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spt_2006_danica.appFooter = "Source: NBCSports.com contributor Bob Cook";
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spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060522/060522_indy500_contenders2.htease.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Aj Mast", "AP", "108", "148", "#000000", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "Danica Patrick, who is trying to become the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500, is one of a long line of women who have competed directly against men in sports. Like some of these women, Patrick is competing against men because, in her sport, she has no other choice — it’s not like someone has developed a Pro Women’s Auto Racing Series. But many also have done so even when a women’s alternative was available. Click the names at the left for a history of some of the more notable women in a presumed man’s world, at least one presumed by someone of the ilk of, say, Keith Hernandez";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Jackie Mitchell","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Baseball
Claim to fame: Struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession during a 1931 exhibition game.
Background: The 17-year-old Mitchell wasn’t the first woman to sign a pro baseball contract, but she was the first to be good enough to be considered a threat to the men. A few days after using her one pitch -– a nasty, sinking curveball -- to fan Ruth and Gehrig (then walking Tony Lazzeri before being pulled), Mitchell saw her contract voided by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. He claimed, according to various accounts, that baseball was too \"strenuous\" for women. Mitchell somehow found a way to play through the strain, touring with the bearded, religious House of David team, which later featured another unbearded player we'll get to in a minute.
Afterword: In the early 1950s, Toni Stone signed with the Negro Leagues, and Eleanor Engle was signed to a Double-A deal. But while Stone played, Engle was banned from the field –- a ban on women in the minors that exists to this day. (Ila Borders, who pitched minor-league ball in the 1990s, played in independent leagues.) The Sporting News spelled out the rationale for banning women in a 1952 piece that read like it was authored by Keith Hernandez: \"Opposing players would be reluctant to slide into a base guarded by a girl infielder, pitchers would hesitate to throw close to a feminine batter, tagging would be problem, baseball could not afford to take a chance of injury to a woman in a game played for keeps by men. Dugout language is too sulphuric for the ears of ladylike performers… any player or fan can take it from there.\"";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Mildred \"Babe\" Didrickson Zaharias","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Whatever you're playing
Claim to Fame: Considered greatest female athlete of the first half of the 20th century. Struck out Joe DiMaggio in an exhibition baseball game. Played with men for barnstorming baseballers House of David (like Mitchell), then took up golf. In 1938, became the first woman to play in a professional men's golf event (the Los Angeles Open). Didn't make the cut, but she did in the same tournament in 1945.
Background: Combine Jim Thorpe's athleticism with Ty Cobb's temper, Michael Jordan's competitiveness and Bobby Jones' nerves (and their ability in their respective sports), and you might approximate something close to the Babe. Asked how she hit 250-yard drives, in a pre-titanium time when that meant something, she said: \"You’ve got to loosen your girdle and let it rip.\" John Daly said something similar explaining his improbable 1991 PGA Championship.
Afterword: The Babe earned the respect of just about anyone who saw her, from Jones to President Eisenhower, who delivered a eulogy at his first press conference after she died of colon cancer at age 43 in 1956. (Shades of Lance Armstrong, in 1954, a year after being diagnosed, she won her third U.S. Women’s Open.) Though she couldn't possibly eliminate prejudice toward women in sports -– not with women at the time expected to be June Cleaver -- she got the ball rolling, so to speak, for Title IX and other future gains. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Billie Jean King","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Tennis
Claim to fame: Beat retired pro and active motormouth/hustler Bobby Riggs in a highly publicized, nationally televised match at the Houston Astrodome in 1973.
Background: Sometimes you choose your battles, and sometimes the battles choose you. The latter was the case with the \"Battle of the Sexes\" match, which in its heel-face buildup and grand entrances (Riggs had a big-breasted crowd of groupies, King was dressed like Cleopatra) was like pro wrestling, without the predetermined result. In 1973, King already was highly respected for her stellar tennis and her tireless work to fight for women's pro tennis to be treated -– and its players to be paid -– equally as men. But when Riggs -– the 1939 Wimbledon champion who bragged he could beat any women player -- beat Margaret Court on Mother's Day 1973, the 29-year-old King felt it was her duty to play the self-described \"male chauvinist pig.\" (Today he would call himself \"Keith Hernandez.\") At a hot time for what was then called women's lib -- one year after Congress passed Title IX, requiring schools to provide equal opportunities for women in sports -- King's 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Riggs \"convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations and that men are as susceptible to nerves as women,\" The New York Times’ Neil Amdur wrote. The women’s sports boom was on.
