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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
JANE JACOBS BADINI
Women in Baseball
Born: Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio June 16, 1924
Resides:
Interviewed by: Frank Boring, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 5, 2010, Detroit,
MI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, April 26, 2011
Interviewer: “Let‟s start with your full name and where and when were you born?”
My name is Jane Janette Jacobs. I was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio at 1836 4th Street.
Interviewer: “When were you born?”
I was born June 16, 1924
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like?”
Well, I thought it was pretty good, I don’t know if you’d like to—my childhood—my
mother found out when I was four years old that I was blind in my left eye, but I had—
blind from birth and she was over protective, really over protective of me and everything.
27:53 We had—in the back yard there was a lot of property there and that’s where we
played baseball and playing there, but I was the only girl. All the rest of them were guys.
Interviewer: “Now, this is a neighborhood? A city neighborhood?”
Yes, oh yeah
Interviewer: “All right, so neighborhood kids kind of got together in a vacant lot to
play ball?”
Yeah, we just played and enjoyed ourselves.
Interviewer: “So, you had a baseball, a bat, you had gloves?”
Yes
Interviewer: “How did you get your equipment? Did your parent buy it?”
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�I had two older brothers.
Interviewer: “Ah”
They were baseball players and my older brother—at one time both my brothers were
pitchers, and then my one brother, well they both were very, very good, but my one
brother was an exceptionally good batter, so they asked him not to pitch anymore because
they were going to use him for a batter all the time, but my brother Chuck, he pitched and
he was terrific, terrific. 29:16 That’s how that was broke up, and then they got so nice
with me because they wanted to teach me and since I was a tomboy you know. That’s
what they referred to you then when you were out with just a bunch of guys, and there I
was, the only girl.
Interviewer: “How was school for you?”
School? It was good; I got good grades and everything in school.
Interviewer: “So the baseball part was just like any other kid? It was just after
school you played baseball?”
Yes
Interviewer: “What position did you play back then?” 29:57
Oh, I was always a pitcher.
Interviewer: “Always a pitcher?‟
Yeah, my brothers would show me.
Interviewer: “Were you playing softball or baseball?”
Well, at that time we were playing softball.
Interviewer: “So, it was underhand?”
Oh yes
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�Interviewer: “Did you continue playing into high school?”
Yes, I played in high school and I remember our gym teacher said, “Jane, let them hit the
ball”, and I said, “no, I don’t think so”, and the gym teacher said, “ you know you are
supposed to win if you can”, and I said, “if I let them hit the ball it’s not going to be
good”, so the teacher said, “let them hit it anyway”, and I said, “no, no, I can’t do that”.
30:45
Interviewer: “How—your high school had a baseball team?”
It was gym really because we didn’t have much of that then.
Interviewer: “Ok, how come you were playing? You‟re a girl, how could you be
playing baseball in high school?”
Well, that’s the way it was. I think it was once a week, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t
like playing every day.
Interviewer: “It wasn‟t a formal team?”
No, it wasn’t a regular baseball team, no.
Interviewer: “So you had it almost like before were you had the neighborhood kids
play baseball, in high school you just played baseball?”
Yeah, right
Interviewer: “Ok, all right, when did you first hear about the opportunity for an all
American Girls Professional Baseball League? How did you hear about that?”
Well, I heard when I played amateur ball when I was sixteen and got terrific—I was
really good, I think I had twenty-four wins and either twenty-four or twenty-six, and four
losses. 31:54 We had twins that played on the team then and their dad was the manager,
I think that’s what you called them in those days, and that’s how I got to play.
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�Interviewer: “So you—this is still during high school that you‟re playing in this
amateur league, ok. Did your parent like the idea of you playing baseball like
that?”
Well, my mom didn’t know anything about baseball, and oh my gosh, my dad was a
pitcher and like I say, my brother was a pitcher and he changed to be a batter.
Interviewer: “But they encouraged you?”
Oh yeah, my mom didn’t care that much, but my dad sure did.
Interviewer: “Well good, so you‟re playing with this amateur league and somebody
sees you, is that how it worked out?” 32:53
Yeah, they started to send scouts you know.
Interviewer: “What year was this?”
Well, they sent scouts when I was—that was a couple of years later. It was just before—
when they started the league it was 1943.
Interviewer: “1943, so when did you actually—“
We had teams and we traveled to different little cities.
Interviewer: “Ok, the scout came around and saw you play—“
Yeah, then I went to Chicago.
Interviewer: “So you were invited to go to tryouts?”
Yes, right
Interviewer: “How did you get there?”
By train
Interviewer: “Train, ok, were you by yourself?”
Yes, at that particular time I was.
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�Interviewer: “Had you ever traveled very far before?” 33:57
No, no it was completely different back then you know.
Interviewer: “What was the experience of taking the train trip out to Chicago for
the tryouts like?”
Well, I was kind of scared to tell you the truth, because I hadn’t been out like that. It was
interesting, when we got there they had someone meet us and we tried out at Wrigley
Field in Chicago. We were a little nervous because we didn’t know whether we were
going to make it or not, but I made it immediately.
Interviewer: „What was that experience like of walking onto the field. Were there
girls out there in uniforms already playing?”
No, we didn’t have uniforms yet because we had to make the teams and I don’t know
what they called the teams because they hadn’t organized the teams yet.
Interviewer: “So what were the tryouts like? Did they have you field balls? Were
they hitting balls to you? Were you catching? What were the tryouts?”
I was just pitching because I wasn’t very good as a fielder you know. 35:00
Interviewer: “So you were pitching and other girls would go up to the mound and
they would pitch and scouts were watching?”
We were playing in different positions in different places you know.
Interviewer: “Did you find out that day that you got in?”
I don’t think we found out that day. It seems to me that it was, I hope I’m not wrong, but
I think it was about a week before we heard because there were others that had to tryout
with yet and that took a little time.
Interviewer: “So, were you still in Chicago or did you come back home?”
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�I came back home.
Interviewer: “So, they contacted you at home?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Tell me about getting that, it must have been a letter in the mail,
huh?” 35:52
It could have been a telephone call or something. So, we had the tryout and everything
and there were only four teams when it first started in 1943, and like I said, in the
beginning I went there and made the team real good and I got real sick.
Interviewer: “Got sick?”
Well, I got the Mumps and then I was a little afraid because I had to stay behind. I
wasn’t use to that straying home and not going out anywhere. That was my first trip that
I took in my life, so I went home and instead of going back, which I could have, I just oh
no, I didn’t feel like it. Then I got the opportunity and got a contract and everything to
come the following year. 37:00
Interviewer: “Nobody had any problem with the fact that you were blind in one
eye?”
They didn’t know it and this is a good story. I thought well, I’m not going to tell them
I’m blind in one eye, and nobody knew it, even my friends, and I had a lot of friends and
everything. One day Bob Knolls, he came to interview me after the picture was shown
because I was taken on sick leave in a Limousine and all that so, anyway what was the
question again?
Interviewer: “That they didn‟t know that you were blind in one eye, yeah. You
mean the whole time you were playing baseball people didn‟t know?”
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�No, even my friends because I never told them see. 37:58 When Bob was interviewing
me and everything, I said, “Bob, I’ll tell you one thing, but I don’t want you to be writing
this up”, I said, “I was blind in one eye. I was born blind.”, and he said, “What?”, and I
said, “Yeah”, and he said, “you could do a lot of good for kids that have a handicap.
Would you please allow me to use this as a fact?” He said, “you will be surprised how
much it helps kids”, which I was in the future, because they held them back you see.
Through that kids started to do whatever they could.
Interviewer: “So you tried out and what team did you get on?”
I got on the Racine Belles and I played for two years with the Belles.
Interviewer: “That meant that you had to move to Racine, so your parents were ok
with your going?”
Yeah, we stayed in people’s homes out there rather than staying in a hotel.
Interviewer: “Hotels, right, did you have to go through that charm school?”
Oh yes, I went through the charm school, and in fact there’s a write-up in the paper. You
have one of the papers, don’t you?
Interviewer: “Tell us about that.”
Well, we weren’t that way, we were a little—we just didn’t like that you know because
we had to use make-up and everything and we didn’t like it.
Interviewer: “What were some of the things they had you do? In the movie they
show a book on the head.”
I was going to say, we had to walk a certain way and you couldn’t be tomboyish or
anything like that because you had to be a young lady, so I thought it was terrible. 40:05
I said, “my God it was terrible” Am I allowed to say “My God?”
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�Interviewer: “So the basic idea was that you had to act like a lady , so you had to sit
a certain way and you had to eat a certain way and they taught you how to use the
knife and the fork?”
Well, they didn’t do that, but don’t slop it.
Interviewer: “You say that you really didn‟t like it, the girls didn‟t really like it, but
it was part of what you had to do.”
You had to do it, you had no choice, and we just had to.
Interviewer: “So, did that just happen? Did they do the charm school just a day or
did they do it every day for a period of time?”
For a while, but I truthfully don’t remember.
Interviewer: “So, it wasn‟t just a one day thing, you had to go in there and they
taught you one thing and then they taught you another thing?
Yes
Interviewer: Ok, alright, how was your first season?” 41:06
Well, the first season I did pretty good you know.
Interviewer: “You were a rookie, right?”
Yeah, right
Interviewer: “Did you sit on the bench very much the first year?”
I was right in there pretty much you know. As you will see by the card my earned run
average was terrific, but if they didn’t get runs for you, you couldn’t win the game, right?
Interviewer: “Oh yeah, and you started out as a pitcher, you were first string
pitcher?”
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�Well, we had I don’t know how many pitchers because you had a pretty good number of
games you had to play, so we took our turns. 42:00
Interviewer: “You had home games and you had road trip games. How were the
road trips?”
They were good and we traveled the road trips by bus and stayed in hotels, but we stayed
in the people’s homes there in Racine.
Interviewer: “What did you think of the uniform?”
Well, it was different you know, but we had to wear them, we had no choice, absolutely
no choice.
Interviewer: “Several of the girls said they had to adjust the dresses or skirts, or
whatnot, because it‟s difficult to play ball that way. Did you do anything like that
with your uniform?”
