Melissa Ludtke: A mom and daughter of baseball

Savanna Collins
Jun 08, 2022

Melissa Ludtke is an award-winning journalist who reported and wrote for Sports Illustrated and Time magazine.

Her TEDxBoston talk focused on women’s involvement in baseball, including her own that was sparked by her mother’s love for the Boston Red Sox.

Her books have received wide acclaim, and her upcoming narrative social history book chronicles groundbreaking 1978 federal legal case. As the only woman covering baseball full-time as a reporter in 1978, Ludtke became a plaintiff in Ludtke v. Kuhn, which established equal access for women reporters to report alongside male reporters in Major League Baseball locker rooms. The judge’s decision in Ludtke v. Kuhn opened pathways for generations of young women to work in sports media, though issues revolving around gender equality in the profession are still in play 45 years later.

You can watch Melissa’s talk below.

My story is about mother to daughter not father to son.
Melissa Ludtke

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