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Fidler, Merrie
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Merrie Fidler
Length of Interview: (01:35:18)
Interviewed by: James Smither
Transcribed by: Chelsea Chandler
Interviewer: “Okay, so, Merrie, just a little bit of background on you. Where and when
were you born?”
I was born in Weed, California, which is about ninety miles south of the Oregon border, on
October 31st, 1943.
Interviewer: “All right. Now did you grow up in northern California?”
Yes, I grew up about—Well, in Dunsmuir, California, which is about thirty miles south of Weed,
and then when I was seven, I moved to the Redding area, which is about fifty miles south of
Dunsmuir. So all in the northern California area. (1:00)
Interviewer: “All right, and what did your family do for a living when you were growing
up?”
My dad was a conductor on the railroad. Dunsmuir was a turnaround for the SP in northern
California. And my mother didn’t work. And she just—Well, wasn’t just a housekeeper, but, you
know, she raised us kids.
Interviewer: “She wasn’t paid. She worked, but she wasn’t paid.”
She worked, but she wasn’t paid. Yeah.
Interviewer: “Right. Okay, and when did you finish high school?”
I finished high school in June of 1961.
Interviewer: “Okay, and then what did you do once you graduate?”
Well, when I graduated, I went to college, and I started out at a junior college in the Redding
area. And then I decided to go to a bible college in Los Angeles, and I was there three years. And
I decided that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a teacher. (2:00) So I quit school and landed in the
Sacramento area where my sister lived and got a job as a secretary at the PE department at the
University of California at Davis, which is just outside of Sacramento.
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Interviewer: “Okay. Now in your early life, did you play sports, or did you get out a lot, or
did you develop that interest later?”
No. My dad and brothers—I had two brothers, and they were eight and ten years older than I.
And my dad was a rabid Yankees fan. And so we listened to Yankees games on the radio from as
early as I can remember. And my dad and two brothers played on a city league team when my
brothers got old enough to do that. And I remember as about a four-year-old going to the city
park every Sunday afternoon or to one of the neighboring city parks to watch Dad or the boys
play baseball. And so I grew up with sports, and as soon as I went to school, I played ball on the
playgrounds. And my brothers had played catch with me as I grew up and showed an interest.
And so when I was in the first grade, I was out on the playground playing with the older kids,
and they were sometimes amazed that I could hit the ball almost as well as they could. So I grew
up playing volleyball, basketball, and softball through school.
Interviewer: “Okay. Well, when you were training to be a teacher, were you training to do
PE or just general elementary or something else?” (4:04)
I trained to—I majored in physical education and planned to teach either high school or college.
Interviewer: “Okay. And so you got sort of sidetracked, but now we’ve gotten you—You’re
now working as a secretary in the PE department, and then how do you move on from
there? I mean, eventually you get more education.”
Well, I—My office was right above the swimming pool, and I worked for the—I did work for
several of the coaches as well as the intramural sports program. And one day I was looking at the
swimming coach, and I’m watching him coach the swimming team, and I thought, “You know, I
don’t think I want to be a secretary the rest of my life.” So I went back to school and got my BA
and teaching credential, and a flyer came across the desk for a job at—for an intramural assistant
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And I was graduating—getting my teaching
credential at the end of that semester, and so—And I was very familiar with intramurals, having
done all of the administrative stuff for it, and also while I was back at school, I had gone to
working as an intramural assistant part-time. And I flew back and had an interview, and they
hired me. And when I was there, I could work on a master’s degree as a staff member without a
lot of expense, and I thought, “Well, I should take advantage of that opportunity.” And I did, and
at that time UMass Amherst had a sport history track in the physical education master’s degree
program. (6:08) And science was never one of my strong points, so I opted for the sport history.
And I took a course called “American Women in Sport” as part of that.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now what year was that?”
And that was in 1971. And part of the assignment for that course was to go through the Readers’
Guide to Periodical Literature and find all of the articles dealing with American women in sport
that we could. And in the process of that, I found a little 1943 Time magazine article about a
women’s professional softball league created by Philip Wrigley. Well, I knew about Philip
Wrigley, and I thought, “Boy, I’ve been playing softball all these years, and I never heard about
this league.” Of course, I was way off on the West coast, and this was in the Midwest. So I talked
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to one of my doctoral student colleagues and asked him, “You know, how would I find out more
about this league?” And he said, “Well, why don’t you write to the league city newspaper sports
editors and see if there’s anybody around that remembers anything?” And so at that time I only
knew that there were four teams in the league, and so I wrote. And the sports editor from South
Bend—his name was Joe Boland—he had been the scorekeeper and also a—on the board of the
South Bend Blue Sox team. And he responded and said, “Well, you need to get in touch with
Jean Faut Winsch,” who I learned later was one of the best overhand pitchers in the league.
(8:11) And so I contacted her and asked her if I could stop and interview her on the way home
from Christmas vacation that year. And she said yes, and so I did that. And in the process of
interviewing her, she brought out nine three-inch-wide binders of league and team board meeting
minutes that one of the directors—one of the presidents of the South Bend team had put together.
And I looked through those, and I said, “You know, Jean, there’s no way I can do justice to these
on a weekend. Would you trust me to take them with me?” And bless her heart. She did. And I
used those. There was a lot of information, especially the league board meeting minutes. A lot of
information in those that I was able to use in the book. And that was the starting point of my
research, and so I wound up doing my master’s degree—my master’s thesis on the—Well, my
thesis is entitled, “The Development and Decline of the All-American Girls Baseball League.”
Interviewer: “Okay, and what kind of range of research did you do for the thesis? I mean,
you had her materials. Did you contact other people or other teams or things like that?”
Well, while I was at South Bend, Jean arranged interviews with me for—with Chet Grant who
had been a manager of the South Bend team, with Lucille Moore who had been a chaperone,
with Ed DesLauriers who had been a business manager, and with Lucille Moore who had been a
chaperone, and also with Lib Mahon and Betsy Jochum who still lived in South Bend and had
been players. (10:10) And so I interviewed them, and in the process of the interview with Chet
Grant, he said, “Well, you ought to get in touch with Arthur Meyerhoff.” And at that time I
didn’t know who Arthur Meyerhoff was, but Chet said, “Well, he worked with Wrigley and
getting the league started, and he ran the league for a few years.” And he gave me his contact
information. And so I wrote a letter to Mr. Meyerhoff and asked if I could arrange an interview
with him. And I believe that was the next Christmas vacation. I went home to California, and he
lived down by San Diego and was there at that time. And so I drove down and interviewed him,
and in the course of the conversation, he said, “Well, you know, you really ought to come to my
office at the Wrigley building in Chicago and go through my files.” And so I believe it was the
next summer—It may have been two summers. I don’t recall at the moment. But the following
summer I went to his office in the Chicago building. I spent a week or eight-hour days going
through his files on the All-American League, and it was really nice because he had this nice, big
desk in his office, you know, and his secretaries would bring file drawers in to me, and I’d go
through them. And he let me copy things, and if there were extra copies of things, I could take
one. And so I just kind of fell into a lot of wonderful primary material for my thesis. (12:08)
Interviewer: “So what was the reaction of these people as you’re contacting them? Were
they surprised anyone was interested? Did they think it was about time?”
