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Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans’ History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Lou Arnold
Interviewer: “Lou can you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself, for
instance, where and when were you born?”
I was born in Pawtucket Rhode Island in 1925-May 11, 1925.
Interviewer: “They have you in the book as being born in 1923?”
I mean 1923.
Interviewer: “Just checking on it. That will be the one time I can catch you up on
something probably. You were born in 1923 and did you grow up on Pawtucket or
did you grow up somewhere else?”
I’m the thirteenth child and that’s why my numbers thirteen on my uniform. I was born
in Rhode Island, Pawtucket and grew up in Rhode Island.
Interviewer: “What did your family do for a living?”
My father, at one time, had a cemetery. I don’t know what you call it, but he took care of
it and people that came to be buried and my mother never worked. My father also taught
a wood working school for a while. 1:12
Interviewer: “Was he able to keep his job through the depression?”
No, as a matter of fact we lost our home during the depression. You know I was young
then and I had all the kids in the neighborhood come over and I said,” We got a red flag
on our house, we got a red flag on our house”. We didn’t know, my mother went to New
York and we had no idea and that’s what it was, they were auctioning it off—yeah, that’s
something to remember.
Interviewer: “Did you stay in Pawtucket and just live somewhere else?”
No, I stayed in Pawtucket and I played softball. I played softball for the “Opit Milk
Maids” and we won the championship in softball and we changed it to different names
like the “Townies” and different names, but they were all farm gals but myself. 1:59
Interviewer: “How did you hook up with them? How did you wind up playing for
them?”
They were playing at the ball park one night and we went to see them and my brother-in
law’s brother was there and he said, “Lou, you ought to get in and play ball with them”,
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�and I said, “oh, I don’t know, I just pick-up”, so I went—not to the tryout, but to the
team, to try with the team and I played shortstop since the first time I went. 2:21
Interviewer: “All right, had you been playing a lot just around the neighborhood
before?”
No, not too much, but I had a brother who use to pitch to me and I played catch with my
brother, but that team—I think I was fourteen or fifteen when I started on that team and I
stayed with that team.
Interviewer: “You stayed with that team. Now did they pay you?”
No, it was just an amateur thing, but one thing we did—we played in Boston Garden
maybe every other Friday night and that’s something that—I don’t know of any other
team—Mary Pratt might have, I don’t know. We use to go to the Boston Garden on
Friday night. 3:09
Interviewer: “That’s an old indoor arena.”
Yes, that was a big deal to us you know to go.
Interviewer: “Would you get a crowd to watch you play?”
They had a pretty good crowd there, yeah.
Interviewer: So how was it exactly that you wind up joining the professional
baseball league?”
I was with the “Townies” then, and they were playing the sailors down at Newport and
they had a girl pitcher and the two women pitched against each other and we were there
and we played and had a good time and when we came out this man walked up and he
said, “hey Lou, how would you like to play professional baseball?” And I said, “Oh,
wonderful, yeah, yeah”. We had never known him, well, he asked myself and three other
girls, four of us. The other three went and they called me and said, “Oh Lou you should
come out, you’d love it”, but you know, at the time I had a boyfriend in the service and
stuff like that you know. 4:14 I hesitated and finally I said, “I think I’m going to go”.
Well, my mother was a little upset and my father was too, but anyway, I went and I
remember I took the train and went to Opa-locka, Florida. That’s where they had the
spring training and that’s where we had old barracks to stay in and all that. It was very
good and I don’t know if you saw the movie, but it was like in the movie, you get playing
a game with different people and all of a sudden the roster is up there and you go and
look at it and it’s sad—say you were next to me and I got on and you know we got to be
good friends playing and the girl next to me couldn’t make it, she didn’t make it and
she’s crying and I’m crying and I’m crying for her, but it was a wonderful, wonderful
experience. 5:12
Interviewer: “So you were trying out for which team?”
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�They were going to pick for the teams and the “Blue Sox” picked me and I stayed with
them all the time.
Interviewer: “Is that the South Bend Blue Sox?”
Yes, the South Bend Blue Sox.
Interviewer: “At this time you said you had been a short stop.”