If you notice in the pictures—I think it shows in the picture where—you know they were
so full here they got in out way as we pitched, so it shows the uniform where we had to
pin it down, so when we came through with the ball we weren’t in touch with the
material. 43:07
Interviewer: “Yeah, so you started out playing underhand, right?”
Oh yeah,
Interviewer: “And it was a softball size?”
A twelve inch, yeah.
Interviewer: “You were already use to doing that though.”
Yeah
Interviewer: “Now after your first season, you came back home?”
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�Oh yes, at the end of the season, yeah, I came back home again.
Interviewer: “And what did you do?”
Well eventually—after I retired, I retired after—I could have played—see, I played four
years. I had a contract to go to the fifth, but my statistics, and I don’t mean to be
bragging on you, but it was so good that the talk went through my mind that if I have a
bad season I’m going to ruin everything, and this way I’m going out—and you will see
the statistics, they were very good, and I didn’t want to do that, so I had the contract
signed and everything and I said I wasn’t going to play any more and this was the end of
my professional ball. 44:22
Interviewer: “We‟ll get back to that later on, but I want to get back to that first
season. You played out the season, and then you came back home. Did you move
back in with your parents or did you have to work?”
I was with my parents you know.
Interviewer: “Did you have to work?”
I worked for Woolworth’s down on Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls. I started working
and you know.
Interviewer: “Did they know you were a baseball player?”
Yeah, they did
Interviewer: “Were you kind of a local celebrity?” 45:00
Well, we didn’t do that much celebrity at that time you know.
Interviewer: “But it was unusual for a girl to be playing professional baseball.”
Yes it was.
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�Interviewer: “So the second season comes along and you get another contract
playing for the same team?”
Yes
Interviewer: “So you move to Racine, and did you stay in the same house?”
Yes, we were friends you know. The people, Conrad was their name, and they were
just—they treated me so great. When we had a few days off or anything, and they would
go out of town, they took me right with them and we enjoyed it, and we became—they
had two daughters and even after I retired and everything—when I was playing ball the
daughter always came to watch and after I retired they kept writing to me and we wrote
back and forth—it was great. 46:01
Interviewer: “How was your second season? You‟re not a rookie anymore.”
No I wasn’t, but I was treated great, absolutely great and that’s what everyone else is
saying.
Interviewer: “Are there any highlights or games that you remember that were
exceptional? You said that you were a pretty good pitcher.”
I was a good pitcher. The thing, the big thing that was really something was that I was
allowed to bat. You know my left eye was blind and everything and I hit a home run.
Unbelievable, I couldn’t believe it myself you know. That drew a lot of attention.
Interviewer: “That‟s wonderful, that‟s wonderful. Sp then you‟re offered a third
season, but this time you‟re playing with a different team?”
Yes, because they were trying to equalize the teams and see what you could do, so I
played the whole year with them and then I got to go back to Racine, which really tickled
me because I loved playing with Racine. 47:11
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�Interviewer: “What was the other team you played with?”
Peoria
Interviewer: “Peoria, ok. That was the third year you went to Peoria?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Ok, alright”
Peoria, and then back to Racine again, and then I quit.
Interviewer: “Was there a big difference in the playing from Racine to Peoria?”
No, it was pretty much the same thing.
Interviewer: “Were you still pitching underhand?”
Yes, oh yes
Interviewer: “So the side arm didn‟t come until later?”
Yeah, I don’t know how many years later.
Interviewer: “How were the fans?”
Wonderful, oh my goodness, they couldn’t do enough for us. They would invite us to
their homes, the whole team they would have coming to their home. They would invite
us and just be wonderful. 48:04
Interviewer: “Now the beginning of the league, at least some of the stories were that
the fans kind of thought it was a novelty, these girls playing baseball, did you
experience that too?”
A little, yeah
Interviewer: “But soon, playing ball, they realized these are good players?”
Right, yes they did.
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�Interviewer: “So, in your third season, you‟re playing once again, were you
thinking about this as a career?”
No, never once
Interviewer: “You did it because it was fun and they were paying you.”
Yeah, I’ll tell yeah, we made a big, big salary. We got fifty dollars a week.
Interviewer: “Were you able to send some money home?”
Yeah, because when I grew up we didn’t have as much or anything else. We were kind
of hard up and I always thought of my parents and sent a little bit of money.
Interviewer: “At that stage in your life, what did you think you wanted to do?
You‟re playing baseball and you‟re getting paid, but what is it you wanted to do?”
49:13
I had an idea that I wanted to go into my own little business at that young age and that’s
exactly—I worked for Acme for a while and then I thought, “ well it’s about time that I
start”, so I went around to the houses and picked up junk and I went into the dry cleaning
business although I put it out to be done by other businesses that were doing it and I built
a pretty darn good business. First I had a car and when I got a little money, I got a truck
you know and I went around and gosh, the people were wonderful to me, they were. It
was unusual to have a girl dry cleaner. 50:10
Interviewer: “So, your fourth year comes along and you‟re still playing with
Racine, but you made a very important decision?”
Yes I did, at the end.
Interviewer: “Could you tell us—how did you come to that decision?”
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�Well, just like I mentioned, I had very good statistics and man, they were great, for that
time they were, and I got home and thought, “What if I have a bad year?” So, that’s
when I quit. I worked around a little bit at stores like Acme you know, and then I
thought, “I’m going into my own business”, and started a route of dry cleaning and I
rented a little shop on Tallmadge Road in Cuyahoga Falls. Believe me or not, but I
bought the place after a couple of years and I still have the place and that’s the story.
51:23
Interviewer: “Did you miss it, baseball?”
Yeah, because we weren’t allowed to play on another team because we were considered
professionals, but my brother Chuck, he was a—he worked for plumbing and heating,
and they always had—every year they had a little shindig going on and they said,
“Chuck, we want your sister to come down here and pitch for us, you know, we’ve never
had any audience of any kind”, and he said, “I’m sure she will”, and so I did and
eventually I was the CEO officer at the heating and plumbing for twenty years and I
made a lot of friends down there because I just wasn’t allowed to play any more. 52:22 I
had customers from there and it worked out real good.
Interviewer: “What were some of the highlights? I mean, you get together with
these gals for these reunions and what stories do you tell? A no hitter or?”
The biggest thing for me that I tell, was hitting that one home run. That’s the greatest
thing and no one believes it hardly because I was a lousy batter.
Interviewer: “Most pitchers are.”
Yeah
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�Interviewer: “I was a pitcher too, in little league, and my claim to fame is that I got
a homerun on a bunt.”
On a bunt?
Interviewer: “That‟s how bad the other team was, so I can appreciate your
homerun there. I only had one in my life too. 53:24 Did you talk about being a
professional baseball player after you left the league and were working in the dry
cleaning?”
No, because my intention was—we grew up poor, my family and my mom and dad had
very little, and I wanted to do something where I could help my mom, I had the greatest
mom in the world, absolutely, the super greatest mom in the world. We didn’t have
much, but we had respect for each other and loved each other you know and we kind of
went along that way. 54:03
Interviewer: “So, you were able to help support her?”
Oh yes, because I didn’t get married until I was forty-nine, so that was a long way to go.
Interviewer: “But you were a career woman I guess, from early on, and there
weren‟t many career women around then.” 54:16
No there weren’t
Interviewer: “did you already have that kind of drive before you played
professional baseball or did professional baseball kind of help you to make that
move into that?”
I never thought of that and I wanted my mom to have it good because she was such a
good soul. A terrific lady and my drive was to do something for my mom, and I did.
Interviewer: “What did those four years do for you, playing baseball?”
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�Well, I think it gave you a lot of—what it is when you feel good about yourself?
Interviewer: “Confidence?”
Yes, that’s it
Interviewer: “Because you were a young girl.”
Oh yeah
Interviewer: “You played ball and you felt a little more confident.”
Oh my goodness, yeah, and the fans, it was unbelievable; they lined up just to get your
autograph. 55:20 That went on for the four years that I played.
Interviewer: “Did you have fans that kind of picked you out and you were their
favorite?”
Well, yes, I don’t want to brag, but I’m not going to lie either. Oh, yeah, oh my goodness
yes, they invited us out for dinner and everything, and it was really nice.
Interviewer: „so you didn‟t really talk about the league, you didn‟t talk about being
in baseball for many, many years?”
Oh no, and I wasn’t allowed to play amateurs and it died out.
Interviewer: “Right, but in terms of that part of your life, you were moving on and
you were going to go and do other things.”
Yes 56:08
Interviewer: “When did that change?”
Well, it changed not too many years afterwards because I was always thinking, in my
mind, what could I do to help my mom because she was such a good, good woman, so
she could have a little better life than what she had, and yet, I never wanted to sound like
I was bragging about anything because there was much, much love among us.
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�Interviewer: “Did you know when the league ended? Did you see the newspapers
or did you know in 1954 that it was all over with?”
I don’t think I knew right away. I was out of there and I didn’t pay much attention to it.
57:02
Interviewer: “Did you keep in contact at all with any of the girls that you played
with?”
Eventually I did, but mostly with the family I stayed with. I was, oh my goodness,
because we played near San Francisco, I got to love San Francisco because I went out
there so much to see them and everything, and I would go out four times a year. It was
only for a few days or a week and they always wanted me to come to their house and they
would take me somewhere. We would go somewhere, you know, to enjoy ourselves. I
was just great and I don’t know if I’m explaining it right or not.
Interviewer: “Well, I think you‟ve seemed to developed a close and almost second
family.”
Yes, I did and I called them mom and pop and they wanted me to.
Interviewer: “Did they have any opinion about your quitting baseball?” 58:01
Well, a lot of people didn’t want me to quit. They said they would love to see me stay
and everything, but I just had a little bit different things I wanted to do in my life.
Interviewer: “So you never saw baseball as a career?”
Oh no, I never did and like I said, it did a lot of good after I told Bob Knolls that I was
blind and he, and different ones, said that I have helped the kids through what I had said.
