PIONEERS On the field the 1926 Chicago Cubs were terrible But attendance was rising at home games Judith Cary Waller played a big role in this She was manager of the first radio station to regularly air the play-by-play broadcasts of Major League Baseball MLB games Waller’s efforts exposed Chicagoans to baseball without them having to buy tickets This was especially true for women Many worked at home while raising children But in 1926 sales of Judith Cary Waller managed Chicago’s WMAQ a pioneer in baseball broadcasting 5 CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 1
For years only men were allowed to enter press boxes at sporting events tickets to women skyrocketed Waller helped bring baseball to everyone Sports were long considered an activity for men Women were often discouraged or sometimes even banned from playing Many people believed sports were improper or even dangerous for women The same was true for sports media However slowly but surely women began breaking barriers 6
While Waller was changing the radio landscape in Chicago sportswriter Mary Garber was just trying to claim a spot in the press box in North Carolina In 1946 Garber got a press pass to cover a Duke University football game She wanted to sit with the rest of the reporters But Duke’s sports information director told her that women were not welcome in the press box Garber finally gained access months later She showed the world that women were just as capable as men of writing about sports BLACK AND WHITE Mary Garber did not just pave the way for other female sportswriters She also worked toward representing Black athletes alongside white ones In the 1940s and 1950s many high school and college sports were segregated Most white reporters did not spend a lot of time talking about Black athletes But Garber knew that was wrong She spent time reporting on the basketball games at Winston-Salem State a historically Black university 7
