Effectively Wild Episode 2310: Only a Woman: Ella Black, Lost and Found (Part 2–Ella’s Season)

Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley

Sports, Baseball

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ella Black was the first woman to write about baseball for a national publication—if her name was Ella Black, and if she was a woman. On Ella Black: Lost and Found, a three-part scripted series from Effectively Wild, Ben Lindbergh explores what we know about the enigmatic trailblazer and tries to solve some of the […]

Transcript

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0:00.0	In September of 2024, I went to the last home game of the Pittsburgh Pirates season.
0:10.0	The last place pirates had already been eliminated from the pennant race, and their opponents
0:14.1	and division rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, had already clinched the National League Central
0:18.0	title.
0:25.7	In terms of playoff implications, this game was almost meaningless.
0:30.9	But even when the pirates are playing out the string, PNC Park is a picturesque place.
0:33.0	Let's go, Ringo!
0:39.9	From high behind home plate, I could see the Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol bridges and the shining skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh, a more impressive spectacle than the team on the field that
0:45.0	day. Rookie phenom Paul Skeens wasn't pitching. It felt fitting that the city stole the show
0:50.3	because I'd come less to see the pirates than to try to tap into the Pittsburgh of Ella Black.
0:55.7	Granted, Ella never saw that skyline. None of those bridges or big buildings was standing in its
1:00.7	present form when Ella was writing about baseball for sporting life in 1890. But even then,
1:05.7	the Allegheny River was wending its way toward the Ohio with a ballpark on its bank.
1:22.9	Yeah. was wending its way toward the Ohio with a ballpark on its bank. The pirates have moved many times since the late 19th century, but they haven't gone far.
1:28.4	Before PNC, before Three River Stadium, before Forbes Field, there was Exposition Park.
1:34.3	Three different exposition parks, actually, dating back to the franchise's founding in 1882.
1:39.7	The thrilling climax of the Exposition Park trilogy, which was built about two blocks west of where PNC
1:45.1	stands today, opened in 1890, just in time to host the Players League's Pittsburgh Burgers.
1:50.6	And, quite often, Ella Black, who wrote in March of 1890 about the impending debut of the
1:55.8	10,000-seat capacity park. Work is progressing rapidly on the grounds of the new club, and this week,
2:02.0	a picture of what they will be like when finished was published for the first time. It shows
2:07.1	the park to be the handsomest we have ever had here. The grandstand is conveniently laid out,
	...

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