They were mostly surprised, you know, and the common question is, “Well, why are you
researching this lady?” And I said, “Well, I just was fascinated by the fact that there was this
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professional softball league that I had never heard of.” And I had always played softball and, you
know, been a baseball fan, and so it just captured my interest.
Interviewer: “Okay, now you—So did it take sort of several years to do the thesis, or…?”
Yes, I was working full-time and taking classes part-time, and in the meantime I had moved to
St. Paul, Minneapolis—St. Paul, Minnesota where I got another job as an intramural sports
assistant. And the reason I moved from UMass to Minnesota was because the professor I was
working closely with had gotten a job there, and I wanted to finish up my work with him. And
that was beneficial because in one of the PE department meetings, they had the intramural folks
in there, too, and so some of the women on the PE staff, you know, got together and were
talking. And so I gravitated there, and so they asked me what I was doing my thesis on, and I
said, “Well, I’m doing it on the All-American Girls Baseball League.” (14:00) And unbeknownst
to me, Nancy Mudge Cato, who had played in the league, was there in that group and said, “Oh, I
played in that league.” And so I got to interview her, and she then put me in touch with Jean
Cione who was working at the University of Michigan who I later arranged to interview, too. So
that’s kind of how I met some of the players that I was able to interview.
Interviewer: “Okay, now at the time you’re doing this work in the 70s, was there any kind
of organization? Did the players have an association then?”
No, they didn’t. They were all—A lot of them were kind of freshly retired, but they hadn’t—And
they kept in touch with individuals, but there was no group organization. But I had contacted—
been able to contact Marilyn Jenkins in Michigan, and she had put me in touch with June Peppas
who was also in Michigan and a couple of other players. And it was fortunate that I had a contact
with June Peppas. When I finished my thesis, I sent a copy of it to all of the players that I had
interviewed, and so Marilyn obviously got a copy of it. And she shared it with June, and June
wrote me a letter one time and said, “Would it be all right—”And June was a printer. And she
asked if it would be okay if she made copies of it and shared it with other players, and I said,
“Sure.” Because I was happy to get it out there, you know. And then it was June—And I don’t
know if my thesis was the stimulant or not or had a part in it, but June was the one who started
the newsletter with the purpose of having a national reunion. (16:13) And so I always like to
think that my thesis had a little bit to do with it, but I don’t know that it did.
Interviewer: “Okay. Yeah. When did they have their first reunion?”
Their first reunion was in 1982. It was July of 1982.
Interviewer: “Okay, and then can I go back, I guess, to your career trajectory? Okay,
you’ll finish the thesis. Now do you go on to an academic position at that point, or what do
you do next?”
Well, when I was just about to finish writing my thesis, my dad had a serious heart attack, and so
I told my mom I’d come home and help out. And she says, “Don’t you come before you finish
that thesis.” Because she knew that once I got away that I probably wouldn't. And so I said,
“Okay. I’ll finish it this summer and then come home.” And so I did that. And she was a realtor,
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and I helped her out in her office for a little bit and did substitute teaching. And through the
substitute teaching, I got a job at a high school nearby—Anderson Union High School—and
taught there for twenty-seven years and retired in 2003.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now you did eventually, I guess—Let’s back up a little bit. So you had
made your contacts with the league. So then did you continue to stay in touch with those
people and communicate with them?”
Yeah, I did. I was able to attend that first reunion and met some more of the players there, and I
even spoke to the group about my dream—was that they would establish a centralized location
for their memorabilia and documents and stuff like that. (18:15) And Dottie Collins was there,
and she wrote me later that she shared that dream. And so she, you know, asked me if I was
going to do anything about that. And I was in California, and I said, “No, it would be better if
you did that someplace that was centralized to the league.” And so the players started getting
together then in little mini reunions and started talking about, you know, what to do, and then
Sharon Roepke had kind of a similar experience to mine. She heard about the league from a
friend and went to the Hall of Fame to find out more and found out that the Hall of Fame didn’t
have anything. And so then she made it her objective to get the Hall of Fame to recognize the
league, and in the process she asked me for a copy of my thesis, which I gave her. But she was
able to travel to the different cities where players were, and she located them through the phone
books and tax records and that sort of thing. And she actually traveled to where they were to
interview them and all. And then they started having mini reunions together. And in one of those
mini reunions, Ruth Davis from South Bend—she had been a bat girl for the Blue Sox and had a
contract to play in the 1955 season, and, of course, the league ended in 1954—but she was at that
meeting, and she said, “Well, let’s have a national reunion.” (20:30) And everybody said, “Well,
that’s a good idea, but it’s going to be a lot of work.” And Ruth said, “Well, it can’t be too hard.”
And she arranged the first reunion. Well, when they all got together then—And then they started
talking about being recognized in the Hall of Fame, and Sharon Roepke was at that first reunion
and started, you know, stirring the pot for that. Well, they finally were able to do that and get the
league recognized in the fall of 1988, and I was able to go to that reunion. And then, of course,
they started the newsletter, and I wrote some little articles for the newsletter. And then when the
Players Association organized, you know, I always paid dues so I could keep the newsletters
coming. And I wasn’t able to go to any other reunions because most of them were held in the fall
of the year when I teaching and coaching. But when I retired in 2003, I said, “Well, one of the
things I want to do is go to another All-American reunion.” And that year the reunion was in
Syracuse, New York, and one of the—And that’s where I met Jane Moffet, who was on the
board of directors at the time, and Dolly White. (22:09) And Jane and Dolly encouraged me to
see if I could get my thesis published because they had read it. And so one of the activities we
did during that reunion was to go to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and see the women in
baseball display there and some other things, of course. And so I talked to the research librarian
there, Tim Wiles, and asked him if he knew any publishers that I could approach with my thesis.
And he recommended a couple. And so I wrote to McFarland, and they agreed to publish it. So I
did some additional research on the Players Association at that point because I was impressed
with how much they had come together and some of the things they had accomplished. And so I
added more information, and then, in the meantime, I’d been in contact with other players and so
I incorporated some information from interviewing them.