I almost flipped when I got out there and they had a man that worked with you on
pitching and he said, “We’re going to make a pitcher out of you”. At the time I had a
pretty good arm, you know a shortstop can throw them over pretty good and I think that’s
what made him think that I’d be a wonderful, wonderful pitcher. Well, I don’t think I
was a wonderful, wonderful pitcher, but you did as they said you know and the man
worked with me and everything a lot, so that’s how I got to pitch. 5:59 Never, never
played another position on a team, never got the chance.
Interviewer: “What they were doing with you is what they do with professional
male baseball players. They may start at one position, but then they said, “well, you
have the skills to go over here and that’s what we need”, so short stops can become
pitchers for the very reason that you did, they had good arms. See, you had a good
arm and you learned to pitch pretty well.”
I don’t feel I was a star or anything.
Interviewer: “Now, at the point when you joined the league, this was the point when
they had gone to overhand pitching. If they had been still been doing underhand or
sidearm, would you have done that?”
Oh I would have if they wanted me to, but I went out for shortstop you know. 6:47
Interviewer: “and when you were shortstop, the shortstops pretty much, they would
all be throwing overhand normally wouldn’t they? Throw fast.”
Oh yeah.
Interviewer: “That was a little more natural.”
In softball you have to throw that ball over there for shortstop.
Interviewer: “How was the game you were starting to play, how was that different
from the softball you had been playing back up in New England?”
I never played softball here. The year I came out in 1948 they went over to—
Interviewer: “What I’m asking is how was that baseball different from what you
had been doing in the amateur league?”
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�Well, for one thing, the bases were farther apart and the pitching mound a little away too
and it was really exciting to be honest with you though I loved softball and it is hard to
pick between the two of them because I enjoyed myself at softball and I played every
single game and every single day that we played. 7:44
Interviewer: “Were you a little bit older than some of the other women?”
Yes, I was twenty-five, I think, when I went in or twenty-four or something like that. I
think it was twenty-five or twenty-six.
Interviewer: “Did that make you almost a mother figure for some of them? Would
you do things to help some of them adjust?”
Oh yes, yes, oh yes and I use to talk and sometimes we would have a girl keep score one
time back home and going to the gym and this girl said to me, “I never do anything but
score keeping”, and boy I really told that kid I said, “you know, if you didn’t keep their
score nobody would have their average, nobody would know what their hitting, you’re
just as important as the girl that gets the home runs”. That kid looked at me as if to say,
“are you crazy lady?” 8:46 I said, “I’m serious”, and it’s true, no matter what—even if
you carry the water you’re carrying it for someone to get a drink and it’s going to help
them to either get a base hit or strike somebody out or throw somebody out. No matter
what you do it’s professional. I couldn’t believe you know, I think the first time I made
sixty-five dollars a week and I left a job that I earned thirteen dollars and seventy-five
cents a week. I made more than some of the superintendents back home. It might sound
crazy, but that was a lot of money a week 9:26
Interviewer: “What did you do with your money?”
Well, I sent money home to my mom and a lot of them went to college, which was a very
smart thing. A lot of the ball players are college graduates, but I never went to college.
Interviewer: “That gets a little farther in the story. Do you remember making the
trip up to South Bend and arriving there and looking around?”
Well not too much, I remember I went on a train from Rhode Island to Florida and you
know never being out of Rhode Island, it was really, really “whew” I was afraid
somebody was going to grab me, I don’t know, but when you got there and you met all
the gals—you never knew what team you were going to be on and you didn’t even know
if you were going to be picked, but it was a wonderful time and what an experience for
kids from Rhode Island—we just never went—maybe Boston was the farthest we went, if
we went then. 10:37 What a thrill, just absolutely. You know sir I’m going to tell you—
ever since I played ball, from the first night I joined the South Bend Blue Sox, I never,
never in my life missed a night without thanking God for that opportunity. I’m eighty-six
today and that was a wonderful time of your life. It was the cleanest league, not that
there were any dirty leagues or anything, but that was one of the cleanest leagues you
would ever want to be in. It made you proud if you never got off the bench just to be
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�there. The gals were just wonderful to me, absolutely wonderful and I was so scared, but
it didn’t take long for them to get with me and everything, you know. 11:27
Interviewer: “Now how much sort of support did they give you? Were they still
using chaperones, did they still have a lot of rules for you to follow?”
