[packs]

Bobbi Gibb unofficially ran the 1966 Boston marathon. She was not officially entered into the race because the organizers thought women were too fragile to run it.

She completed the race with a time that was better than two thirds of the people running it.

There also seems to be a fallacy in the discussion of women in sports. I think the bar is being set unreasonably high for what is considered competing. A woman does not need to be Lebron James to be considered competitive. Lebron James is better than 99% of all players who have ever played basketball professionally in any capacity. All a woman needs to do to compete is be good enough to wear a jersey. I don't see anyone suggesting someone like Brian Scalabrine isn't a competitive basketball player.

To go back to the example given of a woman giving up 12 runs in two Major League innings, that would be considered an immortal moment for women in the sport, not a failure. How many men have similar debuts? Larry Yount got hurt warming up and didn't even throw a pitch, but he still appeared in a Major League game. Was he not a competitive pitcher?