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Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Mike Corona
Born: Racine, Wisconsin, November 9, 1928
Interviewed by: Frank Boring, GVSU Library of Congress Veterans History Project
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer
Interviewer: “Mike if we could begin with your name and where and when were
you born?”
My name is Michael D. Corona and I was born in the city of Racine, Wisconsin on
November 9, 1928 and I was born right in my own house at 1300 Lake Avenue in
Racine.
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like?”
My early childhood was fine except that when I was four years old I had scarlet fever and
I was put back a grade in school and that put me graduating a year behind all the friends
that I played ball with, worked out with and went to school with you know, but other than
that my childhood was fine. My mother and father were the greatest. :59
Interviewer: “What did your dad do?”
My dad worked in a foundry. He was a molder and he was a jobbing molder at Belle
City Racine Steel Castings Company, where I, after I graduated from Horlick High
School in 1947, I went to work there myself for thirty-two and a half years.
Interviewer: “Your mother was a housewife?”
My mother was a homemaker, plus she worked at Rainfare, Inc., which made raincoats,
pants, clothing and everything and during the war they made a lot of raincoats for the
army and I eventually worked, when I was a sophomore and Junior in high school, I
worked at Rainfare part time. 1:46
Interviewer: “Did you have brothers and sisters?”
I have three other brothers and three sisters and now I’m the only brother that’s left.
Three of my brothers have passed away.
Interviewer: “Now, you lived in a neighborhood that had a ball park nearby. Tell
us about how close it was and what was that ball park anyway?” 2:07
The ball part was the Horlick Athletic Field, which was three and a half blocks south of
where I lived. It’s where all the big name teams played; all the high schools used it for
football and all of the baseball. In fact they had midget auto racing there, they had
wrestling and they had Joe Darcetti, Joe Darcetti was, I don’t know if you remember, he
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�was Gorgeous George in the wrestling field. He was there, they had big entertainment
like Al Schacht the clown of baseball came there and I participated in his event when he
was there. It was a good ballpark, but when I—at first when I was a kid it was all wood.
The outside of it was all wood and the CC Camp came into town and put it up in brick
and it’s all brick now. 3:02
Interviewer: “What is the CC Camp?”
From Fort McCoy.
Interviewer: “What id CC stand for?”
Conservation.
Interviewer: “Oh, the Conservation Corps, sure.”
The Conservation Corps. yeah.
Interviewer: “All right now, I want to start and I don’t want to jump too far into
the story because we got some time. Ok? What is your first recollection of going to
the ball park, how old were you and did you go just as a spectator, what was your
first recollection of going to the ball park?”
Well, my first recollection of going to the ballpark is when Horlick High School used to
play over there. Football and they use to have a semi-pro league called Metal Parts and
they played softball there and when they had the games, we use to sneak through the
wooden fence to go into the ballpark. 3:51 When I was about ten years old Elmer
Christiansen, who was the caretaker of the ballpark, and I became very good friends and
so when all of the ball teams would come in he’d let me know. “Mike” he said, “we got
ball teams coming tonight, how about coming and being a batboy”, so when I was ten
years old, I was a batboy already.
Interviewer: “Wow, now, your parents didn’t mind that you were going out there at
night?”
No. At that time, it was a lot different than it is now. You didn’t even have to lock your
doors at that time. This was in the forties right after the war you know. 4:36
Interviewer: “So, can you remember your first experience as a batboy?”
My first experience, as a batboy is when the Kansas City Monarchs came into town and
guess who was the pitcher? Satchel Paige. Satchel Paige came in there and I was the
batboy for the Kansas City Monarchs and they played the Racine Blues.
Interviewer: “Can you remember anything about the game?”
Not very much, but it was a good game.
Interviewer: “What were your duties as a batboy?”
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�My duties as a batboy was to make sure that all the bats were in place. When the batter
got done hitting, I made sure I got the bat out of the way in case there was a play at home
plate and then I shagged balls for the guys and get their gloves, give them a towel, give
them a glass of water, the major things of being a batboy. 5:29
Interviewer: “Any other team before the women came to town, let’s put it that way,
what other teams were you the batboy for? What kinds of events were you the
batboy for?”