Oh yes, the chaperones were very, very good though. We had to be in by eleven, eleven
thirty depending on what kind of a game it was and you weren’t supposed to wear shorts
or slacks off the bus or anything like that. We wore shorts on the bus because it was so
warm, but we had skirts that we put on. You wore skirts almost all the time because you
couldn’t go out anyplace unless you kind of sneak out the window. If we went to the
park to have a hot dog roast or something we wore shorts or slacks, but that’s a little
different. 12:12
Interviewer: “Where did you live when you went up to South Bend?”
I lived at I’ll say South Bend; I lived there most of the time in houses, in homes. When
you went, somebody had to, if you were a rookie, somebody had to take you as their
roommate, one of the older ones, someone that wasn’t a rookie. That’s how you got into
a room with someone.
Interviewer: “Do you remember who your first roommate was?”
Her name was Thompson, but I can’t think—I think her last name was Thompson, but
I’m not sure. I wasn’t with her too long because they traded--they traded like crazy, but I
had wonderful roommates. 13:03 Wonderful roommates and landladies, they were
just—they would have pies made for us and lots—we were really treated wonderful. I
never—I worked at Bendix for thirty years and I never even said that I played ball. There
were maybe five of us that worked at Bendix and none of us mentioned playing ball and
when they found out that we played ball they went insane. “You never told us you
played for the South Bend Blue Sox” and stuff like that. 13:35 To us it was wonderful
and not private, but to me it meant so much and I never felt I was a star or anything, but I
use to pitch to the stars and they got better by hitting the ball. One gal came in and she
said, “Lou, I never get to do anything, sometimes I throw at the bat”, and I said, “If they
didn’t have you to throw to them, how are they going to keep their eye on the ball. You
mean a lot to them and don’t think that you don’t. Don’t feel that way.” That helped a
lot and who was I to tell them, that’s my opinion, I mean that’s how I felt and I got
wonderful, wonderful friends out of it. 14:26
Interviewer: “I will tell you, as we were organizing the set of interviews etc. and
planning to call even before we got here people said again and again, “You have to
talk to Lou Arnold”, which means those friends of yours are real friends and they
thought she was someone we should talk to.”
I’ll tell you, I get very, very touchy about it, but you can’t believe the friends I got out of
this league. You just can’t believe it and I feel that I could call any single ball player that
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�I know and I’ve met off the ball field now or they could call me and they would give me
their last dime and I would give them my last dime. 15:11
Interviewer: “Now let’s shift gears a little bit and let’s go into the business of
playing ball. How many games would you play do you think in the space of a week
during the season?”
Oh, if I played one—I never played too many games, I don’t feel like I played too many
games, but I was always in the bullpen. Marty McManus used to let me go to the bullpen
every single night. He use to tell me to go there. Sometimes I would come out and they
would do all right and sometimes they wouldn’t do too good and they would put someone
else in.
Interviewer: “Did you start a lot of games?”
Oh yeah, I started some games and some I stayed in and some I had to come out. 15:57
Interviewer: “You did have a season when you went ten and two.”
Oh that was in fifty-one.
Interviewer: “How did that happen? Did everything just work right for you that
year?”
You know I had a one hitter in that year and Jean [Fout] had pitched a perfect game a day
or two before and I was going for a no hitter and this girl that got the hit—it was the
Texas league and you know what that is, but that team played behind me like they were
shot out of a cannon. They caught everything and stopped everything and threw
everybody out and all that, so it ended up a one hitter and I was so thrilled about it,
besides we had a wonderful, wonderful umpire, Barney Ross, and I was pitching to this
girl who wasn’t the best hitter and he called a strike a ball which meant a lot because we
would not had our chance to get this Texas league, so I walked up to the thing, of course
my catcher was yelling at him and I said, “Barney, I want to tell you something”, and he
said, “yes Lou”, and I said, “You are going blind.” He said, “Lou, I want to tell you
something, you go back to that mound and I’ll show you how blind I’m getting.” 17:14 I
think he gave me a break on a couple of them after that though.
Interviewer: “Now, in this league did you have a regular set of umpires?”
