Locker Room Talk

A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside

De: Melissa Ludtke

Narrado por: Melissa Redmond

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, twenty-six-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." 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 in giving Ludtke access identical to that of 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.

©2024 Melissa Ludtke (P)2024 Tantor

A Home Run

I’ll never look at baseball the same again. The same goes for singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

Excellent narrative of a landmark case

This book is extremely well written. I loved it.

It's a shame neither the narrator nor the sound editor checked the pronunciation of Bowie Kuhn's name.

Excellent book by Melissa Ludtke. Highly recommended.

Excellent Book; Not Just For Sports Fans

I love this book. It should be required reading for law school students and advocates of civil rights. A compelling, very personal story with lessons for us all.