an inspiring story of one woman's determination to do a job dominated by men and an illuminating portrait of a defining moment for women's rights.

About the Author

Melissa Ludtke was a reporter for Sports Illustrated, a correspondent for Time, and editor of Nieman Reports at Harvard University. Her books include On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America and Touching Home in China: In Search of Missing Girlhoods. She received the Yankee Quill Award and Mary Garber Pioneer Award and was a Nieman Fellow and a Prudential Fellow at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About the Moderator

Tommy John (Thomas Edward John Jr.), nicknamed "the Bionic Man," is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played in the Major League Baseball (MLB) for 26 seasons between 1963 and 1989. He played for the Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, California Angels, and Oakland Athletics. He was a four-time MLB All-Star and had the second-most wins (288) of any pitcher since 1900, not in the Hall of Fame. Known for his longevity, John was the Opening Day starter six times - three for the White Sox (1966, 1970, and 1971) and three times for the Yankees (1981, 1982, and 1989).

"Tommy John surgery" is named after John, who went on to win 164 games after having the surgery. His successful comeback proved once and for all that baseball players could still be successful after undergoing major surgery.

Praise for the Book

“Locker Room Talk gives us a front-row seat at Melissa Ludtke's celebrated courtroom battle when she went up against Major League Baseball and emerged with an enduring win for women's equal rights. I also admire her gutsy decision to share reflective insights on how the plentiful societal backlash against her buffeted her personal life as a 26-year-old woman. Hers wasn't an easy struggle, but she persevered, and we are the better for it."

~Hillary Rodham Clinton, former US Secretary of State

“Locker Room Talk is not just a look back to the 1970s. While women in sports media report inside locker rooms today, what they earn and the jobs they are given, are still not equal to men's pay and roles, nor is their treatment. Melissa Ludtke gives us a good hard look at what she went through to win equal access and tells us how she prevailed. Without Melissa Ludtke, NONE of us are here.”

~Suzyn Waldman, New York Yankees Radio Broadcaster

“When I read about her 1978 court victory while still in college, I knew two things: Melissa was my hero, and women like me now would have the opportunity to do the jobs we loved. In Locker Room Talk, Melissa takes us into Judge Constance Baker Motley’s courtroom as the lawyers argue about her rights, then brings us to the ballpark, where she shone, often as the only woman working the baseball beat.”

~Christine Brennan, USA Today sports columnist and TV and NPR commentator

“Melissa Ludtke’s trailblazing career in sports media is a lesson in moral courage, perseverance, and equality. Her deeply personal reflections underscore the challenges she faced and the progress she championed."

~Adam Silver, NBA Commissioner

“I grew up recounting baseball games to my father, so I loved discovering in Locker Room Talk how Melissa Ludtke’s mother passed down her love of the game to her daughter. For this daughter to now tell us the story of how, as a young woman, she went to court to revolutionize our nation’s most tradition-laden sport provides a splendid resource for historians and a cherished gift for baseball fans."

~Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and author of Wait Till Next Year

“In the early 1980s, I interviewed baseball players in locker rooms due to the courageous court fight that Melissa Ludtke had waged for equal access against Major League Baseball in 1978. To read her book, Locker Room Talk, is to relive our challenges as pioneering women sportswriters. She reminds us of the emotional strain that discrimination imposes on those who experience it and then shows us how she overcame it. Brava!”

~Claire Smith, the only woman to be saluted in Cooperstown as the Baseball Writers of America’s Career Excellence honoree

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Melissa Ludtke

Tommy John

Host or Publisher Georgia Court