There were some kids that could come and they wouldn’t be made fun of. See, I use to
be called “four eyes’ all the time in grade school and that made me mad, so what I would
17
�do, because I had to wear glasses—a lot of kids had to pass my home to school from
where I lived there was always a certain bunch you know. 59:10 It was “hello four
eyes”, and everything and when they got to my house I said, “I’ll be out in a minute”, and
I took off my glasses because I couldn’t afford to have them broke, and I would go out
and say, “now call me four eyes”, and we had a few fights and I won.
Interviewer: “Did you go to the first reunion, the All American Girls reunion?”
I probably did, but truthfully, I can’t remember.
Interviewer: “But you had some interest to want to see those girls again?”
Oh my gosh, yeah
Interviewer: “What changed? Was it just age? You were getting older and looking
back on that time? :03 If it was only four years of your life, and you certainly
accomplished a lot more afterwards, why would you be interested in getting back
together with these people?”
Because I had a good relationship with them and they treated me so good. They treated
me like a daughter instead of somebody just coming into the house.
Interviewer: “I mean with the teams. Going to the reunions with the teams.”
Well, I didn’t go to that many though.
Interviewer: “Did the movie change anything for you? You saw the movie?”
Well, I saw it and I thought it was pretty neat, that was my impression.
Interviewer: “How did you see it? Did you see it in a movie theater?”
I was picked up by what do you call it?
Interviewer: “A limousine?”
A limousine, yeah
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�Interviewer: “Who arranged for that?”
Evidently before it came out we were invited to the premier. 1:28
Interviewer: “Tell that story, tell that story, yeah.”
That was great and we were in a theater of some sort, I think it was a theater.
Interviewer: “Had you ever been in a limousine before?"
No
Interviewer: “Tell the story.”
I thought, “that can’t be me going in a limousine like that”, and then they were so great to
me, it was just marvelous, and I thought, “My goodness, what’s happening?” Everything
was just great and I think you have a picture of it there. 2:08
Interviewer: “So you arrive in a limousine at the theater and?”
Everything—there was a lot of talking going on and they were just good to me and let me
know that I was appreciated.
Interviewer: “What did you think of the movie? Did you like it?”
Yeah, it was pretty good, but Tom Hanks, he stretched it a little bit you know and I
wasn’t a stretcher.
Interviewer: “A lot of the girls say the movie changed everything and people
suddenly knew who you guys were.”
Yes it did and I was going to get to that and it made a really great name for all of us.
3:05 We were highly respected and of course when the boys came back from the war,
and they had been in for quite a while then, but that’s what broke it up, the boys coming
back.
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�Interviewer: “What do you think about all this excitement? You‟re being treated,
in many ways, like movie stars.”
Yes we were treated like movie stars.
Interviewer: “And you still are.”
Yes, it’s unbelievable to think that something like that could happen.
Interviewer: “why do you think there‟s all this excitement? You only played four
year, why do you think people get so excited about this?”
I don’t think the average person knew how well women could play, and they found out
there was a lot going on there, they can really play good. We would slide into bases, but
they didn’t want the pitcher to slide and get hurt, but that’s how I messed my knee up.
4:11 You have so much interest in the game that you don’t want to be out if you can
slide and be safe. Does that make sense to you?
Interviewer: “Yeah, yeah, one of the husbands of one of the players said he never
got an opportunity to see his wife play until much later and like you said, you
couldn‟t just go off and spend money going to see a baseball game, but he finally got
a chance to see her and he said he had known her, her whole life, but he never
realized she was such a good ball player.”
Yes
Interviewer: “So, I guess that‟s what the fans saw too, they saw a good baseball
game, and you guys were pretty good at what you did.”
We thought we were without being smart. I was never a bragger, but when they would
say, “boy, that was a great game”, I would say, “Thank you”, it was pretty good wasn’t
it?” 5:16
20
�Interviewer: “You went on to accomplish some major goals that you want to take
care of your mother, you wanted to gain security, but if you look back on your
whole life, where do those four years fit in? How important were they to you?”
I think they were very important to me because they gave me a start. Fifty bucks a week,
and the one manager we had, he said, and I never told this to people because I thought it
sounded like bragging, he said I should be making more than the fifty dollars that
everybody was making. He raised my pay every week, but I forget if it was seventy or
seventy-five dollars, so I don’t want to say it was seventy-five if it was seventy, but it
was one of the two definitely. 6:16 Oh my gosh, can you imagine getting that, that early
in life? To make that much? I called home and oh my, everybody was happy.
Interviewer: “one of the other questions that I have—the phenomenon that the
movie created, put you in a whole different position than you were before. You
were a ball player and now you‟re part of American history. I know you didn‟t
think about it at the time, but how do you reflect on it now? People are saying to
you that this is an important part of American history.”
Yes, well, my first impression was, “I can’t believe it, are they saying that you’re part of
history because of baseball?” At first I thought it had to be a dream and it’s super. 7:22
Interviewer: “It‟s kind of hard to think it‟s a dream when you come to these
reunions.”
My gosh, we are treated so great, it’s wonderful, but that’s what you think unless you’re a
big bragger.
Interviewer: “There‟s a big difference between bragging and just telling the truth
and that‟s what it really comes down to and that‟s why I‟m here. I‟m not asking
21
�you to brag, I just want you to tell what you did and if that sounds like bragging to
you, it‟s not bragging to me, I‟ll tell you that because you did it and there‟s proof.
We know what all of you accomplished.”
Yes
Interviewer: “One of the main reasons I decided to do this project was because I
saw some film footage of the Grand Rapids reunion in which a number of you were
signing autographs and there‟s a line of little girls with their mothers holding on to
them. What do you say to the little girls? What is the message you have for these
younger girls that you see at these reunions?” 8:22
My thought is to always do the best you can for everything and when you do the best you
can you will succeed. You might not be the best, but you won’t be the worst. I think that
explains it.
Interviewer: “There is something I want to talk about and it‟s major. It‟s
something that happened to you and I don‟t even know you and yet I believe this.
When that reporter came out and you revealed for the first time about your eye,
why did you decide, at that point, you wanted to tell people?” 9:13
Because I wanted to let him know that I didn’t let that interfere and that I didn’t just lay
down and forget about life and want people to be sorry for you. I never, never, never
wanted people to feel sorry for me because that would have killed me. So, I went on all
those years and when Bob Knoll put it in the Beacon Journal he said, “I’m telling you
right now Jane, you’re doing the biggest favor for kids to be able to make an adjustment”,
and it did, it did. I got an awful lot of publicity on that and the parents thought it was
22
�super great. It pleased me very much because I felt like I was a part of helping kids.
10:14
Interviewer: “How do your teammates, obviously you‟re not playing anymore, none
of them knew, right?”
No, none of my best friends and everything and when this all came out in the Beacon
Journal they said, “Jane, all the years we’ve known you and you never said anything”,
and I said, “well, what’s to say, I didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for me”, and I said,
“Can you imagine, all I had to do was make an error”, and you’re dead. That was about
it, I just didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for me and say, “oh well”, and to be extra nice
to me because I was that way. I guess that’s it. 11:04
Interviewer: ”How difficult was it playing with one eye?”
I never even considered it because I just went on and hoped to do the best I can. I’m not
a religious nut or anything, but I thank God so many times that I was allowed to just get
started and my big, big thrill was that kids who never had a chance at least get a chance,
and that did something to my whole body and I felt great.
Interviewer: “Now, if this is getting too personal you don‟t have to say anything,
but you said you took until you were forty-eight until you got married.”
Forty-nine
Interviewer: “Forty-nine, why this guy?”
I had my dry cleaning business going and I was golfing and this guy ended up, he use to
watch me golf, so he asked the guy that owns Tommy’s Café there in the falls who that
lady over there was and he said, “I know her, that’s Jane Badini”, and he said, “she has a
dry cleaning shop”, and he said that he would like to talk to me and take me out, so he
23
�came over to my shop and started bringing in his dry cleaning and laundry and
everything. 12:50 He started talking with me and I had talked with him a few times and
a friend of mine said, “Jane, he’s a nice guy and when you feel like it, he wants you to go
out with him”. I said, “thanks a lot”, so when he came in, and I don’t know how many
times he asked me out, so after I knew that he was a nice guy, he came in and said, “Will
you please go out on a date with me?” I said, “sure I will”, and we went out and we just
started going together and everything clicked and we got married.
Interviewer: “Wonderful, that‟s wonderful. I have one story that might top that
one. A very good friend of mine, who is a volunteer who works on this Library of
congress project and he‟s eighty years old now I think. He did the same thing, his
wife worked in a bakery and he came in and asked her out and she said, “no, no,
I‟m too busy”, so one day he came in with a used calendar and he said, “find one
day on here”, and they got married. 14:07
That’s great, that’s nice.
Interviewer: “They‟re still together and I love that story.”
Have you ever heard of Tommy’s Café years ago in Cuyahoga Falls?
Interviewer: “No”
He worked for Tommy and he was next to the younger Tommy and the next man in the
link.
Interviewer: “Did you tell him about your baseball career?”
No, oh no, I never did, I mean it took a long time because I never wanted anybody to
think I was bragging and I just was sincere about that. I didn’t want anybody to like me
because I was a ball player and if you’re going to like me, like me for who I am.
24
�Interviewer: “Well, I think you‟re real easy to like.”
Oh, thank you so much, I appreciate that.
Interviewer: “This was a wonderful, wonderful time with you and thank you.”
15:06
Thank you very much.
25
�26
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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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
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RHC-58_JBadini
Title
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Badini, Jane Jacobs (Interview transcript and video, 2010)
Creator
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Badini, Jane Jacobs
Description
An account of the resource
Jane Jacobs Badini was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, in 1924. She grew up playing softball, first with her brothers, and later with organized teams. She was a talented pitcher, and one of the players recruited by the AAGPBL when it was formed in 1943. She played in the league for four years, primarily with Racine, before leaving and starting her own business.
