Transcript Women in Baseball Sammi B. Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY Essential Question: What role have women played in Baseball? How did the Second World War affect women.

Women in
Baseball
Sammi B.
Horace Greeley HS
Chappaqua, NY
Essential Question:
What role have women played in
Baseball? How did the Second
World War affect women in
Sports? How have female
athletes impacted American
Sports?
History of Baseball
Baseball was derived from a
variety of earlier English games
Cricket
Rounders
American baseball took its own
distinctive form in the 1840s
Alexander Cartwright
A shipping clerk who formed the
New York Knickerbockers
Created the Layout of the diamond
shaped field with four bases and
some of the rules
Batters with 3 strikes were out
Teams with 3 outs switched from
batting to playing in the field
th
19
Century Baseball
1860—baseball was played by…
college students, Irish workers,
urban elites, provincial farmers,
people of all ethnic groups, and
women
Free black men formed the first
African American baseball teams
in Philadelphia
They weren’t allowed to play
against the white male baseball
teams
19th Century Baseball cont.
Women formed
“ladies” teams in the
1860s at Vassar
College
Smith and Wellesley
followed Vassar’s
lead decades later
The game
discontinued when
a player injured
her leg because
the game was too
violent for women
“Resolutes”
Red Stockings &
Blue Stockings
1883- Promoters in Philadelphia
fielded two teams
Red Stockings
Blue Stockings
Free admission to games
More than 500 women spectators
Afterwards admission was raised to
15 cents
“Blondes & Brunettes”
1875- The Springfield ( Illinois)
Blondes and Brunettes were the
first women to play for pay
They were a touring team
The team went out of business
after four games
Men financed the team as
barnstorming novelty acts across
America.
“Bloomer Girls”
Women’s and Girl’s
Athletics were common
by the late 19th Century
Bloomer League (18901920)
A small women’s league
that played baseball in
different parts of the
US
Named after Amelia
Bloomer
A 19th century advocate
for women’s fashion
League gave women the
opportunity to play
professional ball
Women’s baseball was
used in 1915 by New
Jersey suffragists to
attract attention of the
state’s upcoming
referendum on woman
suffrage
Lizzie Arlington
The first woman to play professional baseball
(minor league)
Actual Name is Lizzie Stride (or Stroud)
She began playing baseball in a coal mining
town
The owner of the Philadelphia Reserves hired
Arlington as a gimmick to increase gate
receipts in 1898
Ed Barrow, president of the Atlantic League,
then hired her to pitch in some Minor League
exhibition games
She played her first regulation Minor League
game on July 5, 1898
Again she failed to attract the anticipated
crowds, and she stopped pitching
professionally
She only pitched one professional game for
Reading (PA) of the Class A Atlantic League
Alta Weiss
Born in Ragersville, Ohio
A daughter of a doctor
Made her professional debut
in a men's semi-pro league at
age 16 in 1907
She only gave up 4 hits and 1
run in five innings
She threw sinking fastballs
and off speed pitches to
stump the best male batters
Made enough money to put
her through med school
Even after she became a
doctor, she continued to
pitch in the men’s league
(1920s)
Alta Weiss cont.
She drew audiences
of 3,000 people- the
biggest box-office
draws in the
Midwest during the
early 1900s
The league tried to
force her to wear a
skirt, but she found
it difficult to play so
she began pitching in
bloomers
Jackie Mitchell
Jackie Mitchell was signed to in 1931 as a 17year-old pitcher.
In April of 1931, the New York Yankees had an
exhibition game against Chattanooga.
Over 4,000 fans attended the game
Jackie Mitchell took the field after Bert
Niehoff gave up a double and single
Babe Ruth was the first batter of her career
He let the first one go, but then swung at the
following 2
Jackie’s next pitch hit the outside corner and
the “Great Bambino” struck out looking
Lou Gehrig was next to bat and struck out on
3 pitches
Jackie Mitchell with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig
Jackie Mitchell cont.
A few days later, Baseball Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided
Mitchell’s contract
He stated that baseball was “too
strenuous” for women
In 1933 Mitchell signed with the men’s
team “House of David”
Jackie traveled with them until 1937
Jackie Mitchell retired from
professional baseball at 23
She grew frustrated with the audience’s
comments and began working at her
father’s company
The All-American
Professional Baseball
League
How did the League get
Started?
