{"id":2272,"date":"2021-06-30T14:49:42","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T14:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-583903-1890774.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=2272"},"modified":"2021-07-02T14:49:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T14:49:31","slug":"60-years-after-being-told-girls-dont-belong-in-the-field-this-yankees-fan-lives-her-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/2021\/06\/30\/60-years-after-being-told-girls-dont-belong-in-the-field-this-yankees-fan-lives-her-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"60 Years After Being Told Girls Don\u2019t Belong in The Field, This Yankees Fan Lives Her Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A Yankees fan\u2019s dream came true 60 years after being rejected by the team. Gwen McLoughlin, 70, served as the bat girl for the New York Yankees on Monday in their game against the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n<p>When McLoughlin was about 10, she wrote a letter to the Yankees asking if she could serve in the role. Back then, she received a response from Roy Hamey, who was the general manager of the team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile we agree with you that girls are certainly as capable as boys, and no doubt would be an attractive addition on the playing field, I am sure you can understand that in a game dominated by men a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout,&#8221; the letter read.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">60 years later, in a new letter to Gwen from the current Yankees GM, Brian Cashman invites her to Yankee Stadium to fulfill her dream. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FHZK3SIfe5\">pic.twitter.com\/FHZK3SIfe5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; New York Yankees (@Yankees) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Yankees\/status\/1408442218394886147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 25, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>60 years later, McLoughlin\u2019s daughter Abby forwarded that letter to the Yankees. Current general manager Brian Cashman saw the letter and responded with a more positive reply. He invited McLoughlin to be the honorary bat girl during the game on Monday, which took place during the Yankees\u2019 annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/yankees\/community\/hope-week\"><strong>HOPE Week<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough your long-ago correspondence took place 60 years ago \u2014 six years before I was born \u2014 I feel compelled to resurrect your original request and do what I can to bring your childhood dream to life,\u201d he wrote, in a letter he shared with McLoughlin via video chat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the fact that six decades have passed since you first aspired to hold down the position as a New York Yankees Bat Girl, it is not too late to reward and recognize the ambition you showed in writing that letter to us as a 10-year-old girl,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a chance to rewrite history here and show you, obviously, how times have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the video above, McLoughlin can be seen seated next to her husband, her hand on her chest, choking up while responding to Cashman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will be there,\u201d she said. \u201cThank you for doing this for us women and for moving forward and opening the world up to the population.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Growing up, McLoughlin says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.today.com\/news\/yankees-fan-serve-bat-girl-60-years-after-being-turned-t223991\"><strong>Mickey Mantle was her favorite player<\/strong><\/a>. She also believes that the actions the team took to bring her on as the bat girl speaks to a much larger issue than just fulfilling her dream.<\/p>\n<p>After the game, McLoughlin spoke with reporters and told them she had no ill will against the Yankees after they initially shot her down. \u201cI love the Yankees. They wrote me a letter. It wasn\u2019t what I wanted to see, but they wrote me a letter and I\u2019ve always loved them and been a fan of theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, the 70-year-old\u2019s dream has finally come true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know when they say dreams come true? This is it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; A Yankees fan\u2019s dream came true 60 years after being rejected by the team. Gwen McLoughlin, 70, served as the bat girl for the New York Yankees on Monday in their game against the Los Angeles Angels. When McLoughlin was about 10, she wrote a letter to the Yankees asking if she could serve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2272"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2301,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions\/2301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inspirationpost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}