1
12
1
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f44428bdbaf2a1931243b4780badf5ab.m4v
ae6f957fd9952fea53c6dce45da76e29
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/deed70befdf3b38b9a3fc33495bf3e10.pdf
84678250c84c2a830a03bdffb992b967
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Sue Kidd
Length of Interview: (00:30:31)
Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, September 27,
2009, Milwaukee, WI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, June 22, 2010
Born: Arkansas
Interviewer: “Can you begin by telling us a little bit about your own background?”
I was born to Marvin and Judith Kidd in 1933 and I was the fifth of six children, three
boys and three girls. We lived on a farm at that time, a little place out in the country, and
about the only recreation outside of work was playing ball, baseball. My dad was a great
baseball player and my two older brothers and as I came along, I started playing also.
Any free moment I had, we were playing ball.
Interviewer: “Did your father have any professional or semi-professional
experience?”
He tried out, as a fairly young man, with the St. Louis Cardinals and had not been cut, but
since he had a wife and two daughters at home already, he got homesick and decided he
would rather be at home with his family and farm even though he loved baseball. 1:11
Interviewer: “When you were growing up and you were playing ball, were there a
lot of girls playing ball?”
No, I don’t know of any girls that played ball at all except myself. I mean they played
basketball, but not baseball. There were no softball teams in that area.
Interviewer: “Did you eventually play other sports too?”
Yes, basketball and of course with the boys I played football, but just for fun. The coach
would have liked to have me play football, but mother was against that.
Interviewer: “In general how did people in the community and your family respond
to your playing all these sports?”
They just thought it was great and of course dad always had to show me off, throwing the
ball to any stranger that came around and were interested and let me play with the men
against the teams that were easier to beat I’ll say, he let me play. 2:06
1
�Interviewer: “Now how was it that you wound up becoming a professional ball
player?”
Well, I’ll try to make it short, but in school the guidance councilor was trying to get me
interested in college courses and I always told her that I was going to play professional
ball and she said, “but Sue, girls don’t play professional baseball”, and I said, “I don’t
care”, and I kind of had the attitude that the good lord would see to that and one day in
the spring of 1949, probably March, she came down and got me out of class and showed
me a magazine. It was a Look or Life magazine, I can’t remember just which one, to
show me about this league in the Midwest, so she quit trying to talk me into going to
college. In June, Manis professional baseball scout, that my dad sent my older brothers
to baseball school and would have sent me, but they had no facilities for girls. 3:06 He
came up to make sure my dad took me to Little Rock, which is seventy-five miles south,
to this game that these two girls teams were going to be playing because he thought I
should tryout, so that’s where we went. I tried out before the game one afternoon, they
wanted to sign me to a contract and send me home to leave with them after the game the
next day, so we drove home, mother washed and ironed all night, found a suitcase to pack
my luggage in, clothes in, and I had to get back to Little Rock to go through the vital
statistics to get my birth certificate and luckily one of the home boys worked there and
was kind of a supervisor in some department and he walked me through and he could
vouch to when I was born because he lived in that community, so I was able to get it in
one day. 4:05
Interviewer: “You didn’t actually have a birth certificate, one the doctor made for
you?”
No, I didn’t have a Social Security number until they were ready to pay me the first
check, we were in Oklahoma somewhere and Lenny Zintak, the manager and one of the
chaperones took me to someplace, I don’t know where it was, and I got a Social Security
card.
Interviewer: “When you were doing the tryout, were there a lot of other girls trying
out or just a few of you?”
I don’t really remember anybody else except myself that particular night.
Interviewer: “How did they actually do the try out? Did they just put you up on
the mound and say pitch?”
No, they warmed me up on the side with a catcher, in fact I think it was Wimp
Baumgartner and she was quite excited that I could throw the ball, throw a curve and then
they let me tryout on the mound a little bit and hit a few balls and that was—they were
ready to sign me. 4:59
Interviewer: “Some of the other players have told me that it was not all that
common to pick up or add players in the middle of a barnstorming tour. Basically
2
�you have these two teams that are traveling around, just playing all different places
and then they give tryouts, but you tried out and you got in there, so you must have
been pretty good.”
