Editor’s note: Cambridge Day is hyper-local; Cantabrigians are anything but. Melissa Ludtke literally changed a game, baseball, so it’s little wonder that her book “Locker Room Talk” continues to inspire conversation and change. She was in New York recently with another game-changer, Hillary Rodham Clinton. One in an occasional series.
“Well, I’M here for Melissa Ludtke” said the stylish woman ahead of me in the security line at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on a Tuesday evening in the fall. “Oh, me too,” I hurriedly assured her (despite having told security I was here for the meet-and-greet with Hillary Clinton, which was also true). We quickly became acquainted because we also share a friendship with Cambridge legend (and national treasure) Melissa Ludtke.
The events were one and the same; on October 28, two old friends met on the stage of the 92nd Street Y in New York City, to talk about women, courage, books, and baseball. One of the women was Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State/Senator/First Lady, and the other was retired journalist and Cambridge resident Ludtke. They talked about their books – Clinton’s “The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience” (2019, written with Chelsea Clinton) and Ludtke’s “Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside” (2024) provided the framework for their conversation “Locker Room Talk and Gutsy Women.”
Clinton and Ludtke’s friendship has lasted over forty years, but the thread of this occasion was women who took a chance, raised their voices, and challenged the status quo, in so many cases just to be able to do their job. For more than an hour, Clinton and Ludtke exchanged stories and commentary about Ludtke’s landmark federal court case, in which she challenged Major League Baseball for the right to enter team locker rooms in order to report on games for her employer, Sports Illustrated. Ludtke v. Kuhn offers a lens into so many still-urgent issues for women, giving the evening’s conversation a timely relevance.
They talked about the judge on Ludtke’s case, Justice Constance Baker Motley, the first black woman to be appointed to the Federal bench, and plenty of other gutsy women ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to Shirley Chisholm to Billie Jean King. Clinton’s own extraordinary career in public service was not explicitly referenced – although the roar of approval that greeted her appearance on the stage evidenced the audience’s awareness of her accomplishments – but she shared her thoughts during the Q&A on bringing back civil discourse. Some of her tips: find areas for agreement and don’t be swayed by the extreme on either side of the conversation. She also offered advice for young people looking to enter politics: do the work and grow a thick skin – but not too thick.
Clinton and Ludtke agreed on the challenges that social media bring for those in the public sphere. A theme in Ludtke’s book is that her lawsuit was judged twice: once in the court of law, where she won, and once in the court of public opinion, where a woman doing what she was trying to do would inevitably lose. Ludtke spoke openly of the toll the media scrutiny and criticism (entirely male) took on her, though she can laugh now about how Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the media salaciously made the case out to be about “sexual privacy” and ogling male bodies, when all she wanted was to do her job, writing about the great game of baseball.
The evening ended with Ludtke leading the audience in singing a surprise “Happy Birthday” for Clinton, as a cake was wheeled out on the stage. The impromptu serenade connected the audience to these two gutsy women whose lives show how persistence, courage, and a long bond of friendship and support can make the world a better place.
Watch the event at the 92nd Street Y’s Youtube channel.
A stronger
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Congratulations to Melissa Ludtke for her groundbreaking effort on behalf of women sports reporters. However, there is no applause for Lisa Laskin’s puff piece regarding Hillary Clinton’s place in the pantheon of world leaders. Hillary Clinton has not and does not, even now, make the world a better place.