Just the semi-pro baseball teams that use to play there and then Metal Parts once and a
while. I would go over there and watch them play because that was my game, fast pitch,
and I only played a little baseball, but I played a lot of fast pitch. 6:00
Interviewer: “Did you have any advance notice about these women playing
baseball? How did that all come about for you?”
Well, only through the sports pages and Jim O’Brian, who was a good editor. Keith
Briim, who was the sports—him and Don Black, who was the personnel director at
Western Publishing Company, had the biggest involvement in getting the Racine Belles
there. They had to go to Chicago to meet with Wrigley to get them to come to Racine.
6:34
Interviewer: “So, when they first came to town, were you automatically the batboy?
How did that all come about?”
I asked Johnny Gottselig, who was the manager, if I could be the batboy because when
they came into town they stayed and they had usual practice before the season started and
I went over and talked to Johnny Gottselig, who was the manager, and asked him if I
could be the batboy because I had an assistant whose sister was on the ball team, Mary
Nesbitt, my assistant, Buddy who helped me when I was playing. 7:09
Interviewer: “How old were you when they came to town?”
Fourteen.
Interviewer: “So you were only fourteen years old?”
Yes, fourteen.
Interviewer: “Since you already knew the lay of the land, you had already been a
batboy there for a while, so it wasn’t that unusual for you to just walk up to the
manager and say, “I got experience here”, how did you sell him on the idea?”
Elmer helped a lot too and Leo Murphy who eventually became one of the managers of
the Belles was a catcher in one of the minor league teams I played in Racine and he was a
good friend of mine because I use to get his glove for him and all that and he helped me
out with Mr. Gottselig. 7:54
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�Interviewer: “You came with a resume.”
I came with a resume.
Interviewer: “What I want to try to get here is, and maybe it didn’t exist, but
you’re doing the batboy for the men’s teams ok. Women didn’t ordinarily play
baseball like that. These were good players, you’re fourteen years old and you’ve
seen some good players, you saw Satchel Paige, can you remember your first game
with the women?”
Oh ya, oh ya, because Sophie, I think she stole four bases that day and Joanne Winter
pitched a one hitter and Mary Nesbitt came in the next day and pitched a no hitter. You
don’t forget things like that, you don’t. Too bad Joanne isn’t around any more, but Mary
Nesbitt is still alive and she lives in Florida and we keep in contact with her when we go
down to Florida. You take some of these girls like Maddy English, Edy Perlick, Claira
Schillace; they could have played in any men’s league. 8:55 Then we had a girl from
Racine who was a first baseman, Margie Danhauser, and I knew her very well.
Interviewer: “Were there any big differences between being a batboy for the men’s
team as opposed to the women’s team?”
The duties were practically the same. I made sure that everything was clear, bats were all
put in order and everything. The only thing different between the men and the women is
when the women had to slide they got burned and man they had to lift up that skirt and it
was different than the men, the men wore long pants and the outfits the girls wore were
delicate you know. 9:38
Interviewer: “Your job didn’t have anything to do with taking care of the
strawberries or any of that?”
No, no, that was Mrs. Anderson’s job, Mary Anderson.
Interviewer: “How about the behavior of the men compared to the behavior of the
women? Any differences there, when they come off, maybe they didn’t like the way
they hit the ball or they got struck out, let’s get an inside look here.”
The men were a little different; they throw the bats you know. If they miss the ball, if
they strike out they say damn it or they swear a little bit you know, but the women, they
took it in stride and it was a different ball game. We had pitchers in the men’s that really
threw BB’s, they were fast and they were good ball players and the women were good
too, but don’t forget your mound was only thirty-eight feet from home plate and when
they pitched they threw BB’s too and it was a different game, a different game between
the men and the women. 10:45
Interviewer: “How were the fans?”
The fans were great you know, but at first they didn’t come, who would want to come?