Everybody thought I was and I guess I had them fooled.
Interviewer: “Once you signed up and joined the team, how old were you?”
Fifteen. 5:26
Interviewer: “How did they take care of a fifteen year old girl?”
Well, there were other fairly young ones and there were older ones. Of course we had
chaperones and we had a terrific bus driver that was like a grandfather to us, and they
assured my folks that I would be taken care of, I’d be supervised, and I was. I’m going to
get off on a tangent now, but in the summertime my mother usually just cut my hair like I
had a bowl on my head because I either played ball and had a ball cap on or I was
swimming in the creek or horseback riding, so she didn’t try to curl it, so the first week
on the tour some of the older ones said, “Sue, we’re going to take you to the beauty shop
and get your hair curled”. I mean it was stuff like that and they helped me buy other
clothes because I didn’t even have a lot of dresses and you really needed skirts and
blouses to be able to change back and forth in. You could ride on the bus in blue jeans or
shorts, but if you got off, you had to put on a skirt and I mean even at midnight. 6:33
Interviewer: “When the league started there were an awful lot of rules about
conduct and dress and all of this. Were all of those still in place when you joined?”
Not as many, you didn’t have to practice walking with a book on your head and stuff, but
as far as the dress and being at curfew and stuff like that, drinking and smoking in public
and stuff, they were pretty much in—but of course, we sneaked around and smoked,
some of us.
Interviewer: “Alright, where were the people on your team from? From all over
the place?”
Yes sir, all over and on the tour team I know we had them from the east coast. I don’t
remember any people off hand from California. Most of them were already good enough
to be in the league and of course these traveling teams were sort of like “rookies” teams
for practice and sometimes they would even call one up off of the tour when there were
injuries. 7:28 I remember Wimp Baumgartner, she was catcher, and Peoria’s catcher got
hurt and she was shipped up to catch the rest of the season. Things like that did happen.
Interviewer: “On this tour how far did you go or how far off did you range while
you were going around?”
Well, after they picked me up they traveled around to twenty-five different states. We
went on—when they picked me up we went to New Orleans and circled back through
3
�Hot Springs and out through Texas, Oklahoma and I don’t know whether we came back
through—it seemed like we went to southern Arkansas and went down to as far as
Pensacola, Florida and wandered up the east coast to Virginia and some of those places
and clear up into New Jersey and around in that area and finished the tour in West
Virginia, Labor Day week-end. 8:23
Interviewer: “In the process do you actually—did you play in New York or go in
New York City?”
We got to go to the Yankee Stadium and see a couple of innings of games before we went
to play in New Jersey and what I remember, now you have got to figure me a little
country girl and we’re out here in New York, never been there, never been to that large a
city, and we had a rained out night or something and one of the older ladies had been to
New York City and she said, “I know how to take the subway”, we were staying in New
York, New Jersey and we had to take the subway, and we were going to go over and see
Times Square and some kind of show. There were twelve of us and six of us got on and
the one that knew her way around didn’t make it and the six of us were scared to death,
but somebody had enough sense to say, “let’s get off at the next stop and wait on them”
and that’s what we did and we got back together. 9:25 The good lord was watching after
us.
Interviewer: “So basically the teams spent the whole season on the road going from
one place to another?”
All the traveling teams, yes.
Interviewer: “You get to the end of the season and what happens?”
Well you just—some of them—the bus was originally from around the Fort Wayne area
and unless you left there, which I did and we brought the girl from Shreveport, Louisiana
back, my brother, and my sister and her husband came to pick me up because I wouldn’t
have known how to catch a bus back. I guess I could have been told, but my folks
weren’t going to let that happen. We gave her a ride back to Shreveport, but the rest of
them, a lot of them rode back to the Midwest on the bus and disbanded then. 10:13
Interviewer: “Now how did you communicate with your family while you’re
traveling around to all these places?”