Yea, Gadget Ward and Barney Ross, those are the two I remember because we had them
the most and I can’t remember the ones out of town.
Interviewer: “So, there were umpires that lived near or in South Bend?”
Yes, they were both in South Bend and they were both good umpires, but Gadget, if you
said one thing, “boom”.
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�Interviewer: “On the whole, do you think the players in your league were better
behaved than say our male baseball players in terms of arguing with the umpire or
challenging them?”
Oh yes, yes they were. Instead of giving certain signals to the crowd if they’re booing or
something, they never—no. 18:11
Interviewer: “Did you feel as if you had to be better behaved than the men?”
No, I don’t think any of us ever gave it a thought. I don’t think any of us ever gave that a
thought. You would be surprised at the women that came out, good living women. We
all wanted to win you know, we’d ride the other team, but I cannot say any bad things
about the women and not because I played with them because I was with the South Bend
Blue Sox and I never went to another team, but we met some gals after and we would go
and have something to eat, which was really against the rules, but the manager kind of
knew you know. 19:02 Maybe we would meet someone after the game and go and have
something to eat, but that’s all.
Interviewer: “Who was the manager while you were there?”
My favorite first manager was Marty McManus, the Red Sox, remember he had the Red
Sox? Then I had Dave Bancroft, then I had Jean Fout’s husband and I can’t think of his
name now, we won with him. Marty McManus, he was a sweetheart, oh, he was so good.
19:38
Interviewer: “Now, did you learn from the manager and from the coaches?”
Oh yeah, oh yeah, learn how lead off on the bases and stuff like that.
Interviewer: “Could they help you with your pitching?”
Oh yea, I had my own—not my own, but we had a pitching coach that worked with us
and I don’t even know his name now, but he was a nice guy.
Interviewer: “Do you know what kind of pitches you could throw?”
Drops and curves and changeups and today I can’t even pick up a pencil, but really it was
a---not I, but some of them would throw a double drop and double—Jean Fout, Jean Fout
to me was the greatest of great. I mean, even if she pitched a game and we had a double
header and someone was running, coach would say, “Jean, go in and play third base”,
that girl never, never said a word, never balked at all and went right in. 20:53
Interviewer: “when you were going good and pitching well in a game, were you
getting people out by changing speed and locations and fooling them, what were you
doing?”
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�I don’t know, I don’t know what I did, but I had a little skill, but I didn’t have what the
others had and I’m not saying that trying to be nice, it’s true, I really don’t know, but I
was so thankful I was able to stay there.
Interviewer: “You mentioned, you started off by going down to their spring
training. Did you go down to Florida for spring training every year?” 21:32
No, the next year they started having it in South Bend and some of the team went to—
overseas, they went there for a while, I’m sure they told you about that.
Interviewer: “Some went to Cuba.”
Cuba, yes, and I’m glad I didn’t have to go there.
Interviewer: “What kind of fan support did you have? Did you have a lot of fans
coming to the games?”
Wonderful. I remember the first game, I was there and we worked out in the field to start
and we had the skirts on and I can still hear this guy up in the stands say, “Oh look at the
outfits, oh, oh, ladies, ladies”. I think about the third inning he couldn’t believe those
ladies slide and everything and he would come to every game, he was really impressed. I
can still hear him, he would say, “beeeutiful” when we made a nice play “beautiful”. It
had to change him because those women would slide and they come in and we called
them “strawberries” and they would have blood running down their legs and we would
stand in front of it and fan it when we were playing. The chaperones would put
methiolate on it. 22:54 They would wrap it up and they would go right back out and if
they had to slide again, they would slide.
Interviewer: “You were a pitcher and you probably didn’t have to slide much did
you?”
No, all I had to try to do is get to first base and sometimes I did on a walk, I don’t know.
I don’t remember much.
Interviewer: “Now, you were on the team when they won two championships, what
do you remember about Guy Kennedy? How did they do with championship series,
did they have play offs with a lot of teams or the two best teams or what?”
It starts with, I wish I could remember the name of it, but it starts with six teams, then
four teams would play and then it gets down to two and when it gets down to two, that’s
the big challenge and I think it was either three out of five or four out of seven. 23:54
Interviewer: “So it was a real series like a world series.”