Afterword: Women's tennis has emerged to be more popular than men's tennis. But in a feminist twist King probably never saw coming, the sex appeal of Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova probably has as much to do with that phenomenon as the attractiveness of the game. Meanwhile, the Williams sisters in 1998, in a reverse-Riggsian move, bragged they could beat any many ranked No. 200 or lower. They each got smoked, pun intended, by the man who took up their offer, No. 203 Karsten Braasch, better known for his prodigious cigarette intake than his quality tennis. But by then no one, other than cranks like John McEnroe, cared. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Janet Guthrie","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Auto racing
Claim to fame: First woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, in 1977.
Background: Guthrie was used to working in particularly masculine fields, having been an aerospace engineer and a budding astronaut (she tried out for NASA’s Scientist-Astronaut program in 1964) before taking up auto racing. She actually competed in NASCAR races in 1976 and was the first woman in the Daytona 500 (in 1977), and Shirley Muldowney already was on her way to becoming a champion drag racer. But NASCAR in 1976 was a hillbilly sport, and then as now drag racing didn’t penetrate the national consciousness. So it was Guthrie's bid to race in the Indy 500 that got the attention. She failed to qualify for Indy in 1976, but qualified for the next three races, finishing eighth in 1978.
Afterword: Guthrie in May drove three laps at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte to mark the 30th anniversary of her NASCAR debut, then lamented how little has changed in that time, what with the NASCAR race that day featuring, as it generally always does, an all-male field. Some female racers are at the lower levels of racing, but they aren't yet ready for Danica Patrick-like prime time. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Ann Meyers","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Basketball
Claim to fame: Only woman to sign with an NBA team.
Background: Meyers was the first woman to get a four-year college athletic scholarship and was the first national breakout star in women's college basketball, back when it competed in the AIAW instead of the NCAA. The UCLA grad, whose brother Dave was once among the pieces the Lakers traded for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had shunned the nascent Women's Basketball League. But she responded to the Indiana Pacers' offer of a $50,000 contract in August 1979. She was cut after a short tryout, and joined the WBL.
Afterword: You don't have to be Keith Hernandez to believe Indiana’s signing of the 5-foot-9 Meyers was a gimmick by a desperate franchise that only two years before needed a telethon to ensure its survival. Still, the sojourn with the Pacers gave Meyers a permanent place among women's basketball’s all-time elite. And the attention it generated helped push women’s basketball into something more than a curiosity. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Julie Krone","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Horse racing
Claim to fame: Only woman jockey to be enshrined in her sport's Hall of Fame. First woman to ride a Triple Crown race winner (in the 1993 Belmont Stakes). Won 3,704 races and more than $90 million in a 20-plus-year career.
Background: Kathy Kusner opened the door, suing to get her Maryland racing license in the 1960s. But the 4-foot-10, 105-pound Krone busted it down, proving a woman could be tough enough to handle a speeding thoroughbred, punch out male jockeys who gave her grief, and survive a near-fatal fall in 1993.
Afterword: Krone might have influenced more women to become jockeys had horse racing not declined in popularity over her career, and if would-be Bela Karolyis didn't grab girls with Krone's body type to punish them into becoming America's Pixie Idol.";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Manon Rheaume","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Hockey
Claim to fame: First female to play in an NHL game –- a preseason appearance for the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1992-93 season. Also played briefly in various minor leagues and roller hockey leagues.
Background: Like a lot of Canadians, Rheaume started playing hockey about the same time she started walking. But women's ice hockey wasn't so organized in her younger days, so the only opportunity to play was with the boys –- including her younger brother, Pascal, now a Phoenix Coyotes center. A goaltender, Rheaume became the first woman to play in an international Pee Wee tournament, the first woman to play in a Canadian junior league, the first woman to sign a professional contract, and the first woman to play in a professional regular-season game (with the International Hockey League's Atlanta Knights, then the Lightning's top minor-league affiliate).