The audio on this recording has significant noise interference.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
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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--Personal narratives, American
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Illinois
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
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Moving Image
Text
Format
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mp4
pdf
Coverage
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World War II
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
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
2010-08-05
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/38031de9b9649e589526708a253ccc1d.mp4
b1d30704d9737ff02199675334bf1f46
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cc7058117b8ba0d1621a58a904426251.pdf
dd7bf19acf8ae91c189c913ef624ee66
PDF Text
Text
Zipay, Sue
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Sue Zipay
Length of Interview: (31:44)
Interviewed by: James Smither
Transcribed by: Chelsea Chandler
Interviewer: “Okay, Sue, start us with some background on yourself, and to begin with,
where and when were you born?”
I was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1934.
Interviewer: “All right, and then how—where is that relative to Boston?”
I believe it’s west of Boston. I only was born there. I didn’t live there.
Interviewer: “Oh, okay, okay. Where did you grow up then?”
I grew up in Hingham, Massachusetts, which is south of Boston. Maybe thirty miles south of
Boston.
Interviewer: “Okay. At that point, was that kind of a small town on its own, or was it still
suburban Boston?”
It was a very small town. I think my high school graduating class was not even a hundred.
Maybe it was eighty to ninety students.
Interviewer: “Okay, and you’re a kid during World War II. Do you remember much about
what life was like in the war years in that period?”
Very little. I remember that we had blackouts on the cars. (1:03) They’d have to paint the
headlights. Half of them were black, and we had rationing, of course. You could only have
coupons to buy butter and meat and all that kind of stuff. And I remember seeing stars in the
windows of the people that had boys in the service. My brother was in the army. He got wounded
and ended up in the hospital and what have you. He’s okay now.
Interviewer: “Okay. So the war was definitely around at that point.”
Yes. But the best thing I remember about the war was the day it ended in 1945 when everybody
was dancing in the streets. It was a celebration that you would not forget.
Interviewer: “Okay, and where did you go to high school?”
�Zipay, Sue
I went to Hingham High School.
Interviewer: “Okay, and when did you graduate?”
1952.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now how did you learn to play baseball?”
I had four brothers, and I just was always athletic. I mean, if they got me a new pair of ice skates,
I skated. I, you know—I just—That athletic ability came natural to me. (2:03) So when we
started playing baseball, I could field grounders as well as they could, I could hit the ball as well
as they could, and when they went to have a sandlot game, they would knock on the door and
holler for me to come with them. So that’s kind of how it happened, and that’s how girls in those
days learned the skills of baseball. They don’t have that opportunity now because of little league.
That’s what we’re trying to correct. The All-Americans are trying to get some way for young
girls who prefer to play baseball instead of softball the ability to hone their skills, and that’s—
Interviewer: “Okay. Now did your school system have any athletic programs for girls?”
They had some, but their basketball team was horrible, so I played CYO basketball, which is a
little better.
Interviewer: “And what is CYO basketball?”
That was a Catholic Youth Organization. And I played on the softball team, of course, and it was
quite boring because in those days most girls couldn’t play very well. You might have one or two
or three on the team that could really play, and the rest of them were pretty bad. And I played
field hockey. The field hockey team. Whatever was available I played it.
Interviewer: “Okay, and on the softball team what position did you play?”
I played shortstop because that’s where all the balls went. I just wanted to be wherever it was.
Yeah.
Interviewer: “All right, and at what point did you learn about the All-Americans?”
That wasn’t until I graduated. My softball coach said, “Did you know there was a professional
baseball league in the Midwest?” I had never heard of it, and I couldn’t believe it. And it just so
happened that the chaperone for the Rockford Peaches lived about thirty miles away from me in
Natick, Massachusetts. Her name was Dottie Green. She was the original catcher or one of the
original catchers for the Rockford Peaches. Hurt her knee badly and ended up a chaperone. So I
drove up to her house and had a tryout on her driveway, and about two weeks later, I got a
contract in the mail.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now how did you originally wind up in contact with her?”
�Zipay, Sue
From the high school softball coach. (4:14)
Interviewer: “Okay. So the coach knew her?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “And then he made that connection?”
She made that connection. Correct.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. Now when you first went and met her, what impression did
you have, or what did she tell you about the league?”
She didn’t tell me too much. We just went out and got a ball, and she threw me some grounders
and, you know, vice versa. And I think she was just looking to see what kind of skills and how I
moved. And you can tell an athlete when you see them, you know. Since I went into tennis when
I was older, and I can tell you a tennis player at age nine whether they’re going to develop into a
good one or not. So you just kind of know.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. So now they’ve signed you up. Do you remember what they
were offering to pay you at that point?”
They paid me fifty dollars a week, and I believe it was two dollars a day for meals, which was
adequate in those days. And of course, I think every girl in the league will tell you they would
have played for nothing.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now at this point did you have a job, or…?”
I didn’t at that time, and then when I came back in the summers, I did. I was a secretary for
Raytheon Manufacturing, which is a big Boston company.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. So now, well, it’s kind of launched you into your career. Do
you go someplace for spring training, or do you join the team when it’s already playing?”
I met them in South Bend. I got on the train in Boston at age—I think I was eighteen—against
the wishes of my mother and my aunt. They gave me a little, brown bag with a lunch on the
train. Had very little money. And so I went to South Bend. Was supposed to meet them there. I
went to the—I believe it was the Oliver Hotel. And I went there, and nobody was there. (6:02)
So I got the smallest room and the cheapest room they had in the hotel because I didn’t know if I
was going to have to pay for it or what. And a couple hours later, I got a knock on the door, and
there was Dottie Green, the chaperone, saying, “What are you doing in this little room?” And
from then on, then we had spring training. And, you know, that was it.
Interviewer: “Okay, and now was the league still training together at that point, or were
the teams now training separately from each other?”
�Zipay, Sue
The teams were training separately. Yeah, we were separate. Yeah.
Interviewer: “All right, and I think you had told me before we started this. You played for
the Rockford Peaches. But you’re in South Bend?”
That’s where they had the spring training.
Interviewer: “Okay. So all the teams were there, but they—”
No. Just the Peaches, and I don’t know why.
Interviewer: “So the Peaches were training in South Bend, Indiana?”
Yeah, and don’t ask me to explain that.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. So you did not see the Blue Sox there?”
No, no.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. So what was that—Do you remember the first day of spring
training? What it was like to go in there?”
I was scared to death, especially when I saw the women play because I thought I was pretty
good, and then when I saw the level and the abilities there, I realized I was just a small fish in a
big pond. And so we had our spring training, and Johnny Rawlings hit some grounders to me at
shortstop, and I just—I was so tired and so excited and so nervous. I just played, and it went
well. But there was no way I was ever going to become shortstop on that team as long as the girl,
Joan Berger, was there. She was an excellent player. And I know that I was really nervous for a
long time until he said to me one day, “Sue, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t as good as all
the rest.” And so that kind of settled me down a little bit.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now about how long did spring training last?”
Oh, gosh. I don’t remember. Two or three weeks maybe. I remember I threw my back out. Yeah,
and I’ve had trouble ever since. Didn’t know. I thought maybe I was just stiff from all the spring
training because, you know, I could hardly walk up the stairs. I could hardly move my right leg.
And the chaperone finally decided I had something physically wrong with me, not just muscle
aches, so they took me to a chiropractor. (8:16) I’d never been to one in my life. And eventually
it worked out. But that was a long, long time ago, and I’ve had trouble ever since.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now did you have trouble hitting? I mean, playing baseball with the
good pitching?”
I had trouble hitting in the games because I was really nervous, and as you know, you go out
there as a girl, you never have people in the stands like boys. You’re not used to that, of course,
you know. You’re used to playing in the cow pasture where nobody’s watching. I remember
�Zipay, Sue
playing in the schoolyard when I was in seventh grade, and I’d be out there hitting the ball over
the fence. And all the teachers would be lined up in the window, looking out there and smiling
because it was—I was a novelty, I guess, at that time. But yeah, I was very nervous, and I look
back now and say, “Oh, I wish I had the brains now that I had then.” Because I wasn’t watching
the ball and so forth. So my batting average was pretty bad. But I did a lot of fungo practice, and
I hit to the fielders. And I did a lot of batting practice pitching, and I could hit it. I could hit it a
country mile, but I never got a chance to really get relaxed enough to do what I had the ability to
do.
Interviewer: “Yeah. Okay. So you’re in South Bend for spring training, and then when that
ends, now do you go to Rockford?”
You know, it’s been a long time. We get on a bus and went to Rockford, I believe, and then we
got introduced to the places where Dottie Green would find all the homes we were staying. My
roommate was Dolores Lee. Pickles. I’m sure you’ve got her on your tapes somewhere. She was
a hoot to live with. She brought her accordion with her from Jersey City. She was just learning to
play it, and she would practice “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” over and over and
over again. (10:04) And she was a late sleeper. Always made us late for practice. So we’d get
punished. Have to run around the track three or four times. But she’s a great girl. Great girl.
Interviewer: “All right, and what kind of accomodations did you have?”
We stayed in private homes. Bedroom, you know. Twin beds. And we’d have kitchen privileges.
When we’d come back from a road trip, of course, you know, usually the people that owned the
home would do something nice like leave a cheesecake out for us or something like that. And
they did our laundry, and that was good.
Interviewer: “Okay. Do you know if the league paid them for that, or…?”
I don’t know what the arrangements were. I’m sure they paid them. I’m sure they did.
Interviewer: “Okay, and then—So when you’re at home, what would a typical day be
like?”
A typical day we come home from a road trip, catch a few hours of sleep, have to get up in the
morning and go to practice, and then we’d have a few hours off. And then we come back to the
ballpark around four o’clock to get wound up and ready for a night game. And we played every
night seven days a week. Double header on Sunday.
Interviewer: “All right, and do you remember—Now when you first went in, did you start
a game your first game, or did you come in later to replace somebody, or…?”
I just got put in when he needed me, and I didn’t play a lot. Like I said, I was utility, so he’d
throw me at second base or right field whenever he needed me. And if I wasn’t playing, I’d
coach first base or third base. Yeah.
�Zipay, Sue
Interviewer: “Okay. So was there—So what did the team have then by way of coaches?