Telephone and writing. Of course the folks had a schedule of where we were going to be
and they sent a letter ahead by week or something like that.
Interviewer: “That makes sense, so you’d get the winter off? You would go back
home then for the winter?”
Well, I had another year of high school.
4
�Interviewer: “So you go back to school. Does the season start then before the
school year’s over?”
Yes, I got permission to get out of high school to go to spring training.
Interviewer: “Where did they hold spring training for you?”
The first year that I went to spring training was in Cape Girardeau in Missouri. Before,
when it was really going, a lot of fans before the war was over, they got to go to Cuba,
Biloxi, Mississippi and a lot of places. 1 1:07 I got to go the first year to where did I
say? Cape Girardeau in Missouri, but after that South Bend usually went ahead and
practiced at home. The season got to starting a little bit later. That first year I went into
the league, it started in April and after that it started more like in April, the first of May.
Interviewer: “You moved from the traveling team, the barnstorming team and
junior level teams, to one of the regular teams in 1950 and you had kind of a crazy
set of assignments that year. Can you explain what happened to you that year?”
11:47
Okay, I went to spring training with Muskegon, we trained in Cape Girardeau with the
Fort Wayne Daisies and I know my dad was thrilled to death to get to meet Jimmy Foxx,
he was a professional and coached the Daisies. We played ball, we stopped off and
played at different towns on our way back north, well, by the time we got to Muskegon,
Michigan, they had us younger kids, at least two or three, staying with a family, they had
rooms, and we didn’t even get to play the first game because they disbanded the
Muskegon Lassies team. 12:30 As I understand it and what I can remember, is they had
done away with men’s baseball during the war, that’s one of the reasons the league was
formed, and they decided to bring minor league baseball back. That was my
understanding and I could be wrong, so we had to move on. They sent me to Peoria,
Illinois, the Red Wings, and I was there maybe five or six weeks and I had some very
good games, I pitched a sixteen inning game I lost and it ended two to one and pretty
soon South Bend traded for me and of course I didn’t know what was going on when they
told me to report to somebody. They put me on the bus and I reported there myself.
13:12
Interviewer: “Did you spend most of your career with South Bend?”
Yes sir, except I was on loan to Battle Creek one time for ten days or so.
Interviewer: “How did that work, being on loan?”
Well, I was disappointed at first, but I went over there and old “Mudcat Grant” was a
former professional pitcher and he had a lot of confidence in me and he wanted to pitch
me every chance—as soon as I had two or three days rest and wasn’t pitching, he put me
in another position, so when South Bend called me back I was a little unhappy at first, but
then we went on and won two championships and in the long run I was happy I went
5
�back to South Bend. I did get to play some first base and some other places before it was
over, even in South Bend. 14:03
Interviewer: “When you were in South Bend, what kind of living accommodations
did you have?”
Well, the first year I roomed with another lady, a widow lady who had rooms there.
After that four of us were able to get an upstairs apartment. One of the ladies, Wimp
Baumgartner in fact, had a car and three of us didn’t, so we kind of paid to help with
expenses and all. It gave us two bedrooms, a kitchenette and bath and everything.
Interviewer: “The league did not have a problem with that in terms of supervision
or anything?”
No, because well, Wimp was a little bit older than the others and I was—I must have
been seventeen that first year I lived in an apartment, but you were still supervised to a
certain extent by the family who owned the building even when you were that young.
We had to go through their front and up the stairs. 15:02
Interviewer: “Talk a little bit about your pitching career. You mentioned you had
a sixteen inning game you pitched, did you pitch any no hitters?”
I pitched a no hitter on tour, one error light of being a perfect game.
Interviewer: “The record books also mentioned that you pitched the most innings
of anyone in the league in 1953.”
