Billie Harris` interest in softball was sparked after moving to Tucson, Arizona, where she stumbled across an article in the local magazine *Arizona Highways*.

“I used to throw the ball up against the wall. I actually did that for hours on end.”

Harris ended up playing for The Ramblers, the same team she read about as a teen. Her path was far from easy, as she faced obstacles due to her race and sex. However, she had been raised to be resilient as the only girl in a house with four boys.

In 1954, after being forced to miss the national championships due to the threat of racial violence, she reflected, “I never let much of the segregation bother me. It was tough, but I would go through whatever it took to play.”

After collecting 264 hits, 123 runs, 59 RBIs, 70 no-hitters, and four perfect games over 370 games and six decades, the left-handed pitcher retired at the age of 74, remarking in a 2022 interview with *Essence*:

“I would have continued except I had knee problems,” she says. “I just thought I’d better quit then.”

In 1982, she became the first African-American woman inducted into the USA Softball National Softball Hall of Fame.

#WomensHistoryMonth #Trailblazer

Spring training games last week gave us the first glimpse at MLB`s new automated ball-strike challenge system (ABS), which will allow players to challenge balls and strikes. With such a big shift in a sport that has been resistant to change, we remember a black legend who almost single-handedly revolutionized pitching--Bob Gibson.

In 1968, also known as "Year of the Pitcher", Gibson posted a 22-9 record to go along with a 1.12 ERA, the lowest for a season in modern Major League history. He also had 28 complete games and 13 shutouts, and 15 consecutive wins with a stretch of 92 innings in which he gave up just 2(!) runs. He capped off his NL MVP and Cy Young season by striking out a record 17 batters in Game 1 of the World Series.

"For that entire year," Gibson once told the Omaha World-Herald, "I felt baseball-wise that I could do whatever I wanted."

In fact, Gibson and other pitchers were so dominant in 1968, that baseball lowered the pitching mound 5 inches and shrank the strike zone. The changes became known as the “Gibson Rules.” This baseball legend altered the course of pitching history and helped lead to a major shift in the sport’s balance between pitchers and hitters (although it didn`t seem to affect Gibson much, who still went 20–13 with a 2.18 ERA, 4 shutouts, and 28 complete games the following season).

#BlackHistoryMonth #BaseballLegends #BaseballInnovation