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Interviewer: “Because the book itself seems pretty comprehensive at least to the outsider.
It’s certainly valuable when you’re trying to make a documentary about the subject. But
yeah. Because you cover very carefully the history of the league in a lot of dimensions and
what’s going on, and so it’s sort of the starting point for anybody doing research.
Occasionally, some of my own students. Yeah, so we appreciate your having done that. Now
there were some other things getting published. So Sharon Roepke—Did she have a book,
too?”
She had a small book—more pamphlet-sized—that she did on the history of the league. (24:02)
But she didn’t do a big one. Her focus after the players were recognized by the Hall of Fame was
in making baseball cards for the players, and so she started that effort.
Interviewer: “Right. Okay, and then one of the, I guess, sons or nephews of one of the
players made his own documentary back in the 80s.”
Yeah, Kelly Candaele.
Interviewer: “And that, in turn—Now was that what got Penny Marshall’s attention
originally?”
Yes, that was aired on PBS at least in the Los Angeles area and maybe nationally. I’m not for
sure. But an assistant of Penny Marshall’s saw it, and Penny Marshall was a big Yankees fan
also. Baseball fan. And she saw it and then decided that she wanted to make a movie of it. And
that process went in a little bit of a roundabout way, but eventually she wound up as director of A
League of Their Own.
Interviewer: “Okay, and what kind of impact did the film have on the association?”
Well, in one fell swoop, it informed the United States and Canada and the rest of the world as it
went to those countries that there was a women’s professional baseball league that existed during
World War II. And the film was pretty historically accurate. There were some scenes that were
entertainment, but it was fairly historically accurate. And it was well-done. (26:04) And it
captured the interest of anybody who went to see it. And it became one of those films that you go
back and see again and again, and when it’s on TV, you watch it again. And so—And it’s still,
you know—You ask somebody if they’ve seen A League of Their Own. They go, “Oh, yes, that
was one of my favorite movies.”
Interviewer: “Yeah, yeah, and even a lot of younger people have seen it, so it’s still—It has
legs, if you will.”
And I’ve heard that there’s a possibility they’ll start showing it again on the big screen.
Interviewer: “Okay. Let’s see. Now did the film—Did that bring in more of the former
players to the association?”
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Well, what it did is it made people aware of them, and then they started talking about—to others
that they had been players in that league. And yes, it was baseball, not softball. And then they
began getting the recognition that they should have had much earlier. And people began seeking
autographs. They were invited to Major League parks to throw out the first pitch. And people
began having, you know—Local baseball and softball teams would ask them to come and speak.
And so they began getting a lot of recognition and deservedly so.
Interviewer: “All right. Now let’s—Going to back up a little bit now to kind of—sort of talk
about the league’s history itself. Now you mentioned early on—You talked about Philip K.
Wrigley. And can you kind of just—sort of tell the basic story there? What happened and
how the league came about to begin with?” (28:07)
Yes. World War I, of course, started in 1941. World War II. I’m sorry. World War II started in
1941, and Major Leaguers and Minor Leaguers started being drafted or signing up for the war.
And, of course, Wrigley—Landis, the commissioner of baseball, made his appeal to President
Roosevelt about if baseball should go forward or not, and the president said yes. He thought it
was good for the country to have that kind of entertainment. But then, in the fall of 1942, the
War Department was going to have a big manpower push in the summer of 1943, and they told
the Major League Baseball owners this and that there was a good chance that Major League
baseball would have to be postponed for that season at least. And Wrigley was a very—I can’t
think of the word I want to use right now, but he was the type of businessman that was very
creative. Entrepreneur. And he knew that if baseball was postponed that his Wrigley Field both
in Los Angeles and in Chicago would be empty, and there were a lot of jobs there. And so he
was—He wondered what he could use those fields for to keep them up and running. And so he
had some people that he asked to research. And in the 30s especially and early 40s, softball was a
very popular sport for both men and women, and the amateur softball associations at that time
promoted women’s softball just the same as they did men’s. (30:25) They had city, district,
regional, and national competitions for both, so the skill of the woman players was very good
because, you know, those that went to the national playoffs, they had to be good to get there.
And in the—at the end of the softball seasons, Wrigley had his field available for the
championship games for the city. And so he knew softball was—And he would—It would fill the
stands and for both the men and the women. And so the committee came up with—that softball
would be a good alternative for baseball in the fields. And so he came up with the idea. “Well,
let’s organize a women’s professional softball league.” And he originally was going to put it in
the large baseball diamonds but decided for whatever reason to keep it in the smaller cities where
war production was going on to provide recreation for the war workers. And his advertising
agent, Arthur Meyerhoff, was one of the people he utilized to go to the cities that he had chosen
and, you know, work with the businessmen there to back—help back the teams. (32:17) And so
he started the All-American Girls Softball League. That was the title, but the rules of play were
those of baseball because he thought that baseball was a better spectator sport than softball
because there was more pitching. There was leading off and stealing. And although the basepaths
and pitching distance were shorter than baseball’s regulation field, they used baseball bats, all
players used gloves, which was not the case with softball at the time, there were nine fielders
instead of ten, which was common to softball at the time, they could lead off and steal—he
expanded the basepaths longer than those of softball so that leading off and stealing was
allowed—and the pitching motion—the rules for the pitching motion in softball—in his softball
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and in baseball were the same. And so from the beginning the league played baseball rules
except for the underhand pitch. And it’s interesting to read the baseball pitching rules because
they don’t stipulate how the ball has to be delivered.
Interviewer: “And there have always been some underhand pitchers around, some of them
very successful. So that’s within the framework of the rules.”
Yes, that’s within the framework of the rules. So I like to point out that the league played
baseball from the beginning, and as time progressed, they lengthened the basepaths and the
pitching distance. And in 1948 the pitching style became overhand. (34:02) And the fans then
recognized that. “Oh, yeah, this is baseball. It’s not softball.”
Interviewer: “Now what size ball did they use when they started?”
Well, they started out with a twelve-inch softball, and in a couple of years they reduced it to an
eleven-inch. And then the next step was ten and three quarters, or maybe it was ten and a half. I
guess it was ten and a half. And then ten-inch, and then they finally—The last year of play they
used the regulation nine-inch ball.
Interviewer: “Okay, now what was the motivation for making the ball size smaller?”
Well, you know, I think probably to give the appearance more of baseball than of softball. And,
of course, they started allowing a sidearm—a modified sidearm pitch in 1946, and I think that it
was—the smaller ball was easier for the players to handle. Not quite as heavy to throw the longer
distances and that sort of thing. I’m sure those all fit in.