Many minor league teams disbanded by the fall
of 1942 because of WWII
Philip K. Wrigley had a solution to the loss of
entertainment—the creation of a girls’ softball
league
Midwestern businessmen and Mr. Wrigley
financially supported the All-American Girls
Softball League that first emerged in the
spring of 1943
Half-way through the first season, a board of
trustees changed the leagues name to the AllAmerican Girls Baseball League (AAGBBL) and
at the end of the season the changed it again
to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball
League (AAGPBL)
AAGPBL
The women teams would play at the baseball
fields when the men had away games
Utilizing the parks by 50%
Wrigley funded half the cost and budget
expenses for each team, while the host
cities funded the other half
Teams consisted of 15 players, a manager,
business manager, and woman chaperone
Tryouts were set up in dozens of major
cities, and scouts were sent to find women
all over the US and Canada
280 were invited to attend a final tryout
60 were chosen to become the first women to
play professional baseball
AAGPBL cont.
The league had the same rules as those in
Major League baseball however the girls
pitched underhand and the fields were
shorter
Overhand pitching and smaller ball sizes
were soon adopted
There would be 9 fielders like the MLB
teams
Players were paid in between $45 and $84 a
week
Although the league discontinued after
1954, it was recognized again in 1988 by
the National Baseball Hall of Fame
The Four Original Teams
included….
Kenosha Comets
South Bend Blue Sox
Racine Belles
Rockford Peaches
AAGPBL cont.
At first, the women’s baseball league struggled
There were attempts to add pre-game
entertainment, but the league was still failing to
increase its attendance
Wrigley originally thought that the war would
force the MLB to disband
When the men’s professional baseball league
continued strong, Wrigley lost interest in the
AAGPBL and sold it to Arthur Meyerhoff
Attendance began to increase, and when the
war ended—up to 10,000 people were in the
crowd for a single game and 910,000 fans on
July 4, 1948
The Leagues popularity resulted in….
Training teams
The creation of rookie teams the Peaches, Belles,
Blue Sox, and Comets could face
Players from the AAGPBL
Shirley
Jamison
rounding
Third Base
Pitcher
Anabelle Lee
the first
perfect game
in league
history
Catcher
Mary
“Bonnie”
Baker
League Rules of Conduct
Femininity was a high priority
The Girls who played Professional Baseball
were required to follow Management’s high
standards
Women may never wear slacks or shorts in
public
Players must have long hair
“Lipstick should always be on”
No foul language, smoking, or drinking
“Baseball uniform skirts shall be no shorter
than six inches above the knee-cap”
Players may not “fraternize” with players from
opposing teams
Players were required to attend charm
school for proper etiquette (which was
discontinued in 1945), and they were
supplied with a suggested beauty routine
and workout exercises
Why did the League Fail?
Attendance and revenues began to decrease in
1949
The team directors bought the AAGPBL from
Arthur Meyerhoff because they wanted to
operate their teams independently
The league had no centralized control of
publicity, promotion, player procurement, and
the player talent wasn’t evenly distributed
Finding good women baseball players was also
becoming difficult since the league would have
to train skilled softball players
As revenues fell, individual teams could no
longer support rookie training teams, and
advertisement was cut down
The League discontinued after the 1954 season
A League of Their Own
There was a documentary call “A League of Their
Own, the Documentary": written by Kelly Candaele,
Helen Callaghan’s son (Helen Callaghan was a former
player)
He wrote the story in honor of his mother
Helen, and his aunt, Marge Callaghan
They were both Canadian, but the players
weren’t a pitcher and catcher in real life
The movie was a good portrayal in general
Many women took the train from California
to Chicago and then went to the various
cities that formed the initial four teams of
the league
There was a lot of recruiting in
Canada because Mr. Wrigley had scouting
ties established in the area.
A League of Their Own cont.
The characters were fiction but were
inspired by some real athletes
The third base coach in the movie was
an actual player in the AAGPBL
The chaperons and etiquette classes
resembled players’ real experiences
They had to go to etiquette class
in order be the desired "AllAmerican Girl“
Although many players were in
their early twenties, some were
in their teens (as young as 15
years old)
Results of Women in
Baseball
Although the League itself failed, the AAGPBL
gave over 600 women the opportunity to play
professional baseball
“This period represents one of the most unique
aspects of our nation’s baseball history”—
Jeneane Lesko
Women not only supported the
war by buying war bonds, and
working in the factories and
shops during WWII, they
were also the athletes and
form of entertainment
Results of Women in
Baseball cont.
Women in Baseball may not have had an
obvious effect on the nation but many later
events prove that women aren’t going down
looking
Victoria Roche was the first girl to play in a
Little League World Series (Williamsport, PA)—
1984
Ila Borders was the first woman to pitch for a
men's baseball team (played for Southern
California College in Costa Mesa, California)—
1994
Effa Manley was the first woman elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y (she
was co-owner of the Newark Eagles, a Negro
League team in the 1930s and 1940s)—2006
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The End