Hey, Edge of Sports listeners, a quick disclaimer as we start the show. I state that Melissa Ludke, who's a tremendous interview, you're going to love the show. But I state that she was the first woman to report from a male pro sports locker room. In fact, she was the first report from a male baseball locker room. The NBA and the NHL had already opened their

locker rooms to women reporters. In the NBA, there was Jane Gross, and in the NHL, there was

Robin Herman, Lori Miflin, and Helen Elliott. And in fact, since Melissa reported on the NBA during the baseball

offseason, she was going into locker rooms in pro basketball to report before there was

a need for any kind of legal action against baseball. Neither we at Edge of Sports nor Melissa

want these women who are pioneer fighters for locker room access in their sports

to be forgotten. Now, let's get to the show. If I was going to learn how to report on sports,

I'd never done it before, if I was going to learn how to write sports, and I was going to have a

full-time job fact-checking the stories that

other writers wrote. That meant that I was going to get to the office maybe at 9 o'clock,

but I was going to be on a subway, either to Madison Square Garden or Shea Stadium or Yankee

Stadium or wherever a game was that night, so that I could learn and soak in everything that I had to learn

to do the job that I wanted to do.

Welcome to the Edg of Sports podcast. I'm Dave Ziron. This week we are talking to pioneer baseball reporter Melissa Ludke, the first woman to be able to work a men's locker room. She

won this via a court case over 40 years ago. I'm also going to speak with her about her trailblazing career and also the ascension

last week of Kim Eng, who became the first female general manager not only of the Miami Marlins,

not only in Major League Baseball, but also in any men's North American sport.

Who better to talk to about this than Melissa Ludke.

I also have some choice words about a very daring move by Colin Kaepernick.

Just stand up and just sit down awards and more. But first, Melissa Ludke.

Before we get into anything happening with the modern game here, I did want to ask you a little bit about your own life.

I mean, because I feel like your career trajectory was so audacious.

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