First we had Metal Parts, which was a good semi-pro men’s team and they took a lot of
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�the fans away from the—but when the Belles started winning and then the fans came and
the fans would really pack that place on a Sunday afternoon double header was kind of
different because it was chilly sometimes and sometimes you couldn’t even see the game
because the foundry was right there and if we would get a southwest wind and they were
smelting iron, you could hardly see the ball players on the field, but it was a good thing.
11:32
Interviewer: “Now, you got a perspective of the game that even the players didn’t
get and the fans didn’t get. Were there any particular plays that you saw that—you
were experienced, you knew baseball already, you’d see how the pros—were there
any particular plays that you saw that you just went “WOW, that’s amazing, how’d
she do that?” Any particular—either throwing the ball or catching somebody out,
any of those kind of remarkable things?”
Well, you never had two better—ended appealing on a double play—English to Sophie,
to Margy Danhauser you know. The double play was the best play that the women made
and Edy Perlick had a wonderful arm in left field and Clara had a good arm in center
because she covered a lot of center field because Horlick field wasn’t small, it was a big
ball park because they used that for baseball and it was a long way out to that fence.
12:35 some of those girls could hit that ball, but one thing about the Racine Belles, they
had three good outfielders in Perlick, Clara Schillace and Eleanor Dapkus, they had three
good outfielders.
Interviewer: “What other teams did you see playing the Belles? They would have
other ones coming in?”
You would have the South Bend Blue Sox, you had the Kenosha Comets and you had the
Rockford Peaches and Reno Giocenti, who was an Umpire from Racine, when he would
work a game in Rockford, he would ask me if I would like to go along, so I would go to
Rockford and be the batboy for the Racine Belles in Rockford and also, the Kenosha
Comets you know. Sometimes I had to take the interurban to go to Kenosha because they
played their games at Lakefront Stadium, which is no longer there, but it was so close,
everything was so close. The only team I didn’t get to go to their ballpark was the South
Bend Blue Sox, but the Comets, the Rockford Peaches and the Belles were the three
parks I participated in. 13:40
Interviewer: “Now, you’re a young little fourteen year old with a bunch of cute girls
running around, did any of them think you were their favorite or something? Did
you have somebody that you thought maybe was your sweetheart even though she
was not your sweetheart?”
Not in that way, but we liked, you know Clara, she was a nice Italian girl you know and
Horlick field was in “little Italy” and when the Belles would play there, Racine Steel or
Belle city would have their freight cars—they would part them right over center field and
all the guys from the block would go sit on top of the boxcar and watch the game you
know and after the game they would all go see Clara. She was probably the most favored
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�one of all the Racine Belles that played, but all of the girls were wonderful. Joanne
Winters, Sophie and then you had Choo Choo Hickson who was funny as hell. 14:43
Interviewer: “Why was she funny as hell?”
She was always clowning around a little bit. When they were all in Racine, they lived in
Racine, they all came to Ace Grille, which was a restaurant downtown and that where
you would always find all the girls and they had a pool room downstairs and a couple of
them would go down and shoot pool, but it was wonderful. They were all good girls.
Interviewer: “Now, every group has a clown and somebody who’s—tell us about a
few of the personalities if you will. From your perspective tell us about some
personalities.” 15:17
There wasn’t that much to tell about it frankly. They were all ladies and actually like in
the movie—in the movie that was Hollywood. You didn’t see occasions like Spaghetti
and them going out and dancing. These girls were well respected and they were invited
to the country clubs and they did a lot of community work and Johnson’s Wax took care
of them—made sure that they were well represented. Like I say, the movie was all
Hollywood and I wasn’t the batboy then. 16:01
Interviewer: “Any particular game or games that really stands out for you?
Something that you just went WOW.”
The championship game, the championship game between Rockford and the Belles. It
was like it was in the movie, but it didn’t happen that way you know.
Interviewer: “Tell us how it happened, start us off from the beginning and kind of
work us through the game.”
The game was well played and it ended up four to three and there was no home run like
they had in the movie with Geena Davis dropping the ball. It was a game and the score
was four to three. It was just a regular championship game played like champions and
like I say, any of them—any of those girls could have made any men’s team in the
country. They had arms and they were good arms too and I’ll tell you. 16:56
Interviewer: “Now you spent how long being the batboy for Racine?”