You had a manager. Did you have—Did he have anybody else helping him?”
Not really, no.
Interviewer: “Just the players?”
Yeah. Right.
Interviewer: “Okay, and would the chaperone help coach because she was a former player,
or…?” (12:03)
No, no, no. She was a former player, but no. She’d just sit in the dugout and take care of
somebody if they got a strawberry from sliding into base. Or I remember once I hit a foul ball off
the bat, and somehow or another—don’t ask me how—the ball crawled up the bat and hit me in
the eye. And I went down like a—like a lump, and it puffed up like this. And, of course, I said,
“Leave me alone. I still want to play.” But they took me out of the game. But she was there for
those occasions.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. Then when you had road trips and so forth, I mean, how did
that work? You’re going to play somebody else. What happens?”
Oh, we had the—We had the schedule. We knew when we were leaving and get on the bus at a
certain time and travel x number of hours and go to the hotel they had us scheduled in. You
know, you knew who you were rooming with because you had the same roommate most of the
time. We’d get to the—wherever we’re going to play, and then we’d go out to the field and,
again, practice before the game at four o’clock. So it was constant all the time.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now what kinds of rules did they have for how you were supposed to
dress or behave, or to what extent were there still regulations on things?”
Okay. Well, you’ve probably got this from all the other girls, but, again, we couldn’t wear pants
in public. So if we’re in the—coming home from a game on the bus, and it’s ten o’clock at night,
and you’re in the bus with your jeans on, and you wanted to get off and get a cup of coffee, you
had to change and put a skirt on. We couldn’t smoke in public, and almost everybody smoked in
those days because we didn’t know that it was not good for you. So those were two. Two rules
that they stuck to. No pants in public. And no short hair. I mean, they wanted you to look like a
female, not like a boy.
Interviewer: “Okay, and then what about sort of personal conduct? I mean, did they
monitor you at all or tell you what you could and couldn’t do?” (14:05)
You know, when I came into the league, I think a lot of that stuff had disappeared, so nobody
ever told me what I should and shouldn’t do. But you obviously knew what you should and
shouldn’t do. I mean, you wouldn’t swear. You wouldn’t smoke. You wouldn’t wear pants. You
just—You just kind of knew.
�Zipay, Sue
Interviewer: “Okay. Now what sort of mix of players did you have on the Peaches? Because
this is now getting to the end of the league.”
Oh, we had—Well, one of ours—I don’t know how old she was. I thought she was 110 or
something at the time, but she was probably in her forties. Rosie Gacioch. And she was the
oldest player, and she’d been there for—I don’t know. Maybe from the beginning. And then, of
course, you’ve heard about Dottie Key who was one of the better players. Ruth Richard was the
catcher. She’s—I still keep in touch with her. She was a great catcher. We had a gal from
Boston. Lived near me. In fact, she drove me to and from the next year. I went with her. And I
think she’s—She’s got a little problem right now. She’s not really as sharp as she used to be. I’ll
put it that way. And she was a pitcher and had the greatest curveball you ever saw. The first time
I went and tried to warm her up, I couldn’t even catch the ball because it was dropping or
moving so fast. I think she had long fingernails. I think she did something with her fingernails.
Not really sure.
Interviewer: “All right. Now how—Do you remember how young the youngest players
were, or were you about the youngest?”
I was probably one of the youngest. Another gal came in with me at the same time. Jane Sands.
And then Jean Ventura. I was talking with her today. I think she was sixteen or seventeen.
Something like that.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now at this point did they have any kind of Minor League system, or
were there other teams affiliated with the league that they would get players from? Because
I don’t think—They didn’t have the barnstorming teams anymore by this time, so there
was not a junior league of any kind to get them.” (16:09)
No. Yeah, they were just getting what they could get. So they found me. I found them.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. Now what kind of fan support did you have?”
I guess in the beginning—and I wasn’t there—they said they were drawing up to ten thousand
people, which was great in those days. We did pretty well when I was there. I remember they
used to look around because they knew they had dropped off in attendance, and they’d say, “Oh,
how many did you think are here tonight?” And they’d say, “Two, three, four thousand.
Something like that.” But we had a good crowd.
Interviewer: “Did Rockford tend to have bigger crowds than the places—other places that
you played, or…?”
I can’t remember. Yeah, I can’t remember, but there were a lot of farm people. Farm boys that I
double dated with Pickles, you know.
Interviewer: “Okay. So there were still young men coming to watch the games. Now did
you get families coming?”
�Zipay, Sue
Yeah, a lot of families. And a lot of families liked to entertain us. I remember a lot of cookouts.
They’d have, you know, big cookouts with steaks and corn and all that. And when we had time
off, you know, they’d invite the whole league.
Interviewer: “Okay, and—Now you mentioned at the start of this that your mother wasn’t
very happy about your heading off. Did your family kind of get used to it after a while or
accept it or…?”
Obviously, they did. They had no choice because I was going to go. I mean, to me, that was the
greatest thing in the world, but as you know, in those days, a girl playing baseball, you know, it
wasn’t—It was kind of frowned upon, you know. I can remember them telling me to put the
jeans away, you know. “You’ve got to grow up, young lady. Stop playing with the boys.” The
girls couldn’t play, so what could you do? (18:06)
Interviewer: “All right. So you’re there in the ‘53 season. I don’t know. How did Rockford
do in ‘53?”
We didn’t win the pennant or get in the playoffs, I don’t believe.
Interviewer: “Grand Rapids won that year.”
Probably, yeah. I remember. You know, it’s such a long time, and I was there for just the two
years. And I was just beginning to get used to different players as a matter of fact. I remember
Gertie Dunn who has since, I think—A few years back she got killed in an airplane accident. She
was a pilot. She’s gone. The Weavers who could knock the ball a country mile. Big, strong girls.
But yeah, I don’t remember a lot of them.
Interviewer: “Okay, and then when the ‘53 season ends, you went back home, and did you
pick up a job then?”
Yeah, I was a private secretary. Yeah.
Interviewer: “And how did you wind up with that job? You just answered an ad, or…?”
Yeah, I just applied for it. Just went in there. Yep.
Interviewer: “Okay. All right. And then—So you work for them through the winter, and
then it’s time to go off to play again. Now when they hired you, did they understand that
that would be going on, or…?”
I can’t remember when we got the notice that the league was finished exactly.
Interviewer: “Okay, but you did go back and play in ‘54, though.”
Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
�Zipay, Sue
Interviewer: “So you had one year there.”
Yeah. Okay. No, I just knew when it was time to go back. That’s when I went back with Marie
Kelley—Boston was her nickname—because she drove. And she was old enough to drive, so she
drove back and forth. Yeah.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now from a player’s perspective—I guess, for you, the ‘54 season—
Were you now starting to kind of get the feel of things or be more comfortable?”
Yeah.
Interviewer: “Okay, and did you get to play anymore?”
A little bit more. A little bit more, you know. But I still had a lot to learn. Okay. I think at the—
A larger part of the league—They didn’t spend as much time with Johnny Rawlings. We didn’t
have training sessions. At the beginning, they really trained the girls. I think they were—The
coach before me—Bill Allington was his name, and I think Pickles played under him as well.
(20:14) But he really drilled skills into them. When I came, I had what I had. Raw talent. That’s
it. Anything that happened from then on I developed from watching and just listening.
Interviewer: “Okay. So the other players didn’t really work with you?”
Nobody worked with me. No. You just—You just picked it up.
Interviewer: “You just kind of went in, and you played. Okay. Now could you tell in 1954
that the league was in trouble?”
No. I didn’t have an inkling as to what was going on. Some of the older players did because they
knew. They knew that they were running out of money, and there was trouble.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now did—Were there fewer teams in ‘54 than ‘53, or were you not
really counting?”
I wasn’t counting because I didn’t know what they had before, you know.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now was Rockford—Were they able to make payroll? I mean, did you
always get paid?”
Yeah, we—Right. We never had a problem with that, you know.
Interviewer: “Okay, and then when you got down to the end of the season, did they tell you
the league was ending, or did you just go home and not know?”
�Zipay, Sue
I’m trying to remember how they notified us. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but it was a
very sad situation. I think it was maybe at the end of the season. They told that we wouldn’t be
coming back. Yeah.
Interviewer: “Yeah. Now Bill Allington wound up organizing a traveling team.”
Right, and Pickles went on that. She played on that. Jean. A few of them. For a couple years they
traveled around. They did quite well, too. Yep.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now where you asked to be part of that, or…?”
No. I wasn’t good enough. I hadn’t been there long enough. Bill Allington didn’t even know who
I was because I had never met him. (22:01) Johnny Rawlings was the coach when I went there.
Interviewer: “Yeah. Okay. So now—Okay. Now you just sort of go back to Massachusetts.
So you go back home. So then did you have—Did you really kind of think or reflect at all at
that time? I mean, what’s happening to you. ‘What am I going to do now?’”
Yeah, yeah. It was very sad. However, I’ll fill this little—Something in there was—I had met a
young man who was a groundskeeper at Beyer Stadium in Rockford. A summer job from the
University of Illinois. And we kind of became an item. And it ended up that he went to pre-flight
school in Pensacola. And I went down there to visit him and bla, bla, bla. And so, to make a long
story short, we got engaged, and he’s the one I ended up marrying. And then I had three children,
and, you know, after that—What you do for the next ten years.
Interviewer: “All right. Yeah. Now did you basically—Did you stop working while you
were married and had kids, or did you have a job?”
Yeah. No. I just—I was full-time mother and housewife, which was wonderful. It’s a shame they
can’t do that in this day and age.
Interviewer: “Some can if they can afford it.”
But that’s the only way they can.
Interviewer: “Yeah. All right. Now—But you didn’t necessarily—You didn’t—You
couldn’t play baseball anymore, but did you still stay involved with athletics in some
form?”
You know, I tried, but when you have three little babies all born close together, and housewife—
The whole—I had no time. I had a lot of energy. I guess I put it into cleaning floors and doing
housework things and knitting and sewing and doing all those feminine things that women do.