I don’t know, I pitched a double header too and won both games.
Interviewer: “Now, you mentioned you were on the team for two championship
seasons, can you tell me a little bit about those, what went on or what helped your
team get ahead?”
Of course the first one we won we had a full team and good pitchers and I had my starts
and everything and I kind of hate to talk about the second one, but I will since this is
history. The second championship I played on we had a terrific team. 15:56 the last
game of the season we had a second baseman that she and the manager didn’t get along
greatly and he was trying to rest her and some of the starters because we were already in
the playoffs and I think it made her mad and she was sitting on the bench and had her
spikes off and everything and I think I got on base and he called for her to go in as pinch
runner and she wasn’t ready. Of course he saw it , that’s why he did that exactly, and
they had a big dispute and he kicked her off the team for good. I mean the playoffs were
going to start in just a couple days and it ended up that we lost seven players, five of them
starters. Left fielder, center fielder, second baseman, first base pitcher, third baseman and
another pitcher that walked off to support her and left us with twelve players. 17:06
6
�Interviewer: “So then what did you do?”
We won the championship.
Interviewer: “With just twelve?”
Yes, with just twelve. When I wasn’t pitching I was playing right field usually and one
night when I was pitching and I got in a little trouble, I had a left hand batter up that had
hit me pretty hard and the manager’s wife, Jean Fout, a great star anywhere she played,
was playing third base, she had to play third when she wasn’t pitching, and Elwood
called time and put her in to pitch to the left hander, put me on third base, the only time I
ever played third base in my life, and my knees were just shaking and he said, “you play
in half way and don’t let her bunt one. We got her out and the next inning I went back in
to finish the game. 17:56 That was—my knees couldn’t have shaken any worse. I
would be threatened to be killed playing third base, right in on top of the batter.
Interviewer: “But it was just for that one batter at least.”
One batter and I don’t think I could have made it back out the next inning to play third
base. That’s kind of a hot corner.
Interviewer: “Over the course of time that you were playing with the league, what
kinds of changes seemed to take place with it in terms of fan support or other
things?”
Well, the people had more things to do, television started coming in and attendance
started dropping and that was eventually what killed the league of course, but also the
baseball, I guess it was ten inches when I first started, and in the last year we played with
just a regular baseball, which was in my favor because all my life I had played at home
with a regular baseball. 18:56 I loved the little ball much better. Those were the main
changes and I think things got a little bit looser as far as chaperoning and making sure
you did this and you did that, but it was still a good game.
Interviewer: “Were you planning on going back and playing in 1955 when the
league shut down?”
Yes sir, I could have cried my heart out. I just turned twenty at the end of that season and
I figured I had a good nine or ten years left if it had gone on. I was just starting—I had a
pretty good temper, I could get mad and I was starting to get to control it a little bit better.
I would have liked to have another five years; I’ll put it that way. 19:47
Interviewer: “Were you surprised that it shut down or were you kind of expecting
it?”
Well, there had been rumors, yes. I know some of the trips we made that last year that
we played, some of the time we were taken in cars instead of a bus, so yes.
7
�Interviewer: “What was the fan support like in South Bend?”
It was real good when I first began playing and it started dropping off as it did most other
places.
Interviewer: “Now when the league itself shut down, what did you do at that
point?”
Well, I had already played basketball in South Bend with the South Bend Rockettes in
1953 and 1954, so I went home a few weeks and I had put my application in at Bendix
Aircraft on that break and was called up in October for a job. I wanted to play basketball
that year, but I needed the job, so I stayed on in South Bend and played basketball and
worked at various jobs until 21:00 I promised my dad in 1959 that I would come back to
Arkansas the next year and go to college. My younger brother started college, Church
College, and he wanted me to go and I promised him in November. I went back to South
Bend, I choke-up on this I’m sorry, but I promised him and that was the last time I saw
him alive. He dropped dead of a heart attack on January the second, so I figured it would
take me—I didn’t figure I could go then and pay my way, but I worked one more year
and saved my money and I had some savings bonds and I said, “well, I promised him”, so
the second year after he was gone I did go back, but I went to Arkansas State Teachers
because it was cheaper and I could get some financial help after I went a year and
realized I could make it because I had been out of high school—I was twenty-six then
see. 22:02 When I decided I could make it, I was able to get loans and since I did go
into education, I didn’t have to pay a lot of that back, so I was able to make it.