Just the Belles, just the one year 1943 because then I went—I became a freshman and I
started playing basketball, softball and all that. In fact, in 1944 I tried out –they had the
St. Louis Cardinals had a clinic at Horlick Field and I tried out and I went two weeks, I
was there for two weeks, but I just didn’t have it to make—to be a major leaguer you
know, but I loved the game and you can ask my wife—I played a lot of ball. Sometimes
I played—because I played a lot of fast pitch and we were the state champions for five
years in a row and we use to play sixty-five games a year and a lot of traveling. 17:51
Sometimes I would go away on the weekend and come home and go right to work, but I
love my wife, she really watched me.
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�Interviewer: “this is going back a little way and maybe at the time you didn’t think
of it as much, but when did you find out that the league was actually ending? Do
you remember that at all?”
That was 1954 and just through the sports writing because I was already working and we
already had a couple of children and it was just too bad that they had to—but you could
see it dying a slow death because baseball was coming back now and guys like DiMaggio
and all them were all trying to hit the ball and you could see it was dying, but I was glad
it was Kalamazoo because we were there just a couple of years ago when they showed
the last game in 1954 when they ended the season. 18:56
Interviewer: “So, when you stopped being a batboy like you say, you were in school
and eventually to work, were you still a fan? Did you still go to the games?”
Oh yes, I would go to the women’s games.
Interviewer: “Let’s talk about that then. You were mentioning that things had
kind of died out, but let’s go back—now you’re in the stands and you’re watching as
a fan or did they still let you down there?”
No, I went as a fan. Elmer was still there and I would see him when I would go there and
his sister Edna was the general manager and she would let me in. I watched a lot of the
Belles play until I graduated from high school and then I kind of fell off a little bit, but I
ran into Irene Hickson and she was telling me, “how come you don’t join the
association?” I didn’t even know I could join because now I’m classified as league
personnel, so I signed a card and my wife and I have been going now since 1991 to the
reunion and it’s a great thing. 20:09 Recall the girls and see them all you know.
Interviewer: “They remember you?”
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: “I want to get back to when you started to see that things were
winding down. Was it that the crowds weren’t there or what was it?”
They only played in Racine until 1950. 1950 was the last year they played in Racine and
then, I think, the belles became the Grand Rapids Belles or or something, but they only
played until 1950 and you could see in 1948 and 1947 that they were dying down because
the crowds—metal Parts was in a pretty good league and they were there you know.
21:00
Interviewer: “Did you have any, I know this isn’t fair because it was a long, long
time ago, when you saw in the paper that the league was ending, did you have any
reactions or any thought that it was too bad or anything at all that you can
remember?”
It was a sad thing for the league to disband, but you have to remember that these girls did
something that nobody ever did. They brought back—you know guys were all over there
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�in the army over in the war and when they came home they had something to go to. I
never had a chance to be in the army because I was too young and all that, but when these
girls would be there, these guys were really happy you know. “ Hey, that’s somewhere to
go, let’s go over to Horlick Field, a double header today”, but it was just too bad that the
league didn’t go over. Then the—then Milwaukee got a ball team, the Braves and they
had other things to occupy their time. Like I say, the league ended—the Racine Belles
disbanded in 1950. 22:05
Interviewer: “Now I’ve asked this question and we’ve all asked this question to
each one of the women, they played ball, they enjoyed ball and then afterwards
when it ended there was this sadness, but they kind of went on with their lives, but
at some point they kind of recognized that they did something special. Did that ever
happen to you? Was there a point in your life where you realized, not necessarily
you, but they had done something pretty amazing besides just playing good
baseball? Was there any point where you just kind of thought back that that was
kind of an amazing period of time? 22:38
Amazing because I was the first batboy for the Racine Belles and that’s what I tell people
that I was probably the only boy that was a batboy for the women’s teams when they
originated in 1943, but after I got out of high school, I did a lot. I was active in the
Democratic party, I was active in the unions, retirees groups and on Labor Day, bowling.