And until the kids were—The youngest one was in maybe third grade. Somewhere around there.
And then some neighbors invited me to play tennis, and I thought, “I’ve never played tennis in
my life, but I’m athletic, and they’re old ladies. I can—” (24:09) And that’s when I found out it
was a skill sport. And I got hooked on tennis, and that became my second—second career. Sport.
�Zipay, Sue
Interviewer: “Okay, and so then how did that play out? I mean, you—”
Well, I worked at it. Kind of self-taught, and I got ranked in New England. I played a lot of
doubles. Not a very good singles player. I could serve like crazy because it’s kind of like
throwing a ball. And launching that volley. That was my plan. And I became very involved. I
went to school—Vic Braden school in California—and learned how to teach. Then I became a
teaching pro, which I loved, and worked with some programs where I lived then with the kids.
And when we moved to Florida, I bought a tennis club that was falling down and dilapidated,
and we turned it into a really nice, little place. And I’ve been there for thirty years.
Interviewer: “All right, and at what point did you get involved with the women’s baseball
league association? Because they’re—they’ve been now going for like thirty-five years.
How long have you been connected to them?”
Well, I’ve been—I can’t remember when the first one was, but I was on the board for a period of
time when Baumgartner was there. Can’t remember with any years. I’m no good at dates. And
then I went to a lot of the reunions but not all of them because I was busy with the tennis club,
and I’m paranoid about flying. Second reason. I’ve become more involved lately because they
got me on a vision committee, and then I started thinking about what the future holds and our
legacy. And the museum idea was like a lightbulb going off in my head, so I’ve been more
involved in the past few years. (26:01)
Interviewer: “Okay. Now talk to me about the museum idea. What museum? What idea?
And how did that come about?”
Well, some members of the league wanted to have a stand-alone baseball museum for women.
They talked about putting it in Cooperstown, which is way out in the sticks as you know, and I’m
thinking, “Okay. How are you going to sustain it? How are you going to support it way out
there? Who’s going to come?” I didn’t think it could ever work. That was my own personal
opinion. And then they talked about putting it somewhere else, and it’s the same thing. And I
thought, “Well, there’s so many sports nowadays, and females that are making so much money
in sports as well.” And there’s nothing in this country. There is no women’s sport museum
anywhere in this country. And we have a Hall of Fame here, a Hall of Fame there. The stars are
in there, but there’s no history of women’s sports. I remember Babe Didrikson came to one of
our baseball games. It was great. She threw some balls, and she pitched some. I’ll never forget
that because she was a great female athlete. And I thought, “We need a place where we can tell
all the stuff about the history of women and what they’ve gone through. And, you know, it’s
being lost.” I have a friend of mine that played on a field hockey team, and they toured Europe in
the 50s. Nobody’s ever heard of that. They never heard her name, and she’s got a scrapbook full
of stuff like that. And there’s a lot of that that’s just totally being lost, and I was hoping that
through this museum and the history of women’s sports, we can entice people to get on there and
talk about stuff that’s happened and what’s gone on in the past. And then, in addition to that, my
vision is that we have some kind of education. Classrooms for little girls to go in and say, “You
might not be a good baseball player, but you might love the game. What can I do? I can be a
journalist. I can be an umpire.” And all these careers that are now available in sports that weren’t
�Zipay, Sue
available when I was there. So that’s what I’m hoping is the history, education, you know, past,
present, and what the future holds for young girls. (28:01)
Interviewer: “Okay, and so how far have your plans come along, or what’s happened?”
We’re just in our second year of gala fundraising. We’re having a gala. October 20th, 2017 in—
at the Selby gardens in Sarasota, Florida. And then if we can raise enough funds, we’ll start our
capital fundraising. And so we have some people on the committee that have diverse skills. We
have a non-profit man and an architect and a builder and a woman who’s a professor at, I think—
I think it’s Vanderbilt. I’m not sure. But a group that have different skills to help put this thing
together, and they’re all really enthused. And I’ve talked to men and women, and they all think
it’s a great idea. So the enthusiasm is there. Now it’s a matter of getting the funds together. And
Sarasota is—I picked it not because I live in Englewood, which is maybe—just south of
Sarasota—but because it’s a huge sports, tourist town now. They have the new—Rowing
championships are coming there in a week or two, and they’ve got Bollettieri’s. And they’ve got
all the spring training.
Interviewer: “Bollettieri is the tennis academy?”
The tennis—He’s now branched out into football and baseball. All the sports he’s got going. So I
thought, you know, “People come there for sports, and where else? A women’s sports museum.
That’s the perfect place for tourism.”
Interviewer: “So you have spring training teams down there and Minor League Baseball
and all sorts of things.”
Perfect. And, you know, the Braves are coming there now, and they’re going to build their spring
training stadium about five miles from where I live. And I’ve got this little idea that maybe I can
talk them into having their facility become a training ground for girls’ baseball. I don’t know.
But that’s how it has to get started in order to have the little girls develop their skills because
there’s no other way. Otherwise, at sixth or seventh grade, they say, “You can’t play baseball
anymore. You have to play softball.”
Interviewer: “Well, I mean, the women who played on the Peaches—I mean, did you know
much about how they learned to play?” (30:06)
Same as I did. We all developed our skills the same way with the boys in a field. A cow pasture
or wherever we could, you know, throw a base down. We’d come. They’d knock on the door,
and you’d get your glove. And if there was six of us or four of us or three of us, it didn’t matter.
“You got the field. You’re up at bat.” I mean, we just had our sandlot games, and we played with
the boys, which helped us develop our skills. So that was the main way.
Interviewer: “Okay. Now to think back on the time that you spent with the league, how do
you think that affected you, or what did you take out of it?”
�Zipay, Sue
Oh. Cliché. The camaraderie. The team concept. That’s the big thing. Is, you know, you’re not
an individual. You’re part of a larger thing there. And the friendships, you know. As you can see,
they’ve lasted all these years.
Interviewer: “Did you gain confidence in yourself through this?”
I think I did. Yeah. I mean, like I said, you come there as a naïve, young girl, and you have to get
up and hit a ball with four, five thousand people watching. That’s something that’s difficult to
overcome and, you know. But it does. It gives you the self-confidence. And what Johnny
Rawlings said to me. “If you weren’t good enough, you wouldn’t be here.” You know, all that’s
good for your self-esteem.
Interviewer: “All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to share your story
today.”
I hope you enjoyed it. (31:44)
�
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
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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
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<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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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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
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ZipayS2150BB
Title
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Zipay, Sue (Interview transcript and video), 2017
Description
An account of the resource
Sue Zipay was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1934 and grew up in Hingham. In grade school, Zipay recalled the wartime rationing, blackouts, and public celebrations at the end of the Second World War. In high school, she played for a Catholic Youth Organization basketball team, and a softball team as a shortstop, before graduating in 1952. After undergoing a tryout for AAGPBL Rockford Peaches chaperone Dottie Green, Zipay was contracted to play for the team during the 1953 season and attended spring training in South Bend, Indiana. Zipay did not have a set position with the Peaches, so she could be placed into any empty field position while also coaching first and third bases while not on the field. The team was forbidden to wear pants, smoke, swear, or have long hair while in public as to still give off a feminine appearance while not on the field. After acquiring a winter job, Zipay returned to the Rockford Peaches for the 1954 season and eventually learned that the League was being disbanded at the end of the season. Some of her colleagues went on to play for a new traveling team while Zipay got married and started a family. After having three children, she recognized that she could not return to any baseball programs and remained committed to serving her family while also taking up tennis in her spare time. Still interested in athletics, Zipay became a ranked tennis player in New England and attended Vic Braden School in California for a degree in teaching. She then moved to Florida and opened a tennis club, joined the Women's Baseball League Association, and helped organize plans for the construction of a women's baseball museum. Reflecting upon her time with the League, Zipay believed she gained a greater sense of confidence and camaraderie while playing for the Rockford Peaches.
Creator
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Zipay, Sue
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Video recordings
Sports for women
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball for women--United States
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Source
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Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27
Rights
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<a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401.
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
World War II
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-24
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ce860846beff3ebbe53d4a60fe0b3471.m4v
48bf5617fbbff45352ca9b541e3a8b13
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e88e66c80c051d0b04a2df4f41026af7.pdf
39631be6f5556f7b91ed66ab656b3663
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Shirley Burkovich
Length of Interview: (00:41:38)
Interviewed by: James Smither PhD., Grand Valley State University Veterans History
Project.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer February 8, 2010
Interviewer: “Shirley, can you start by telling us a little bit about your background,
where and when you were born?”
I was born in Pittsburg, PA and raised in a town just east of Pittsburg, Swissvale, went to
school there and graduated from there.
Interviewer: “What did your family do for a living?”
My mom was a housewife and my dad worked in the steel mills.
Interviewer: “You were born in the early thirties---did your father keep his job in
the steel mills as you were growing up?”
Yes, he worked there all the time. 1:57
Interviewer: “The town that you were actually in, was it an industrial town, a
smaller one?”
A small town just outside of Pittsburg, a suburb of the city.
Interviewer: “When did you start playing ball?”
I started playing ball, I guess, as long as I can remember. When I was small, we had a
large back yard and that’s how I started, by hitting the ball up against the house, doing it
that way and then I graduated to the vacant lots and the streets and alleys of the city.
2:31
Interviewer: “Whom did you play with?”
Well, as you know, at that time there were no girl’s leagues or organizations, so you just
went out and picked up a bat and a glove and you went to a vacant lot and you picked up
with the boys. It was always the boys.
Interviewer: “There weren’t any other girls that would play?”
Not in my area, there were a couple girls that lived in an adjacent town that played, but in
my city there was just me.
Interviewer: “Did you have brothers that played?”
1
�I had a brother and he did play ball. He played in high school and then he played softball
on men’s fast softball, so I kind of hung around with them as the “bat girl”. 3:21 They
used me to shag fly balls because then they could stand up there and bat all day. I was
the shagging of the fly balls and ten at the end of their session; I got a chance to hit.
Interviewer: “So you got reasonable practice at a variety of different things?”
