Progress?

I could kick myself for not buying the wire photo of Bessie Largent that was on eBay this week. It’s from 1937 and shows a middle-aged woman with wire-rimmed glasses wearing a nice print dress and gloves; a purse nestles between her right forearm and hip, maybe a notebook full of names inside. If Largent were standing outside, Walker Evans might have taken the picture. The caption reads, “Only Woman Big League Baseball Scout/Wichita, Kansas…Mrs. Roy Largent, who seeks baseball talent for the Chicago White Sox, has the distinction of being the only woman in the big leagues to hold such a position. She has travelled more than 400,000 miles in search of young players and has discovered, among others, Monty Stratton, Luke Appling, Burgess Whitehead, Vernon Kennedy and Zeke Bonura.” If my memory isn’t too faulty, baseball now has two fulltime female scouts. But, hey, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote a letter to Kelsie Whitmore, a pitcher for the Staten Island Ferry Hawks of the independent Atlantic League after Whitmore signed with the team this April. “You are an inspiration to baseball fans everywhere, and especially to girls who dream of playing professional baseball,” wrote Manfred, who said not a word about helping make those dreams become reality. Congress passed Title IX fifty years ago last month.