Interviewer: “How does that work? You say you didn’t have to pay a lot of that
back?”
If you taught school, they were crying for teachers at that time, and if you went into
teaching you only had to pay a very small percentage—I think I paid it off in about five
years, so I worked also too.
Interviewer: “You mentioned you were playing basketball and you were working
for a company, did companies sponsor teams or how did that work?”
No, they just tried to get you jobs with the—our business manager would ask around and
get the players a job that needed them. I worked at Bendix, but then Bendix—there was a
nose dive again, was it in the late fifties? 22:57 The economy kind of got bad, but I was
lucky enough to always be able to get a job especially during basketball season.
Interviewer: “Then how long were you a teacher?”
Twenty-five years.
Interviewer: “Where did you teach?”
8
�Well, I started out in a country school in Cass County, Indiana, out of Logansport and I
went home for the summer and the superintendent from Logansport had a friend of mine
that knew that I played softball with called me to see if I would come back and teach
summer school, they needed another summer school teacher, so I was with my mother,
but I had a sister living in Mr. Pleasant, Michigan with her family and brought mother
back to visit up there and I taught school about five or six weeks. Before the summer
was over the superintendent wanted me—he moved his staff around here in town because
he wanted me to teach school in Logansport because he was for girls athletics and they
were—that was before they really had teams and he was interested, it was through GAA
and stuff, but he was interested in them being taught the rules and the skills of different
sports, so then I taught in Logan the last twenty-four years. 24:15
Interviewer: “When you think back on your career as a baseball player, are there
particular events or things that happened to you or people that tend to stick out in
your mind or that come back to you that you haven’t really talked about here yet?”
Well of course Lou Arnold was a fascination for me and an encourager, and I still give
her a lot of credit. What I remember about her, about the first year of spring training
there, of course I was use to playing with boys remember, and I was kind of who could
get the ball first you know and one day when we were ready to warm up and everything, I
dived in to get the ball and Lou just kind of said, “now Sue just slow down, there’s
enough to go around, just take your time”, she was just always trying to encourage—on
manners, “thank you”. 25:10 Raised on a farm with boys it’s kind of rude how we—
even though I had a good mother and father , good disciplinarians, you still, you fought
for what you thought was yours, so Lou helped me in a lot of things like that, I’ll say that.
25:25 Lenny Zintak, who was on the tour, and when I was on the tour I, was teased a
great deal for of my southern accent and my hillbilly ways. I didn’t mind a great deal
except sometimes I would almost be in tears. On my sixteenth birthday, when I entered
the bus, he grabbed me and gave me a great big kiss, of course my face turned all read
and I was about half way—he said, “now Sue”, he didn’t say it right there in front of
people, but he said, “ I want you to realize when people kid you, they like you, so take
that as a compliment”, and I always think that now too and I can thank Lenny Zintak for
that. 26:08
Interviewer: “Going back at your career, how do you think that wound up affecting
you, either the person you became or the kind of life or career you went into?”
A great deal, I might never have left the state of Arkansas and I doubt that I would have
even gone on to get a college education. All the friends you make and all the places you
go and I kept in touch with a great deal of those friends and then when we started having
these reunions—when would I have ever had a chance to be a small part of a movie like
“A League of Their Own”, and get to pitch batting practice with Penny Marshall and stuff
like that. 26:56
Interviewer: “How good of a hitter was Penny Marshall?”
9
�Well, she could hit the ball. It was not like some of the others that I had to hit the bat for
them, the older boys.