A lot of practice.
Interviewer: “Now, did you do sports in high school?”
No sports in high school, at least not for the girls. 3:44 I didn’t really do anything, we
got to use the gym during our lunch hour because that’s when the boys didn’t use it, so
the girls would go on there and play basketball.
Interviewer: “The school didn’t have girls teams at all?”
The school did not have girls teams.
Interviewer: “How did you first hear about women in baseball?”
My brother is the one that actually heard about it, not heard about it, but read about it. He
read about it in the newspaper that they were holding tryouts for the “All American girls
Professional Baseball League” and he came to me and he said, “hey, what do you think
about this? They’re holding tryouts for a baseball league.” And oh gosh, I said, “I don’t
know”, I was sixteen years old and I said, “I don’t know if I’m good enough to play.”
4:35 He said, “Well, let’s go down and see”, so he took the day off of work and we went
down to the park where they were holding the tryouts and we sat in the stands and the
two of us kind of critiqued the girls playing and he said, “what do you think?” I said,
“well, I think I’ll give it a try” and he said, “good”, so I went down and had the tryout
and a couple of weeks later I got a telegram to report to spring training in Cape
Girardeau, Missouri. 5:11
Interviewer: “What did they have you do in the tryouts?”
For the tryouts, it was hit, run, throw, things like that, just an overall example of what you
were capable of I’m assuming. How fast you ran, how well you threw, how your batting
was.
Interviewer: “How long did they spend on you?”
We were there for a couple of days because there were a lot of girls there. I would say
that there were over a hundred girls at the tryout. Most of them were from the Pittsburg
area, but we did have some girls that came from out of state—West Virginia, Ohio,
adjoining states, so we had a big turnout. It was a couple—if I remember, it was a twoday tryout. 6:07
Interviewer: “When exactly was this?”
2
�This was in 1948, late “48” in the late summer of “48” and then I didn’t actually report
for spring training until April of “49”, the next year.
Interviewer: “Were you in high school at that time?”
I was still in school and actually, when I got the telegram to go, that’s school time, so my
mom went to the school and we talked to the principle and explained the situation and
asked if it would be possible for me to leave school, because it was two months, April
and May, because school was out in June, so April and May. He looked at my grades and
he said, “ok”, but that they would have to send the lessons along with me and I would
have to complete those lessons back for those two months, which I was willing to do for
that opportunity. 7:28 Then my mom, she said, “now wait a minute, I don’t know about
this All American Girls Baseball League, I never heard of that”, and here I’m going out
of state down to some Cape Girardeau in Missouri which we never heard of and she said,
“I don’t know if I just want to let you go by yourself”. My dad was working, my brother
was working, so she bought a ticket and went on the train with me and we went down to
Cape Girardeau and she met the chaperone and met the manager and everything and she
stayed for two days and saw that everything was on the up and up and that they weren’t
taking me down to some place that she didn’t think was proper. 8:20 Then she left, left
me there and actually the chaperone was Helen Campbell, who you were going to
interview in California maybe.
Interviewer: “I would like to be able to.”
It would be wonderful if you could.
Interviewer: “We have interviewed quite a few members of the league at this point
and may of them were very young when they first signed up, high school age. I
think you are about the first one that had a parent enterprising enough to go along
and check it all out first. 8:56 Were you, at this point, assigned to a specific team
or were you going to a general spring training where they would assign you?”
I just went to a general training and then I was assigned to the “Muskegon Lassies”.
Interviewer: “Tell me a little bit about the spring training itself. Do you have any
idea why they were in Cape Girardeau?”
No, that is what the telegram said, so that’s where I went. 9:22
Interviewer: “It may have been less expensive than Florida. What was the weather
like when you were there?”
It was nice as I remember. It was—I don’t remember unusual weather.
Interviewer: “It might have been better than Pittsburg anyway.”
Probably.
Interviewer: “What did they have you do there, at spring training?”
3
�Training, It’s like most spring trainings, I would think, we had practice everyday, betting
practice, fielding practice, they put you in different positions to how you worked in
outfield, infield, batting things like that, running the bases, sliding, just general things and
as we went along we had coaches, managers that would critique our performances I’m
sure, because they would come up to you and say, “ok now, maybe if you held the bat a
little bit this way”, or did this or did that or fielding, they hit you a hundred ground ball or
something to see how your arm was. 10:39
Interviewer: “What did you think of the quality of the players you were seeing
there?”
They were better players than what I was playing against when I was playing in vacant
lots and even the boys and that’s whom I was playing against. These girls were good, no
question about it. I realized that I was in touch competition and if I was going to make
this team, I was going to have to perform. 11:06
Interviewer: “Did you feel you sort of had to work harder than some of them or
were they all working pretty hard?”
I think everybody was working hard and I think all the girls were dedicated. We had a
strong passion for the game, everybody was trying to do their best, trying to make the
team and it was a very competitive spring training. You could see everyone you were
playing against –you knew what you had to compete against and what you had to beat.
11:45
Interviewer: “What proportion of the people trying out actually made it onto the
teams?”
That I don’t remember how many out of that group that went to spring training. I know
we all separated and I went to Muskegon and some of the other girls went to different
teams and I don’t know who didn’t make it or was cut, but I’m sure some of them were
because I was told that this was like another tryout. It was spring training, but it was
another tryout. 12.23
Interviewer: “The movie version of things, at least in that first season, they had
scene where people get to see names up on a board of who makes it and who doesn’t.
You didn’t see anything like that?”
I didn’t see anything like that.
Interviewer: “How did you find out where you were assigned?”
They just came to you and told you that you were assigned to the Muskegon lassie team
and they gave you a ticket to Muskegon and you got on the train and you went.
Interviewer: “Had you ever heard of Muskegon, Michigan before?”
Nope.
4
�Interviewer: “What impression did you have of the place when you got there?”
Well, like I said, this was the first time that I had actually been away from home by
myself and it was an experience for me at sixteen years old.
A lot of new friends, new people, so it was an experience for me. 13:14
Interviewer: “Where did they put you up once you got there?”
When I got to Muskegon, I met the chaperone who was Helen, and the chaperone
assigned the girls to host homes and there were two of us to a home and we roomed
together, so she had a place set up for each of us.
Interviewer: “Was it a nice place to stay? Did they treat you well?”
Oh, the people were wonderful, I tell you, they couldn’t have been nicer, it was almost
like being at home. 14:00 They took care of us, they made sure we had—I remember
when we came home from road trips there would be a note on the table telling us there
were sandwiches in the refrigerator and for us to help ourselves. They were just so nice
and they came to the games and supported us and it was just very homey, if we needed
anything—that type of thing. 14:25
Interviewer: “Did you stay with Muskegon for that whole season?”
Yes, I stayed with Muskegon for the whole 1949 season and then after that season, they
asked—they didn’t ask, they told you who you go to and I went on a touring team, which
was the Springfield Sally’s and the Chicago Colleens that toured the United States, the
eastern part of the United States. 14:54 The two teams toured together and we traveled
into the east.
Interviewer: “I’ll get into the barnstorming, but I want to go back to Muskegon in
the meantime. What kind of ball park facility did you have there to play in?”
Well, it was a nice stadium. The only thing I remember about it is from the dugouts back
to the club house, you went under the stands and I can remember, I was a little bit taller
than most girls, so I had to stoop going under the stands, I remember that, but it was a
nice ball park.
Interviewer: “What were the stands like? Were they open bleachers and could
people throw things down on you when you went by?”
Oh no, we were under the stands. 15:51 It was under the stands.
Interviewer: “At that point how many different teams were you playing? Were
there five or six in the league at that time or was it bigger?”
Let’s see—I think there were eight teams at that time, in the league.
Interviewer: “Now, how well did Muskegon do that year?”
5
�We didn’t do well. As I remember. I don’t remember exactly, but I know we weren’t in
the championship series. We weren’t in the championship game. 16:25
Interviewer: “Now when you were playing, what position or positions would you
play?”
I was, I guess you call it, a utility player. I played infield, I played the outfield, so I kind
of filled a hole somewhere. Whenever someone wanted to sit down or someone was hurt
or whatever, I played that, so I played right field, left field, center field and I played all
the infield positions. Played first base, second base.
Interviewer: “Did you ever try pitching?”
I didn’t remember pitching, but my last year in Rockford, I noticed in one of the stats that
it said that I pitched one game. I think it was a no decision and it was just a few innings,
so it must have been one of those games that were runaways and they just put me in, but
in the league, anybody that could throw hard, they had them on the mound to see. Of
course, some of didn’t have the control, we threw hard, but we didn’t have the control
and that maybe we threw hard, but we didn’t have the control. 17:34
Interviewer: “Did you have a favorite position of the ones you took?”
You know I really didn’t, I was just so happy to have the opportunity to play. I didn’t
care where I played, just put me on.
Interviewer: “ In that first season, how regularly did you play?”
I played, I thought, pretty regularly. I was in and out of the lineup, some games I didn’t,
if no one was out or hurt, I didn’t play, but I got into a few games.
Interviewer: “How many position players would they normally have on one of these
teams?”
Well, we carried eighteen players I think, on the roster.
Interviewer: “All players including the pitchers?”
Yes, the regular roster was about eighteen players.
Interviewer: “Then you would have a regular opportunity to get in there.”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Did they do much in the way of pinch hitting or pinch running or
relieving people for defensive reasons and that kind of stuff? Were the
replacements made during the game?”
Oh yes, like you said, pinch hitting and pinch runners and things like that. Position
changes 18:44
Interviewer: “How good of a hitter were you?”
6
�Well, you know, I wasn’t a homerun hitter, I wasn’t a power hitter, I was more of a
singles hitter, more of a hit and run. I got a lot of run signs. I got a lot of sacrifice signs.
Move the runner along, hit to right, move a runner from second to third, that type of
hitting.
Interviewer: “Did you strike out much?”
I don’t know, I probably had my share.
Interviewer: “If you’re a good bat handler then you’re getting---“
I was pretty good at bunting; I was able to lay down a pretty fair and decent bunt I think.