Interviewer: “Yeah. Now some of the pitchers talk about how it was just that much easier
to handle. The ball got smaller. They could throw more kinds of pitches and do more things
with it, too. But yeah, so instead it looks more like baseball then as they go forward. Okay,
now as the—So they have the idea to go ahead and form a league, and Meyerhoff is going
around and signed up some cities to start playing in. Now the Hollywood film spends a
certain amount of time on the whole recruitment process and so forth and scouts
wandering around far corners of the country to find talent in all sorts of odd places. How
do they actually wind up recruiting their players?” (36:04)
Well, Wrigley used his professional scouts, and they had a network. And they just started
searching for the best players all over the country and in Canada, and, you know, probably they
had some cow pasture encounters just like the movie had. They also had encounters with urban
areas like Cincinatti, Chicago, Boston, Regina, Saskatchewan, you know, where there were big
centers of softball. Detroit.
Interviewer: “Was there a substantial group in California, too?”
Yes, there was a group in California. They came a little bit later. I think they were the 1944 crop
from the LA area. Softball. And I’d like to say about the softball—That title was only used the
first year, and about midway through the season, Wrigley and Meyerhoff started advertising it as
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girls’ baseball. And the newspaper men said, “Well, it’s not really baseball because it’s of the
underhand pitch, and it’s not really softball because of, you know, the leading off and stealing
and the use of baseball bats.” And so in—at the end of the 1943 season, they changed the name
of the league to the All-American Girls Professional Ball League. So they didn’t have soft or
base in it. (38:05) But when Meyerhoff took it over in 1945, at the end of that season, he said,
“I’m going to change it to All-American Girls Baseball because that’s the rules we’re playing.”
And so from that point on it was All-American Girls Baseball League. There was another name
change in 1951 when the local team owners bought Meyerhoff out, and they changed the name
to American Girls Baseball League. But by then in the communities it was so well-known as AllAmerican that the locals still referred to it and the newspaper articles still referred to it often as
All-American League.
Interviewer: “And that’s the name that the league itself—the association today still uses.”
Well, the Players Association changed it a little bit because they incorporated the 1944—’45
title, and from then on the title under Meyerhoff and combined it to be the All-American Girls
Professional Baseball League, which it actually was. It’s probably the most descriptive title
because it was a truly professional league.
Interviewer: “Plus, the kind of thing done to confuse poor documentary filmmakers who
try to make things simpler. ‘What label did they use?’ Yeah. Okay, now just to fill in
another piece of this then—People, I think, understand baseball versus softball. The
softball is larger than a baseball. That’s pretty easy to see. You talked about baseball bats
versus softball bats. If you’re not a softball player, what’s the difference?”
The circumference at the end of the bat. Baseball is two and three quarters, and I don’t know
exactly what softball is, but I’d say it’s probably not more than two and a quarter. I’d have to
look that up for sure.
Interviewer: “And how does that make a difference?” (40:12)
Well, it’s the amount of surface of the bat that can contact the ball. In softball, you have the
thinner bat but the larger ball, and in baseball, you have the smaller ball but the larger bat. So the
idea is that you have—probably have roughly about the same surface contact one way or the
other.
Interviewer: “And then would the baseball bat then be heavier because it’s thicker?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “So you can hit the ball harder.”
Yeah. And longer. I think they’re a little bit longer. I’m not for sure on that, though. I’d have to
do a little research.
Interviewer: “Okay, but they are fundamentally two different animals. But they picked one
or the other. Okay. Let’s go back sort of to the recruitment. So they’re getting people out—
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What proportion of them do you think were coming out of organized leagues as opposed to
just random individual pickups?”
I think nearly all of them came out of organized leagues because they had to have a high level of
skill to be recruited by Wrigley’s scouts, and not only did they have to be—have a high level of
skill, but they also had to present high quality of character in some fashion because he was—
Wrigley was very image conscious in his publicity and promotion even of, you know, his gum,
and he was very aware that publicity was very important to selling the product. (42:03) And so
there are—Some folks have shared with me that they believe that if there were two players that
had equal skill and one was more petite-looking, he chose—He had his scouts choose the more
petite-looking ones. And if you look at the stature of the former players today, they’re all fairly
short and, you know, sixty—seventy years ago, were probably all fairly thin and petite-looking.
Not to say that there weren’t some taller players, too, especially in the later years, but you look at
those first ones and look at their size and weight, and you get the idea. Well, you know, the petite
women in skirted uniforms playing with a high level of skill. You know, it’s something that
captured the fans and kept them coming back.
Interviewer: “So softball players wore pants, right?”
At that time, they emulated the men’s baseball uniforms, and most of the teams wore either
baseball pants or, in the warmer climes, shorts and long socks. And so the skirted uniform was a
novelty, but there again Wrigley was very image conscious. And the most acceptable women in
sport in society at that time were figure skaters, tennis players, hockey players, and they all wore
skirted uniforms. (44:09)
Interviewer: “Okay. Hockey as in field rather than ice.”
As in field hockey. Yeah, not ice hockey. Yeah, and they all wore skirted uniforms. And so he
wanted his endeavor to be socially acceptable, and I think that was one of the factors that led to
the creation of the skirted uniform.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now along with the skirted uniform, one of the things that people tend
to be aware of about the league was that when it started they had very elaborate rules and
regulations regarding how the women dressed or wore their hair or had makeup. And
there was actually a charm school run by Helena Rubinstein’s people in Chicago. I mean,
so how much of that actually happened, and how long did it last?”
Well, I think that the rules of character and dress and that sort of thing were not all that different
than what was going on in colleges at the time. You know, if you talk to women who went to
college in the 40s and 50s—They couldn’t leave their dorm rooms in pants, and they’ll tell you
stories about—Well, they had a long skirt that they wore over their jeans to go to breakfast. You
know, and then they’d go back to their room and get dressed for classes. Or wore over their
pajamas to go to breakfast. So the rules that Wrigley established for appearance off the field
were, again, rules that were the highest standard of the day. The charm school training was
actually a Meyerhoff idea as a publicity thing, you know, and it probably was stimulated by the
fact that a lot of the players emulated the walk and movement characteristics of the men’s stars.
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�Fidler, Merrie
(46:22) And so they wanted, again, to project the image of femininity, and one of the best ways
to teach that was through charm school training. Like Rubinstein was very popular at that time
period, and so they hired her and others later on. And that lasted—I’m not exactly sure how
many years, but I know at least the first three or four.
Interviewer: “Because I had—Because Anne O’Dowd, I think, started in about ‘49 or so.