Interviewer: “What did you think of the movie it’s self? Do you think it did a good
job?”
I thought it did a good job and of course part of it was Hollywood. The Major never
would have gone in the locker room and wouldn’t have been drunk like that they
wouldn’t have allowed that. A lot of people thought that they never would have had a
little boy like that, but Jean Fout and the manager were man and wife and sometimes if
they didn’t have a baby sitter their little Larry was with us. I’ve got a picture of he and I
on the steps of the dugout in Kalamazoo I think it was. I was tying my shoe and he was
standing there helping me. 27:54 People that I’ve heard—I saw the movie and been a
lot of places and given a little talk, even though I’m not a good speaker, about it and
when somebody would bring up that I would say, “oh yes, there’s nothing false about that
because we ourselves had a little boy and he traveled part of the time”. He had his own
little uniform and that was based on him probably.
Interviewer: “Speaking of pictures, I heard there was a publicity picture of you on
a donkey, could you explain that?”
Yeah, well it was during spring training and the manager said I was going out to so and
so’s farm in the afternoon to have my picture taken on a donkey and I think they had a
suitcase for me, I don’t think I had to take mine. 28:42 It was just for publicity and that
was probably in 1952, it might have been earlier, when attendance was dropping,
anything for publicity, we had to do anything, but I was supposed to be coming in for
spring training riding my donkey and I was a little irritated because it wasn’t at least a
saddle horse as I said, but that’s alright. They had a night, I guess it was baseball,
running, pitching for accuracy, and they brought that darn donkey out and I had to ride
him to the mound, there’s no pictures of that, but that crazy thing balked on the third
baseline and I had to get off of him and lead him across and get back on him. I did
because I was stubborn too and made him take me to the mound, but anything to try to
help attendance. 29:39
Interviewer: “Now, do you think they ought to come and try to create a women’s
national baseball league again?”
That would be great for women who love baseball as much as I did and the rest of these
ladies.
Interviewer: “Do you think that’s something that’s likely to happen at some point?”
I don’t know, you have got to have sponsors.
Interviewer: “Do you pay much attention to like, women’s basketball for instance,
there’s a professional league out there now?”
10
�Off and on, off and on--they play good basketball and I’d of liked to been able to play on
that because I love basketball during basketball season like I love baseball during
baseball season, so it would have been hard for me to choose, I’d of liked to play them
both. 30:21
Interviewer: “Anything else you would like to add to the record here before we
close out the interview?”
I think we pretty well covered everything.
Interviewer: “You tell a good story, so thank you very much.” 30:31
11
�
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
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
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_SKidd
Title
A name given to the resource
Kidd, Sue (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Kidd, Sue
Description
An account of the resource
Sue Kidd was born in 1933 in Choctaw, Arkansas. She got her interest in baseball from her father and two brothers who she played with regularly as a child. Growing up, Kidd played other sports too like football and basketball but eventually decided on a career in baseball following a meeting with her high school guidance counselor. In the spring of 1949, Kidd, at age 15, was scouted and tried out for a pitcher position in Little Rock, Arkansas. Beginning her professional career in 1950 Kidd played until 1954 when the All American Girls Professional Baseball League ended. At the start of 1950, Kidd played for the Muskegon Lassies, Peoria Redwings, and South Bend Blue Sox. In 1951, she played for the South Bend Blue Sox but then was on loan for a brief time with the Battle Creek Belles. From 1952 to 1954 she stayed with the South Bend Blue Sox. In that time, she pitched and won two double headers in 1953 and won two championships. She played pitcher, first base, and right field during her time with South Bend. When the league shut down in 1954 she went on to play basketball with the South Bend Rockettes until 1959 when she went on to pursue a career in teaching which did for twenty-six years. She wraps up the interview by discussing how baseball impacted her.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Video recordings
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Baseball for women--United States
Baseball
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players-Illinois
Baseball players--Indiana
Women
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-09-25
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4