I had a—in fact now I even got a bowling league named after me, I’m in the Racine
Bowling Hall of Fame, and I was occupied as my wife will tell you. I was never home.
23:28
Interviewer: “At what point did you actually—either it was called to your attention
or you just thought about it, that you were part of something that was something
pretty amazing?”
Well, the only thing I can say is that I never got any pictures of me when I was the
batboy. Somebody’s got pictures of me in California, but we’ve never made contact with
the person, but other than that it was wonderful to be with the girls and they were great.
Interviewer: “Now, what was your reaction to hearing that they were going to be
put into the Baseball Hall of Fame?”
I was just wondering why they didn’t put the batboys in. You know, they put the girls in
because we were out there, but they were out there all the time you know. They played
all them games you know and they worked hard and they deserved to have some
recognition in the Hall of Fame. 24:28 We enjoyed it when we went to Cooperstown
when they had the reunion in Syracuse and we all went to Cooperstown. It was just too
bad that—they tried to get me into the Hall of Fame because I was a league personnel and
I was involved for sixty games that they played at home and I never missed a game. For
the championship game, when I was a batboy, I usde to wear a pair of jeans and a nice
white tee shirt, but for the championship game Don Black said, “Mike, you got to have a
uniform”, so they sent me to one of the men’s stores and I bought a nice pair of brown
8
�pants and a yellow shirt so I would look just like the Racine Belles on the day of the
championship game. 25:22 That was one of the biggest—because at that time you know
things were tough.
Interviewer: “I’ve asked the women, and I’m sure you have heard this one before,
what did you think of the movie?”
It was Hollywood. It was Hollywood the movie was Hollywood. It was nice to see
something done and they got some recognition from it and Penny Marshall did a very
good job on it, but some of the stuff they had in there the girls never did because like I
said, they were ladies. They never had drinking parties riding on a bus. Tom Hanks—
you wouldn’t see Johnny Gottselig come into the locker room and go to the bathroom.
That was just Hollywood. 26:16
Interviewer: “There were some scenes, for example when Davis walks into the
ballpark and then playing and all that, some of the girls have said that that was kind
of—at least it showed the overall story.”
The overall picture, but on the end there with the presentation at the Hall of Fame, when
Gina Davis walks in and sees her sister and some of the girls that are here now
participated in the movie and it was a good movie and we watch it every chance we can
and sometimes—we got a tape of it, and like I say, it was mostly all Hollywood. 27:00
The batboy and no crying in baseball.
Interviewer: “Now I’ll ask you a question I ask everyone of them as well, and as you
said, you did a lot after that. You can look back and certainly even now you got
bowling and you have a successful family and all that, but I want you to go inside
right now and being a batboy at that time, did that have any effect on the person
that you became, the person that you are now? 27:33 That experience of going to
the ballpark, seeing Satchel Paige, seeing these women do these things did that have
an effect on who you are today?”
No, no, no, because when I got involved at work my possibilities of being a president
were nothing at all, I had a family to support, I did my work, I worked every day, I never
missed a day of work, I loved my family, I loved my wife and I did a lot. I did a lot for
the city of Racine, I was a commissioner on a parks and recreation for twenty-four years,
I was labor person of the year, I was a delegate for the Democratic national convention in
1976 and 1980, I got into the oval office with Jimmy Carter, so what more can you
accomplish other than being a good husband, a good father and a great grandfather.
28:43
Interviewer: “thank you very much, that was a great interview.
9
�
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_MCorona
Title
A name given to the resource
Corona, Mike (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Corona, Mike
Description
An account of the resource
Mike Corona was born in Racine, Wisconsin on November 9, 1928. He grew up in the Racine area playing baseball with his friends. At the age of ten, because of his friendship with the caretaker of the Horlick Athletic Field, he started playing as a batboy for men's semi-pro teams. When the All American Girls League came to Racine, he became a batboy working under Racine manager, Johnny Gottselig and his team. Corona worked as batboy only in 1943 and then went off to college and pursued other career endeavors.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Olson, Gordon (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--Wisconsin
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
2009-09-26
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