Afterword: The attention Rheaume generated helped kick-start the international women's hockey scene. Rheaume was a two-time World Championship MVP, in 1992 and 1994, and played on Canada's silver-medal team in the 1998 Olympics, the first featuring women's ice hockey. Now she's director of marketing for the CCHA. A men’s college hockey league, naturally. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Heather Sue Mercer","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Football
Claim to fame: First woman to play on an NCAA Division I-A football team.
Background: Mercer was a multi-sport all-state athlete in high school. After arriving at Duke, she responded to football coach Fred Goldsmith's call for open tryouts, and made the team for the 1995 season. Her presence gave the generally pitiful program major media attention -– more than Goldsmith apparently wanted. He cut Mercer before the next season, citing her ineffectiveness. Mercer responding by successfully suing Duke and Goldsmith, claiming she was cut only because she was female. It hurt Duke's case when Mercer testified Goldsmith spoke to her words that might even make Keith Hernandez blanch, such as how she should go try out for a beauty pageant instead.
Afterword: Mercer's case was an early-warning signal that football would be the toughest nut for any woman to crack. Ask Katie Hnida, who left Colorado claiming she had been raped by a fellow player (a charge never brought to the criminal justice system), and was bad-mouthed by Coach Gary Barnett. (Hnida transferred to New Mexico, where she became the first female to attempt a kick –- an extra point -- in a game. It was blocked.) A few schools, mostly sub-Division I-A, have had female kickers, but in the wake of Mercer's suit, some said they expected colleges to stay away from them, lest the schools be sued if a female player gets cut. Mercer, now a writer, herself wanted to create scholarships for female kickers with the $2 million in punitive damages she was awarded. Alas, the scholarship was not to be -- a federal court later reduced the award to $350,000 for attorneys’ fees. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Annika Sorenstam, Suzy Whaley, Michelle Wie","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Golf
Claims to fame: In 2003, Sorenstam became the first woman since Babe Didrickson Zaharias to play in a men's tournament. The same year, Whaley became the first woman since the Babe to qualify for a men's event. Wie has entered numerous men's events, making the cut in one Korean tournament.
Background: Sorenstam wanted to test her skills against men after dominating the women, having won 13 tournaments in 2002. Sorenstem accepted an invitation to the Colonial, which prompted the Keith Hernandez of golf, Vijay Singh, to pull out rather than share the course with a woman. She missed the cut by four strokes, but her appearance was an endorsement bonanza and got her on the short list for made-for-TV matches with the likes of Tiger Woods. Whaley earned her spot in the 2003 Greater Hartford Open by winning a Connecticut state tournament, but her career has been low-profile. Wie, like Sorenstam, has reaped an enormous endorsement bonanza for participating in four PGA events, though she has also never made the cut.
Afterword: Most male golfers have been kind and charitable to Sorenstam, Whaley and Wie. However, plenty of other commentators have questioned the young Wie's (she’s still a teenager) insistence on playing men’s events, given she has yet to win an LPGA tournament. Presumably, those commentators haven't seen Wie's income statements. ";
spt_2006_danica[i++] = new Array("","Danica Patrick","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
spt_2006_danica[i-1].body = "
Sport: Auto racing
Claim to fame: Finished fourth in the 2005 Indianapolis 500 -– the highest finish ever for a woman.
Background: When it comes to the very short history of post-Guthrie women at Indy, Lyn St. James never had the money, and Sarah Fisher was promoted way beyond her level of talent. Patrick was groomed from a very young age for racing success, and with Rahal-Letterman, she’s racing for one of the best-financed Indy-car teams. Like the previously noted attractive women's tennis players, Patrick isn't afraid to use sex appeal to her advantage, what with the FHM poses in outfits that most definitely showed a little more than your average fire-retardant suit.
Afterword: In 1977, the old Indy racing guard resisted Janet Guthrie’s imposing womanhood on their august event. Now, the old Indy racing guard is desperate for Patrick to impose her womanhood to save their once-august event from irrelevancy. Patrick is different from any other woman competing against men in that it’s not about breaking down barriers. It’s about winning. If Patrick doesn’t start taking a checkered flag or two soon, she’s going to be criticized for being an incapable driver. And you won’t sound like Keith Hernandez when you say it. "; // END editorial data