Talking about going to the spring training and having it there, and she said by then there
was just a couple of teams—kind of smaller groups, not altogether in the same place—but
two teams were together, and there was a charm school there. Others talked about going
around the same time. So I was kind of surprised there was still something around that
late, but did that just kind of depend on what the teams did?”
Well, that may have been that particular team’s—one of their focuses that—Yes, that’s the image
they wanted their team to project. And, again, new players coming in, you know, would—may
have had more manly mannerisms of movement and that sort of thing, and they wanted to
instruct them, you know. You know, in public this is how you walk and act and that sort of thing.
(48:04)
Interviewer: “Now when they’re first recruiting the players, how old were they?”
Well, I think in 1943 there were some players that started out at age fifteen. In fact, I think
Sophie Kurys was only fifteen. Well, I know Dottie Schroeder was only fifteen that year. And
I’ve done a little research, and I think that that was—that they didn’t recruit players any younger
than fifteen because of the child labor laws. But there was a clause in the child labor laws that
individuals who were in a professional sport could be recruited at age fifteen. Well, Dolly White,
I know—They first—She went to spring training in Pascagoula in 1946, and she was only
fourteen at the time. And her mother talked to Max Carey who was running the camp at that
time, and she asked about if she was good enough. And he said, “Well, we don’t want to take her
now because she’s a little bit young.” And her mother said, “Well, I didn’t want you to take her.
I just wanted to know if she was good enough.” And he said yes, and then he contacted her the
following year. And she went to spring training in Cuba at age fifteen and was contracted to play
with the league at that time. (50:01)
Interviewer: “Okay. Now when the league started up, what kind of response did they get
that first year or so?”
Well, I think that first year with four teams they had over 176,000 spectators, so that was really
pretty good.
Interviewer: “And it was a shorter season than the modern Major League season is.”
Right. They started at the end of May, and, I believe, finished right at the beginning of
September. Like the first week of September. But they still played like a hundred games that
season, and Chet Grant said, “You know, I went to the first game because I think it was—Marty
McManus was coaching.” And he had been a Major League player. And he said, “I really went
to see him.” But he said, “Once I saw them play and the skill that they had and all—” He said, “ I
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�Fidler, Merrie
was captivated, and I kept going back. And that’s how I became involved in becoming a manager
of the league.” And that’s kind of the response you get from people you talk to or fans. They
were captivated by the skill that they displayed.
Interviewer: “And it did well enough that the league expanded after that.”
Yes, and that started under Meyerhoff, I believe, in 1945. They expanded with two more teams,
and then in a couple years it was two more. In ‘47 they had eight teams, and then in ‘48 they
expanded to ten teams. And probably would have been better if they had kept to the eight teams
because they diluted their talent pool a little bit. (52:10)
Interviewer: “Yeah. Did they have problems recruiting new players?”
Well, as the league transitioned from more like softball to more like baseball, they had trouble
getting softball players skilled enough to make the transition to the longer basepaths and longer
pitching distance. And then after 1948 dealing with overhand pitching instead of underhand
pitching. And one of my theories is that if they had left the game where it was in 1948 or maybe
1949 with the basepaths and the pitching distance that it may have lasted longer because I think
that going to the baseball distances that the men use was beyond the talent of the players at that
time, especially those with the image of petite women. I mean, nowadays women who are—
because they have it in the schools—Women who are taller and stronger, you know, can handle
the longer basepaths and pitching distance a little better. But at that time they didn’t recruit that
kind of a player, and probably those women who were taller and stronger at that time period
didn’t have the training, you know, to get involved in the league. (54:07)
Interviewer: “Okay. Now one of the things the league did at a certain point in its history
was that they created a couple of sort of junior level teams that were traveling teams or
barnstorming teams that would travel together around the country on buses, and they
played each other in exhibition games as a means of preparing some of these new players to
make that transition. So when were they actually doing that?”
I believe that started in 1949, and actually there was a precursor to that in the Chicago area.
Meyerhoff set up a minor league in the Chicago area. There were four teams, and they played—
the same uniforms, the same rules—and they were younger players from the playground areas.
And they signed contracts and everything just like the All-American League did. And then in
1948 they had ten teams, and the season was not as successful. And so they dropped back to
eight teams. Well, they—Some of those players were not as skilled as the rest of the AllAmericans, but they had potential. And so Meyerhoff started off in 1949 with what he called
rookie touring teams. There were two teams, and they traveled together on the same bus. And he
scheduled them to play exhibition games through the South and up the East coast. And it was a
training ground for them. And some of them during the season were called up from the touring
team, were recommended by the manager, called up from the touring team to fill in for
somebody who had been injured on one of the All-American teams. (56:12) And that—Those
touring teams operated in 1949 and 1950, and during the 1950 season, they were especially
blessed by being able to play in exhibition games in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C and
Yankees Stadium in New York. And so that was fun.
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�Fidler, Merrie
Interviewer: “Okay. Now why did that stop? Because they don’t—They’re not doing it at
the end of the league.”
Well, at the end of the 1950 season, the individual team directors decided that the money they
were paying from gate receipts to management or to Meyerhoff for advertising and publicity and
umpires and that sort of thing—that they could do it themselves for less money, and they’d make
money on it instead of losing money on it because, you know, baseball—Even Major League
Baseball owners lose money on baseball. And there were some factors in effect that reduced fan
participation. And so they bought Meyerhoff out, and they felt that the rookie touring teams were
too expensive. And so they cut off one of the player development programs that was there, and in
my mind they started cutting off their nose to spite their face. (58:15) And another thing they
did—And, you know, they were businessmen, and it’s hard to understand why except that money
was getting tight. And there was a recession in the works, you know, nationally. But they didn’t
seem to understand that the rookie touring team was publicity and promotion as well as player
development. And another thing that they cut fairly dramatically was the general publicity
program that Meyerhoff had set in place. And so to me that was another factor that, you know—
They whittled off a little more of their nose to spite their face. And so that’s why that transpired.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now kind of backtracking into another piece of this—We’ve talked
some about, you know, who the players were and where they came from and what kind of
experience or talent—skills and stuff they had when they came in. Now the spring training
for the league changed a lot depending on what year you were in. So the first year that was
Wrigley Field or in Chicago someplace else?”
No, it was at—The first year was in Wrigley Field in Chicago. Well, they had whittled down the
number of players pretty much with tryout schools in urban areas like Cincinatti and Regina and
Chicago and Detroit and wherever else they got players from. (1:00:00) And then in ‘44 I
believe it was in Peru, Illinois. And one of the unique things about the league is that they took all
of the players for all of the teams and had spring training together, and then instead of the team
directors picking players, the league had an allocation committee that got together. And it
included the managers and Meyerhoff and some of the administrative people, and they tried to
delegate players to teams on an equal skill basis. So if they had four strong first basemen, that
was good. They could put them around. But if they had two strong first basemen—second
basemen and two weak ones, then they tried to say, “Okay, this team has so many strong players.
