The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

 The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Photo Gallery
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

“Look like ladies and play like men”

So went the marching orders to the women who made up the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Thanks to my friend John Quinlan for sending some neat photos from the AAGPBL.

Here’s a little information about the league edited from an article that appeared in Time Magazine’s On-Line edition, April, 2015:

“The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was founded by Cubs’ owner Philip K. Wrigley. It existed from 1943 to 1954. Over its history, more than 600 women participated, with the Rockford Peaches winning a league-best four championships.”

“The league inspired the 1992 movie  ‘A League of Their Own,’ which entered the enduring exclamation into the American lexicon: ‘There’s no crying in baseball!’ It had just kicked off its third season when LIFE featured it in a photo essay in 1945. The Fort Wayne Daisies, Chicago Colleens, Rockford Peaches, South Bend Blue Sox, Springfield Sallies and Peoria Redwings, all based in the Midwest, were comprised of nearly 100 women between the ages of 16 and 27 who played for $50 to $85 per week. Eight were married and three had children. Nearly half a million spectators were expected to turn out over the course of that season, shelling out $0.74 for a seat to watch the Rockford Peaches face the South Bend Blue Sox and the Grand Rapid Chicks take on the Racine Belles.”

“Team names like ‘Peaches’ or ‘Daisies’ and short skirts made it clear that one of the main attractions of this new league was the novelty of femininity in the game. As exciting as it was to watch women slide and steal and scuff their knees, the league was a product of its time, and its strict rules of conduct reflected this. According to LIFE, ‘League rules establish she must always wear feminine attire, cannot smoke or drink in public, cannot have dates except with ‘old friends’ and then only with the approval of the ever-present team chaperon’.”

“But as demure as the players may have been off the field, they were serious athletes as soon as the first pitch was thrown. Blue Sox Catcher Mary “Bonnie” Baker could throw 345 feet. Lefty pitcher Annabelle Lee threw a perfect game. And Sophie Kurys stole 1,114 bases during her ten-year career. The appeal of players’ athleticism kept the league going for more than a decade, with attendance peaking in the late 1940s. But the league’s decentralization, a dearth of qualified players and the rise of televised major league games eventually led to its demise, with players retiring their gloves after the close of the 1954 season.”

-Gary Livacari

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