Yes, it was a series and I’m trying to think of the name of it, but I can’t.
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�Interviewer: “Now, one of those championship seasons you played short handed.
Can you explain a little bit why you didn’t have all of your players?”
Well, I really don’t know and you’ll probably hear this story from somebody else, but
this girl was an excellent second baseman—came in and it was close to the ninth inning
and we were leading, I think it was the ninth inning we were leading, and she sat down on
the bench and she took her shoes off. Well, the manager was out there and he saw her
take her shoes off and he said, “hey shorty I want you to run for second base”, and she
said, “take Betty Wagner, she can run as fast as I can”, and he said, “no, no, I said get in
and run”, and she said, “Betty can do it”, like this, he said, “you’re out, you don’t need to
come back”, so when he said that, three or four others said, “if you let her go, I’m going”,
so we ended up with seven, eight or nine players, but we had fifteen all the time to start.
25:18 It was a shame because they were all good ball players and they walked out.
Interviewer: “But you still managed to win the championship.”
Yea, and that was a big deal you know for everybody, that was neat.
Interviewer: “Now, over the time you were playing in South Bend and that’s 19481952, did the crowds eventually start to get smaller?”
In 1952 they started to get smaller because you didn’t have to have the gas tickets
anymore for gas. A lot of them would come in groups or by buses. One of our biggest
games was the fourth of July game and I think we had ten thousand that day and they
were sitting on the grass that went up like this and they were sitting on the grass out
there, but we had a pretty big crowd. 26:15
Interviewer: “You were talking about gas coupons, you mean gas rationing
ended?”
Yea, when gas was rationed and when the war was over they didn’t have to have
rationing and they could drive. A lot of them would come on the bus or they would come
in groups and a lot of them walked.
Interviewer: “do you think that television had something to do with it too? They
could stay home and watch something and not come out and watch you?”
Well I think truthfully, in the end, yes, television. Television didn’t really put us out, but
like you said, there were a lot of things they didn’t do during the war and that’s how the
league started. 27:12 You know, if you talk to the one in Grand Rapids, and a young
man interviewed her, she wrote an article that’s great about the beginning of it and how it
started and stuff.
Interviewer: “That’s why we’re here talking to you because this is part of the
Veterans History Project and we’re talking to people who can tell us about different
aspects of American life during wartime and things that happened because of it.”
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�That’s what it was and that’s how it started because Wrigley wanted to do something
because so many young men were taken away for war.
Interviewer: “Now at the time that you were recruited to come and join this league,
had you ever heard of the league before? Did you know there were women baseball
players? 27:56
No, I never heard of it and that’s why that man came up to me in Newport and said, “hey
Lou, how would you like to professional baseball?” “Yeah, I’d love it”, kidding with him
and never knowing that man was serious and then he went to three others and I believed
it.
Interviewer: “At the time you joined the league or while you were in it, did you
think of yourselves and doing something maybe that was new for women to be doing
or significant or was it only later maybe?”
I wouldn’t say that any of us did. I don’t care what team it was or ladies in that league
that didn’t love the game and played for the love of the game. It’s something when you
play softball all your life and all of a sudden this baseball comes out, but I think they play
for the love of the game. 28:53 A lot of them, I can tell you when we worked at Bendix,
never, never did we mentioned that we played and when the people found out, lord a
mercy, they were shocked.
Interviewer: “Did they find out about this before or after the movie came out?”
Before the movie came out because they started putting write ups in the paper and that
and they read all the write ups, but by the time I was working—maybe it was after the
movie, I’m not sure.
Interviewer: “When did you retire from Bendix?”
In 1952.
Interviewer: “From Bendix, not from the Blue Sox.”
Well, I went to Bendix in 1952, after the league, after we finished the league. I went to
Bendix on October 6, 1952 because we had a chance of getting in there and then I retired
in 30, 30 and out. 29:56
Interviewer: “So you would have retired then in 1982.”
In 1982.
Interviewer: “Was it while you were still working at Bendix that they began to talk
to you about having played in the league or was it after you retired that they were
all paying attention to you?”
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�It was after I retired from work. We worked at Bendix quite a while, six of us, maybe
eight and none of us ever mentioned that we played ball. It’s just something—you’re
proud, but I just never said anything.