We’ll give them one of the weaker second basemen in order to even out the competitive level of
all four teams or all eight teams as the case may be.” And, in theory, that was good.
Interviewer: “Now once a player was assigned to a team, did it become kind of customary
to keep a lot of those same players from one year to the next? They would move some
periodically.”
Yeah. I think each team tried to keep a core of players that were the most skilled and became fan
favorites like, I’m sure, Dorothy Kamenshek in Rockford. (1:02:15) You know, she was a
Rockford Peach her whole career in the league, and I suspect that Rockford had dibs on her, you
know, kind of thing. And they also had kind of a unique system of—If a particular regular player
13
�Fidler, Merrie
on a team got injured or ill or pregnant, you know, and couldn’t play for a period of time, that
they would borrow a substitute from another team in order to fill in that position. Like, for
instance, a first baseman on another team—a substitute first baseman on another team might be
almost comparable to the starter on this team, and so they’d pull her over and have her play until
the other player could come back or just keep her, depending. Because everything was operated
by a central office instead of by individual team offices. And so that’s how they dealt with that.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now what determined where the league had spring training? Because
they were in all sorts of odd places. Pascagoula, Mississippi, Opa-Locka, Florida, Cuba. I
mean, what was at work there?”
You know, I don’t know except that after the war—During the war, they had to train in fairly
local centers because of gas and rubber rationing. (1:04:08) There was no outside transportation.
Once the war was over, 1946 was the first spring training where they all went to Pascagoula, and
my feeling is that prices were cheaper in the South than, say, in the Chicago area. And in
Pascagoula, they utilized an abandoned Navy base for rooms and, you know, food. And they had
fields there. Plenty of field space. And they could have everybody together and have spring
training in the South like the big leagues did. You know, I think that was probably part of it. And
it was, you know, a novelty and might be a recruiting tool, you know, to say, “Oh, we’re going to
hold spring training in the South this year.” You know, as opposed to Regina, Saskatchewan.
Where it would be warmer and more pleasant and that sort of thing. The Cuba trip, I really
believe, was done through connections with Branch Rickey. And, of course, ‘47 was the first
year that Jackie Robinson could play, and they didn’t want to go to the South with him because
they knew there would be problems because of segregation, integration, and that sort of thing.
And so the Dodgers went to Cuba. Well, Branch Rickey and Philip Wrigley, you know, had
joined together to start the league, and then there was Max Carey who was a good friend of
Branch Rickey. (1:06:07) And I think they kind of, you know, collaborated on, you know, that
spring training in Cuba even with the flight expenses would be cheaper than in the South. And
they had good facilities. They had good hotels. And, you know, it was—The Dodgers were going
to be there, and the All-Americans could follow. And they captured the fans there in Cuba who I
have since learned that—and I forget who the researcher—who the newspaper guy was—but he
was a black man, and he said he went to Cuba when the Dodgers did to follow Jackie Robinson
and reported back to his paper that he knew that the Cubans were very religious, and he found
out that baseball was their religion. And so it was natural for the Cuban baseball public to come
out and watch the girls play. And, in fact, I know that Max Carey worked with a gentleman from
Cuba to train some Cuban woman players in the All-American game before the All-Americans
got there so that they could have a game together. And so that was the first exposure of Cuban
women to the All-American baseball, and, in fact, they had a Cuban woman player join the AllAmerican League, come back to play with the team, but she was too homesick and couldn’t stay.
Vialat was her last name. (1:08:05) And that was the beginning of the league kind of drafting
Cuban players to play in the league.
Interviewer: “Okay, because there were a number of Cubans who wound up playing for
them.”
Yes.
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�Fidler, Merrie
Interviewer: “Okay. Now after the Cuba trip, they—or at least some of them also did a
kind of Latin American tour. Central America, South America. At least around the
Caribbean. When was that, and how did that work?”
Okay. After the 1947 season, Meyerhoff took a team of players to Cuba, and they did exhibition
games there. And that was pretty successful. And along the way—And I’m not exactly sure
when Meyerhoff conceived this, but he conceived of starting an international girls’ baseball
league to include Cuba and Puerto Rico. And I think it built in his brain, you know. “Well, why
don’t we go to Latin America and do some exhibition games and see what we come up with?
And maybe it will be very lucrative.” Because fans would come to see a novelty like that, and
there were baseball people and teams there and all. And it’s my theory that he went to cities in
Guatemala and those Central American countries—and Venezuela and Puerto Rico—where
Wrigley had gum enterprises going. (1:10:01) And he did that in the winter of 1949. That
particular trip was from February—the month of February and part of March in the winter of
1949. And there’s a—At the South Bend History Museum, there’s a folder of stuff that
Annabelle Lee contributed, and there’s a picture of the All-Americans playing against a Puerto
Rican team. And the Puerto Rican team has the same style uniform as the All-American league,
so the—And that was probably done in advance of the All-Americans getting there with the style
of uniform and the women playing. And, you know, I don’t know. One of my bucket list things
is to someday go to Cuba and Puerto Rico and go through the library newspapers and, you know,
see if I can find out if there were women’s leagues there before the All-Americans got there or if
they were developed just prior to the All-Americans getting there to play. But I know that they—
Most of the tour—Central and South America—were All-American players and Cuban players
playing against each other. Exhibition games. There was a mention somewhere in Venezuela
of—that the fans really turned out when the Venezuelan team played against the All-Americans.
And I know that the Puerto Rican teams played against the All-Americans, and, of course, in
Cuba they had Cuban teams playing against the All-Americans. (1:12:03)
Interviewer: “Okay. Now how successful was the Latin American tour? Were there
problems with it?”
There were some problems with it. Apparently, the Cuban representative who traveled with the
team was not totally honest about some of the transportation costs. And so what happened was
he charged management system more than he spent, which meant that Meyerhoff then had to put
forth more money to pay for the whole thing. And he wasn’t going to do that by himself, so he
charged the team managers to kick in to pay the players because the players said, “Well, we’re
not going to play if you don’t pay us. We’re not going to play during the regular season if you
don’t pay us.” And that was some of the star players in the league. So they helped to pay—The
team directors helped to pay Meyerhoff off, but they were not happy about it. And that was
probably part of the beginning of the conflict between management and team directors.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now did the whole league go on the Latin American tour or just parts
of it?”
