The New York Yankees Just Made a 70-Year-Old Woman’s Bat Girl Dreams Come True


Proving that it’s never too late to live your best life, 70-year-old Gwen Goldman just became an honorary bat girl for the New York Yankees, six decades after she originally inquired about the position. (A bat boy or bat girl is someone who helps carry baseball bats around the field and does other small tasks for the team during the game.)

According to ESPN, Goldman was 10 when she first wrote to the Yankees‘ then-general manager Roy Hamey about being a bat girl. On June 23, 1961, Hamey responded, per ESPN, “I am sure you can understand that it is a game dominated by men. [A] young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout.” 

But times and attitudes change, and when Goldman’s daughter, Abby, wrote to the team’s current general manager, Brian Cashman, he was happy to grant Gwen’s childhood wish. On June 28, Goldman was an honorary bat girl for the Yankees during their game against the Los Angeles Angels. “Some dreams take longer than they should to be realized, but a goal attained should not dim with the passage of time,” Cashman said, per ESPN. “I have a daughter myself, and it is my sincere hope that every little girl will be given the opportunity to follow her aspirations into the future.”

Telling ESPN that she never held the initial rejection against the team, Goldman called the experience of wearing the New York Yankees uniform and visiting the dugout the “thrill of a lifetime, times a million.”

“I don’t know where to start, of which was the best, what did I enjoy the most?” she said, adding, “The whole piece, from walking in the front door of the stadium at Gate 2, to coming up to a locker with my name on it that said ‘Gwen Goldman’ and suiting up, then walking out onto the field…It took my breath away.”



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