Interviewer: “Now, when you look back at it now, do you think that maybe you
wound up doing something that was kind of important or that you were some of the
first women professional athletes in professional team sports in this country?”
30:46
You know, because everybody is telling you that—Now, I’m giving you my own
opinion, everybody is saying, do you? I just met a lady now and she said, “You mean
you played professional ball?” She was going to a wedding here and she said, “Oh, I’ve
got to congratulate you”, but I never thought I would see a women’s professional baseball
team and never thought I’d be on one, never and it was really, really exciting, but you
know you have to come home and do your wash and you lived in private homes, but the
people were wonderful to me. 31:28 They would make cookies for us and different
things and chicken.
Interviewer: “When you think back to that time and stuff, are there particular
events or things that happened to you that come back to you that you haven’t told
me about here yet?”
Well, I don’t know if you ever heard of—Oh God, I can’t remember his name—he use to
come to the ball games to the football games in an iron lung—Snite, Fred Snite Jr., his
father’s a multi millionaire and he use to bring Fred Snite to the football games in an
ambulance and they had the doors fixed so when you opened the doors it was all mirrored
so he could see the place. He’s in an iron lung, so we were coming home from Tampa,
after—we were there playing a game after we had our spring training, and this man came
up to our train, our particular train where most of the gals were, and he said, “Is there
anybody in here that sings Irish songs?” 32:35 None of us knew who he was, but the
girls said, “Lou, Lou”, so myself Jo Leonard and Slats Meier, I think, the three of us
went. We were walking through the train, we didn’t know who he was and he said, “My
son, my son would love to sing with you”, and I’m thinking a little kid like this, so we
went back and as we were going through this one train, it was full of oranges and
grapefruits and everything and we got to the last train and the last train had a bay
window, the whole back of it was a bay window and then and they had a railing like this,
it was gold, and there he was in the iron lung. 33:19 There was his wife and two
daughters there and a nurse and I was—I’d never seen anything like that and they said to
stand right beside of him, so I went over and I stood there and I said, “Are we going to
sing some Irish song?”, and he gasped yes because he couldn’t breath and we sang songs
until we were blue in the face. We just sang all the Irish songs we knew and we had a
wonderful time and they came out with cookies and ice cream for us, the people there.
That was an experience I’ll never forget and then his father came up and gave us oranges
and asked us if we wanted oranges or grapefruit. 33:59 That was so touching and so
thrilling and when I’d see him at the game, they would have that backed up and he could
see both teams.
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�Interviewer: “So, he would come to your games too? You mentioned he went to the
Notre Dame football games.”
No, he could never get that thing in our games.
Interviewer: “But he watched the Notre Dame football games?”
Every—and his father’s got a beautiful building there dedicated to him, beautiful, Fred
Snite Jr.
Interviewer: “How did your own career end? Did you just decide to stop playing in
1952 or did they tell you were about done?”
Oh no, I had an application in for Bendix. Eddie DeLauria, who was the head of the
league for one time, was the manager of our team at one time, he said, “Why don’t you
put your name in for Bendix Lou? I think they’re going to be hiring”, so I went back
home and I got a telegram saying, “come, there’s a job for you at Bendix”, and that’s how
I got into Bendix, by playing ball and that’s another thing I thank god for every night is
Bendix. Very good money, very good insurance. 35:29
Interviewer: “Now, to look back on the whole thing now, how do you think that
whole time playing ball affected you? You told us a little bit about that. Did it
make you a different person? Did it change the course your life took?”
It never changed me a bit sir. I never ever had so many friends. When we had our first
reunion just another ball player, Shirley Stavroff, we’d sit in a chair, not like this chair,
and watch people come in and wonder who it was and we were hugging people we didn’t
even know, we thought it was a ball player. When we had our first—I think it was
sometime in the early eighties, I’m not sure just when it was, but it was in Chicago and it
was just fabulous and we use to wait a couple of years, but now we have them every year.
36:22 I wish I could explain the feeling when you see different ones and they say, “Oh,
Lou you’re getting thin or Lou you’re getting fat”, and stuff like that, but it’s true, I think
you could ask any of them—I feel I could ask any of them if I needed something and I
think they feel they could ask me if they needed something, if I had it or if they had it.