15
�Fidler, Merrie
No, just selected players, and they were—They also used some Cuban players, and so what they
did was they allocated the players to the two teams with some All-Americans and some Cubans
so that the teams were as even as possible so when the fans went to see them, you know, there
wasn’t blowouts type of thing. (1:14:06) But it was basically All-Americans and Cuban players.
Interviewer: “Now after Meyerhoff was out of the picture, did the teams kind of go to
holding more local-wise spring training in different places, or what happened?”
Yeah. That was the beginning of teams pairing up and going to a location to have their spring
trainings together and doing their exhibitions back to their home cities together. I know there was
a year when a couple of teams went to North Carolina, and a couple went to lower Illinois, and a
couple went to upstate New York or something like that so that they got exposure. But it wasn’t
as centralized. The administration wasn’t as centralized as it had been before.
Interviewer: “Right. Okay. Let’s see. Now how long did players tend to stay in the league,
or what range do we see?”
You know, I really haven’t looked at that for the players. That would be a good thing to do. To
go to the website and go through all of the players and find out how many years they played. The
stars played longer, but some only played a year or two. One of the things that affected the length
that players could play was their ability to adjust to the longer pitching distances if they were
pitchers. The change in pitching style. I mean, there aren’t a whole lot of players that can change
from being an outstanding underhand pitcher to an outstanding overhand pitcher. (1:16:00)
There were a few. But that was a factor for pitchers. But also, you know, for catchers, throwing a
longer distance to second base was a factor. So as the league expanded the basepaths and
pitching distance, it affected whether a player could make it or not. And some of the early
pitchers, I know, when—Even like from ‘43 to ‘44, I think there was a change in the distance. A
couple of feet of the pitching distance. And some of the pitchers couldn’t adjust to that, and so
they didn’t play anymore.
Interviewer: “All right, and there were occasional people like Jean Faut. And I suppose
she’s kind of exceptional. She was really happy to go to a full overhand because—And
some of them who had learned kind of on their own or individually were throwing
overhand because that was what the boys did, which would have helped them.”
Right, and some of the outfielders with stronger arms. They trained them to become pitchers.
Like Rose Gacioch. You know, she’d been an outstanding outfielder, and as she got older, you
know, she still wanted to play. And they needed overhand pitchers, and so there were quite a few
outfielders that turned into pitchers. Helen Nordquist was one, you know.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. Where did the managers come from?”
Well, you know, Wrigley was very smart. I think he knew that people would come out to see
Major League managers if they wouldn’t initially come out to watch woman baseball players.
And, you know, and some of those managers during the war may have needed a job. Some of
those former Major Leaguers may have needed a job, and he knew them, knew their character,
16
�Fidler, Merrie
and so solicited them to be managers. And some of the early managers like Johnny Gottselig—
He was a Chicago Blackhawk. (1:18:12) Wrigley knew him. He knew that he had coached
women’s softball teams up in Saskatchewan and been successful. And so that’s how he got
involved. Of course, it was after the hockey season.
Interviewer: “Okay, and at what point did he bring in Jimmie Foxx?”
Well, Jimmie Foxx actually came in in 1951, and that was after the Wrigley-Meyerhoff era. And
I should say here that Meyerhoff continued the standards and policies that Wrigley had started
with. He expanded a little bit on the field and ball dimensions, but everything else was pretty
much as Wrigley had set it up. The independent team owners—When they took over in 1951,
they kind of dropped off on some things, especially like the publicity, but, you know, they—I
think they too recognized that having a Major League manager was an advantage. And I suspect
that somebody in Fort Wayne had connections with Jimmie Foxx, and he had just recently
retired. Either that or—I’d have to go back. Whether he’d recently retired or recently been
inducted in the Hall of Fame. Anyway, they recruited him to manage in the league, and he
managed for a couple years.
Interviewer: “Yeah. I seem to recall something a few years back about complaints that
Jimmie Foxx wasn’t in the Hall of Fame. He had five hundred home runs and wasn’t
there.” (1:20:00)
No, he’s there now.
Interviewer: “Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Because I guess one of the things is the assumption like
with the Penny Marshall film. The assumption is that Tom Hanks’s character, Jimmy
Dugan, is sort of loosely modeled after Jimmie Foxx except for the little thing where
Jimmie Foxx came in a lot later. Because I think that may be an assumption that people
might have. That he’s not one of the original managers.”
No. No, he wasn’t. And that’s another thing that’s a little bit misleading about the film is that it
gives the impression that the league started with overhand pitching the first year. You know,
which is—But there again, for the purposes of the film, they wanted everybody to know that it
was baseball, not softball. And they didn’t have time to cover all of the details, but yeah, Jimmie
wasn’t one of the first managers.
Interviewer: “Okay. Well, the players in their interviews—In their interviews, they talk
about different managers and so forth, and one who keeps popping up a lot is Bill
Allington. So who was he, or what was his background?”
Well, Bill Allington was a Minor League player. And I’m not sure if he managed any men’s
teams in southern California, but he managed women’s softball in southern California. And he
was also involved in acting in some of the early baseball films. And so he kind of had a couple of
jobs, I guess, but he loved baseball. I think it was Kammie that told me that she felt if Bill’s head
was cracked open, baseballs would roll out, you know. And he was a stickler for his players
knowing the rules, and he’d quiz them on bus trips. (1:22:00) They said that there was always
17
�Fidler, Merrie
quizzing going on on the bus trips. He’d say, “Kamenshek, if a fly ball is hit to an infielder with
a runner on first base, is that infield fly rule or not?” You know, that kind of thing. And I think
that’s part of why he was such a successful manager because his players knew the rules on the
field, and they reacted instinctively to situations that those who weren’t as up on the rules might
not have done. And Kammie said that after practices he took her aside. And he would work with
any of the players after practice that wanted to. And she wanted to improve her bunting. And so
he put handkerchiefs down on the ground in front of home plate and threw pitches at her and had
her work at bunting to the handkerchiefs. And one of the pitchers—I don’t remember exactly
who right now, but she said that that was one of the problems with Kammie. She could bunt that
ball anyplace she wanted to.
Interviewer: “All right. Now when the league folded, he kind of kept going in a form for the
next couple years. He created his own traveling team. So can you talk about that?”
