Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, Rediscovered.

Some people think today should be a national holiday. Why? It's opening day of the Major League Baseball season.

Even the most casual sports fan knows that baseball is a game of lore.

One of its most enduring mysteries surrounds a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell. She may have one struck out Babe Ruth.

The year was 1931.

There's some old black and white video of the moment.

It's grainy, but if you look close, you can see Mitchell standing on the pitcher's mound.

Her hat tilted just slightly to the right.

She was an imposing presence.

After all, she is one of the first female pitchers with a baseball contract.

At home plate stands the familiar pudgy figure of Babe Ruth in a number three jersey, bat in hand.

In the footage, Mitchell winds her left arm and lets the ball fly. Roof swings, he misses. This happens once more, a swing, a miss.

With her next pitch, Ruth pulls the bat toward him, avoiding contact with the ball, but it's a called strike.

The Great Bambino flings the bat to the ground disgusted, but Mitchell wasn't done. Her next batter was Lou Gehrig.

Struck him out too. A headline in the New York Times the following day read,

Girl pitcher fans Ruth and Garrick. The subhead

painted the scene. Hulls only

six balls to strike out the Yankee Aces

in Chattanooga game.

Among baseball's most avid fans,

the episode has been debated for decades.

And yet other fans

...