Interviewer: “One other thing that one of the other players had mentioned to me
about you and that was that you had helped some of them just learn some basic
manners and learn how to follow the rules. Could you talk a little bit about that?
What did you do for them?” 37:05
Well I—did you interview Sue Kidd?
Interviewer: “Yes.”
Well, Sue Kidd, I haven’t been down to her home, her father had the grocery store, the
post office and everything right in Arkansas, Choctaw Arkansas, and she came into the
league and she was only a kid and she would walk by or you’d give her something and
she never said please, thank you, excuse me, or anything and I thought, “How strange,
12
�that girl’s so—“, and we got to be pretty good friends and I said to her, “I want to tell you
something, It’s not going to cost you a cent, but I’m going to tell you something and you
better listen to me”, and she would say, “Yeah Lou, yeah Lou”, and I said, “You should
learn some manners because you’re such a nice person and a good person, manners
would really show what kind of a lady you are”. I don’t really work with her, but when
she started coming by me she would say, “Excuse me Lou “ and “thank you Lou”. She
caught on and she’s very, very polite now. 38:14 Very polite and I was being
interviewed someplace on the radio in Grand Rapids I think it was and she was too, the
two of us, So here we were and I got to interviewing and talking to the lady and waiting
for Sue and sue said, “You know, I didn’t even know how to say excuse me”, and I
almost fell off the chair and she said, “That lady there taught me manners”, and I’m
sitting on the chair thinking, “Oh Sue dear, please”, but she has never forgotten that and
she has thanked me at different times and I told her, “I’m proud of you Sue”. She was
just a hick from the sticks. When she said that I thought I would fall out of the chair, but
we’re good friends, very good friends. 39:10
Interviewer. “Well, I knew to ask that because she told me about it, so I thought I
would get your side.”
She said that to you?
Interviewer: “Yes, that’s why I’m asking for your side.”
I almost didn’t tell you to be honest with you. I thought, “I don’t want to mention Sue
like that”.
Interviewer: “Sue’s very grateful that you did it and she put that on record herself,
so that just supports what you had to say about what a good bunch of people this
is.”
Yeah, they were, they were and once and a while we would go over to the boat house ,
boat club I guess and it was right across the river from our ball park and some would play
the slot machine and we’d all jitterbug and have a swell time, but I really feel the
manager knew it, but we always had to get back at a certain time you know. I think he
really knew it, but I don’t know for sure. There were a lot of little things we did do, we
weren’t “holier than thow” you know like picking up the gals at the hotel so they could
come to the boat club and dance or have a few beers or something you know. There
really wasn’t much drinking in the league. Not much that I know of, of course the team I
was on there wasn’t. Let me see if there’s any other interesting—It was just—like now,
not because I’m being interviewed, I don’t care if you don’t ever have to use it, to be
honest with you that isn’t the point. I think it’s nice of you to ask me and it was nice of
Dolly to tell you to ask me, but really makes me feel good to tell you what a wonderful
league it was and it’s still a league to all of us you know. 41:06
Interviewer: “We’ve spent a fair amount of time with your group here just this
week doing quite a few interviews and we have to agree with you that it really is a
13
�remarkable bunch of people, so I would like to thank you for taking a little time
today to come and tell me about it.”
Well, thank you for asking me, but I’m telling you and you found out for yourself, some
of them are great, great people. 41:30
Interviewer: “that’s right.”
14
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Oral history
Baseball players--Minnesota
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Illinois
Baseball for women--United States
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58_LArnold
Title
A name given to the resource
Arnold, Lou (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Arnold, Lou
Description
An account of the resource
Lou Arnold was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1925. She grew up in Pawtucket and played softball with her brother and eventually joined an amateur league where she played for a few teams. After playing a game with a rival team in Newport she was invited to play for the All American League. Arnold played from 1948 to 1952 for the South Bend Blue Sox as a pitcher. One of her baseball highlights came during the 1951 season when she pitched a ten and two record and led her team to the championship that year.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Video recordings
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Baseball for women--United States
Baseball
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945
Baseball players--Indiana
Women
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-09-25
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4