Well, and there again, I think he recognized how skilled these women were, and he was baseball
man through and through. And he didn’t want to give up. (1:24:00) And so he put together a
team of players who were willing. He tried to recruit others who said, “No, I’ve got to go to
college this year,” or, “I got to get a real job,” or, “No, I’m getting married.” Or something of
that nature. But he put together a talented crew of players and barnstormed with them around the
Midwest and even down into the South and along the East Coast. And I think he hoped that he
could—And they played against men’s teams because there weren’t that many talented women’s
teams. And they exchanged batteries so that the men were throwing, you know, to the men
batters, and the women were throwing to the women batters. And I guess it was pretty good
entertainment. And he did that for three years. ‘55 through ‘58. And then, I guess, it didn’t
become as lucrative anymore, or it didn’t have enough players who were willing to go with him
anymore or something of that nature.
Interviewer: “And then women’s baseball kind of—to a large degree disappears. And, I
mean, there are, today, women playing baseball in various organized fashion and efforts to
kind of have more of them do it. But the league itself—Most people really didn’t know
anything about, you know—Still are people occasionally now who didn’t know.
And the film was kind of a revelation to a lot of them. I guess, sort of the question comes up
on some level. You know, were these women, you know, pioneers in sports, or did they do
things that had a lasting impact? Because you could argue on the one hand that, well, they
kind of went away and then women’s sports got going separately later. But is there more to
it than that?” (1:26:09)
Well, I think in the Midwest where the teams played—I think that had an impact on at least some
of the populace. Ruth Davis, for instance, was batgirl for the South Bend Blue Sox, and she
mentioned that the women playing baseball, which—Even at that time women weren’t supposed
to be playing baseball. That that expanded her view that, well, if women can play baseball,
women can do anything else they want. And that motivated her to seek out following her
interests in college and university. There was a fan—shoot, her name escapes me right now—
who went to the Grand Rapids Chicks games and became a professor at one of the New York
universities. Columbia University, I think. And she knew—And you have to keep in mind that
the Division for Girls’ and Women’s Sports in education at the time—Their philosophy was,
18
�Fidler, Merrie
“Yes, we want girls to play, but we want all girls to play, and we don’t want to focus on just the
skilled. We want, you know, everybody to have an opportunity to play.” Which is wonderful.
Wonderful philosophy. (1:28:01) But it didn’t provide those highly skilled girls with the
opportunity to participate in highly skilled competition like the boys had in school and colleges.
But this lady became—obtained a doctorate in physical education, and she knew from watching
the Grand Rapids Chicks that women could develop high level skills and that high level
competition was a good thing for women. And she also recognized that girls and women were
paying the same fees in college, which included intercollegiate sports that they didn’t have an
opportunity for. And so she was a moving force in the Division for Girls’ and Women’s Sports to
change the focus to allow women to have interscholastic and intercollegiate sport. And they had
strict rules, but at least they still had the opportunity to play. And so the individual teams, I
believe, had an effect on the people in the local populaces to accept women playing highly
skilled competition with each other.
Interviewer: “Okay. I guess one thing that I’ve observed in just interviewing and getting to
know a lot of the players is that they went on often to do pretty remarkable things, and a
fair number of them wind up being educators and even professionals in physical education.
And some of them were pretty much in the trenches to help promote Title IX or help
enforce it when it came in. And so they’re going out with an understanding of what they
can do and what women can do and in a lot of cases, whether it’s at a high school level or a
college level or whatever, encourage women to do it. So that piece of it certainly goes there.
So there’s not a direct, linear sort of descent from this league to the WNBA or something
like that, but a lot of those things were possible because of groundwork that does in part
come out of this.” (1:30:24)
Yeah. I think there’s a connection, like you say, especially with those who went on to college
and coached. And, you know, when Title IX was in the works, they said, “Yes. Let’s do that.”
And they did provide some of the groundwork for it because of their experience and how
satisfying playing that high level competition can be. And yeah, Dolly White, for instance—
Dolly Brumfield White—she would not have been able to go to college without the money she
earned playing professional baseball. She came from a lower class, Southern family. Just her
father worked as a mechanic. Her mother did some clerical work later. But basically she grew
up, you know, with a single parent providing for the family of two girls and a boy. And she told
me that if there was to be college for anybody, it would have been the boy. And she was really—
got upset at times with her father because the boy was always first. She was the oldest, but when
it came to having a car, the boy got the car first. Type of thing. (1:32:00) And so if she hadn’t
earned the money she earned playing professional baseball, she would never have been able to
go to college. And she went to college, majored in physical education, became a recreation
specialist, and did a great deal to educate people in the field of recreation who then went out to
become heads of recreational parks in Alabama and Arkansas and in that area where she taught.
And so, yeah, I think, you know, individually those women had influences. And like Lou Stone
Richards—She married and had a family and coached for boys’ little league teams. Well,
Andrew Card was one of those little league players, and he became George Bush’s Chief of
Staff. You know, so it’s fun to see those influences.
19
�Fidler, Merrie
Interviewer: “Well, even today long afterward the personalities of these women kind of still
stand out. They really are a pretty remarkable bunch of people, and you’ve done them a
great service by going and recording their history. And it’s kind of up to all of us, I guess,
now to make sure that people remember this and give them the credit they deserve.”
Yeah. It was a unique thing, and I think—You know, my hope and, I think, the hope of a number
of the players at least is that there comes a situation in the not too distant future where young
women will again have the opportunity to play professional baseball in their own league.
(1:34:08) They shouldn’t have to play with or against men. You know, they should have their
own league and their own competition among—excellent competition among themselves. Not
that it would be objectionable to having individual highly skilled, highly capable women play on
a men’s team. But that would not include the majority of highly skilled woman players.
Interviewer: “And in other sports, they’re already doing it.”
Yes. Like in basketball. They have a women’s professional basketball league, you know, and
they’re not asked to compete against bigger, stronger men. And I think that’s the way it should
be for baseball, too. And, you know, there’s things in the works. That hopefully it will happen.
Interviewer: “All right. I’d just like to close out here by thanking you for taking the time
and talking to me about all this.”
Oh, my pleasure. (01:35:18)
20
�
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_FidlerM1969BB
Title
A name given to the resource
Fidler, Merrie (Interview transcript and video), 2016
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Fidler, Merrie
Description
An account of the resource
Merrie Fidler was born in Weed, California, on October 31, 1943. She attended community college in the Redding area, then a Bible college in Los Angeles before dropping out of school and working as a secretary in the physical education department at UC – Davis. Merrie completed her bachelor’s degree and got her teaching credentials, then pursued a master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. During her master work, she took a course on American women in sports and discovered the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Over the course of several years she interviewed former players and managers and eventually completed her thesis, The Development & Decline of the All-American Girls Baseball League. She went on to contact more players and became part of the League’s association and attended the reunions. Merrie is now the association’s historian and a contributor to its newsletter.
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.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--California
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
2016-10-22
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