Guest is Melissa Ludtke, whose case opened up baseball’s locker room for women
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 420 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Melissa Ludtke, the author of “Locker Room Talk: A Women’s Struggle To Get Inside.” The book recounts Ludtke’s journey as a 26-year-old Sports Illustrated reporter who sued (and won) a gender discrimination case against Bowie Kuhn and Major League Baseball. The decision opened up MLB locker rooms for women reporters. In this podcast, Ludtke discusses her book and why she wrote it today; what it was like to be female reporter covering baseball in 1977; why she brought to her case to court; the environment for women in baseball today; how to promote a book without a big publicity department, and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.
Transcript
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| 1:12.9 | Welcome to the sports media podcast. I'm your host, Richard Deich. My producer's Bob Tabador. One guest on this podcast, but a woman who has an absolutely fascinating story when it comes to sports media. Melissa Ludkey is the author of Locker Room Talk, A Woman's Struggle to Get Inside that book debuts this week. She'll obviously talk about why she's here, but just sort of a very, |
| 1:18.6 | very quick backstory. In 1977, Melissa Ludke was a 26-year-old Sports Illustrated reporter |
| 1:25.0 | who accused the commissioner of baseball, |
| 1:28.2 | Bowie Coon at the time of gender discrimination, took him the court. |
| 1:32.8 | Melissa and Time Inc., which at the time, the parent company of Sports Illustrated, both |
| 1:37.2 | Melissa and I are Sports Illustrated in the lums, the different eras. |
| 1:40.6 | They sued MLB seeking equal access to the players by claiming that baseball's decision |
| 1:47.3 | deprived Melissa of covering the sport in the same way as her male colleagues. |
| 1:53.2 | And then a year later, the district court, Judge Constance Baker, found in favor of Melissa. |
| 2:00.0 | And then obviously this became a massively important case when it comes to equal access in sports media coverage. |
| 2:08.1 | And you can really draw the line between Melissa's case and today now where even though the number certainly can be a lot better, there are women all over baseball who cover the sport on a day-to-day basis, their broadcasters, |
| 2:20.5 | their general matters, et cetera. |
| 2:22.5 | And with that, I bring in Melissa Luckie. |
| 2:24.5 | Welcome to the sports media podcast. |
| 2:26.3 | Thanks. |
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