19:33 Like I said, I was more of a placement—placing the ball rather than a homerun
hitter or a power hitter.
Interviewer: “Now, at the time you came into the league, how strict were they at
enforcing all the rules that they had come up with at the start?”
Well, as far as strictness in enforcing the rules, if you played for Helen, you followed the
rules. She ran a tight ship. Coming out of the marines, as a sergeant in the marines, she
was pretty strict with us and especially the teenagers and those of us that were teenagers.
The older girls, she probably wasn’t as strict with and that, but those of us that were
teenagers, she kept a pretty good watch on us. 20:32 I remember one time—we were
allowed to go out if some of the fans or someone would ask us out for dinner or
whatever. This young fellow asked me if he could take me out to dinner and I said to
him, “you will have to ask the chaperone”, because us teenagers had to ask permission
and he said, “that’s fine, that’s not a problem”, so I told Helen that we were going to go,
so he went in and talked to Helen and he came out and he was smiling and he said to me,
“I didn’t want to marry you, I just wanted to take you out to dinner”, so I think she gave
him the third degree. That’s just some of way it was. 21:30
Interviewer: “Did he, in fact, take you out at that point?”
Oh yes.
Interviewer: “Good, she didn’t scare him away completely then?”
Oh no, but it was a funny situation.
Interviewer: “Now, were you traveling around by bus at that point on your road
trips?”
Yes, by bus.
Interviewer: “What was that experience like?”
The buses were really nice. Some people use to say, “how did you do it? Those long bus
rides and all?” You know, when you’re sixteen years old and you’re doing something
you like to do, that was the least of my concerns, the bus ride. It was fun, it was a lot of
camaraderie with the girls, we had good times, we had a lot of laughs, it was a joking
time and just a lot of fun, so I never minded the bus rides. 22:23
7
�Interviewer: “I guess that was a good thing because you wound up in the barn
storming thing the next year. Tell us a little bit about how that worked and what
that was like.”
Ok, that, we would go into a city for usually a three game series and would play three
games in that city and after that we would move on to another etc. That was strictly
living out of a suitcase for those months. Doing your laundry in the hotel Laundromat
and things like that. We would stay at motels and places like that and then the bus ride
and so that was, like I say, more living out of a suitcase than when you were on a team
like Muskegon where you were home and then on the road. 23:16
Interviewer: “If you had to pick, which one would you like better?”
It didn’t matter to me, I was playing baseball that was my passion, that’s what I love to
do and either one of those worked fine for me.
Interviewer: “How far a field did you travel when you were on this barnstorming
tour?”
We traveled through the eastern part of the United States mostly, it was just a month or
two before the season ended, I broke my ankle, so that ended my season there, but it was
mostly the eastern part of the United States, through Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, places like that. 24:09
Interviewer: “Did you go farther south? Did you go down to Florida or over to
Louisiana or places like that?”
No, we were more in the eastern, kind of mid Atlantic area.
Interviewer. “I guess there were two seasons where those teams went around on a
barnstorming tour. Yours was the second one.”
Right, the first one in 1949. I was not on, but I on in 1950.
Interviewer: “Did you make it up as far as New York city when you were doing
that?”
That’s what I was just going to say, that about a month or so before we got there, I broke
my ankle and I missed playing in Yankee Stadium, they played in Yankee Stadium and I
missed that. 24:57
Interviewer: “Did you go to some big cities when you were on this tour or mostly
small ones?”
They were mostly small ones, all small cities.
Interviewer: “What kind of crowds did you get when you went to these places?”
We got good crowds. Attendance wise, I don’t know, a thousand, tow thousand, but we
had good crowds. We drew very well, we were advertised, you know it was advertised,
8
�and we did radio interviews and things like that, so you know, they knew we were there
and I think too it was maybe a curiosity thing where people just came out to see if we
could really play ball. 25:43
Interviewer: Did you do a lot of publicity things of different kinds? Were you
interviewed on the radio yourself?”
Yes, they use to interview us that was part of our job, to promote the league and so yes,
we did radio interviews, newspaper interviews, because they would have pictures in the
paper and they would have advertisements in the paper, so yes, we did a lot of PR stuff.
26:13
Interviewer: “You said you broke your ankle, now how did you break your ankle?”
It was a—it rained that day and we played that evening. Of course the field was covered,
the infield was covered, but the grass was wet and because of our bases, which were
shorter than the ninety-foot men’s bases, it brought the bases just to the edge of the grass
of the infield. I was sliding into third base and the grass was wet and my spike caught in
the grass and I slid and you know that wet grass wrapped around that spike and my foot
stopped, but I went. 27:02
Interviewer: “Now, once that happened, did they send you home?”
Yes, I was in the hospital for a couple of days while they set the ankle and then I went on
home.
Interviewer: “Had you gone home between those seasons? Did you go home on the
off-season?
Oh, yes, but during the season, no.
Interviewer: “So, the ankle heals eventually, did you back in then for another
year?”
The next year in 1951, I went back and I was assigned to Rockford, the peaches. I spent
my last season with Rockford.
Interviewer: “Was that a better team than the Muskegon team?”
Well, they were—Rockford was kind of the crème of the crop, if you want to say, but
they were a good team, yes. That was a great experience, I played with some great ball
players on that team, but that Muskegon team, I don’t want to downgrade them because,
listen, all the girls that played in that league were terrific, just wonderful, they had to be
the best ball players that we had in the states. 28:25
Interviewer: “Sure, anybody on any major league baseball team today is going to
play a whole lot better than me, even when I was a lot younger. “Who were some of
the best players that you played alongside?”
9
�Oh gosh, Dotty Kavichek, Shorty Prior, Doris Sams, Mickey McGuire, Jean Fout, just
like I say, you could just go on and on with these girls, they were just good ball players.
28:58
Interviewer: “now, when you were with Rockford, did Rockford make the playoffs
that year?”
I can’t remember if we made the playoffs.
Interviewer: “I think South Band won the championship that year.”
I think south Bend, but I don’t think Rockford made the playoffs that year. I don’t know,
maybe I was a jink to them. The teams that I played for, we never made the playoffs.
Interviewer: “Now, in Rockford, when you were living there, did you have the same
kind of a set-up as you had in Muskegon?”
Same set-up as Muskegon. We lived in host homes and had a roommate and played, but
the people in Rockford, again just like Muskegon; the people were just wonderful to us,
just wonderful. 29:48
Interviewer: “Did you have a chaperone as tough as the first one?”
No, no, I don’t think there was anyone like Helen. Helen had to be the—I only had three
chaperones, the ones from the touring team and Helen and then Dotty Green in Rockford,
but Helen had to be my favorite, my favorite.
Interviewer: “In general, how well did you adjust to the rules and the expectations
of the league? Was it fairly natural for you did you or not?”
Well, adapting to them was easy because I didn’t want to do anything wrong, anything to
get me off the team and you know, some of the girls would miss curfew and things like
that, but there was no way that I was ever going to do that. I wasn’t ever going to do
anything that would jeopardize my chance to play baseball, so I followed the rules to the
letter. 30:54
Interviewer: “You were probably happy that you had somebody that was very clear
about what the rules were?”
Yes, probably.
Interviewer: “Now you only played in the league for three years, was it your own
choice not to come back for 1952?”
Yes, in 1951, I could see that the league was not going to last. Things were—the crowds
were not as good and a lot of the teams were in financial trouble and I had an opportunity
to get a job at that time and I had to decide between that opportunity to take that job or go
back for maybe another one season or maybe two, I didn’t know how long it was going to
last and so I thought, well, I think I better set myself up for job that I had a little security.
32:04
10
�Interviewer: “What job did you take?”
I had a chance to go to work for the telephone company and I went down and interviewed
for the telephone company and got the position and went to work for the telephone
company. I spent thirty years with them and retired in 1983. It probably was the best
decision that I made.
Interviewer “Now where were you working for the telephone company?”
In California. I got time—after the 1951 season, I finished the 1951 season, I came to
California and I spent the next year just kind of getting my priorities together—what am I
going to do? In 1953 I took a job with the telephone company and stayed on with them.
33:03
Interviewer: “What prompted you to go to California in the first place?”
I had family out there. My brothers and sister were living out there at the time and I liked
it. I had been out there in 1948 for a vacation and I liked it and so when I finished
playing ball I thought, “I think I’ll go back to California”.
Interviewer: “during the time that you were actually playing, did you have any
kind of sense that you were doing something kind of unusual or significant that
women were out there doing this sort of thing or were you just focused on playing
the game?
Playing the game. You know when we—when I first went into the league, I thought that
this had to be the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I didn’t care about anything
except playing and having that opportunity, so as far as thinking to myself that this is
something special, I never did. In fact until the day left the league, I never thought it
was anything special, I didn’t see any need to talk about it or tell anybody. 34:24
Someone would say, “you played baseball”, well, some people say, ‘who cares”, and
most people thought it was softball and everything, so it was just never anything that was
brought up in conversations or whatever, so it just went by the wayside as something you
did, it was over with and even though it was something that I thought was going to be my
career. I was sixteen years old and I thought I could play until I was thirty-five or forty
and thought it was my career. I planned on nothing else, I didn’t go on to college, didn’t
do anything and I thought that it was my career and when I quit, I thought “that was it, I
did it and it’s done”. 35:17
Interviewer: “After that you go to work and what kind of work did you do for the
phone company?”
I started out as an operator and then my last year, and I went through several departments,
and ended up in the engineering department when I retired.
Interviewer: “You got a career for yourself and you’re out in California, which is a
somewhat kind of progressive place, and you go into the sixties and the seventies,
you got a women’s movement going and the push for things like Title Nine and all
kinds of stuff going on, were you paying much attention to any of that, or were you
11
�thinking of how the women’s baseball league related to that or were you not putting
those pieces together at that time?” 36:00
We started working with other ex-major league ball player on free clinics for girls and
boys. The clinics use to be strictly for the boys and then we started going out and saying
in these clinics, “girls and boys”, and there was a group of us, some ex-dodgers and exAngels that they put together this group called “Sports Educators of America”, and we
went out, this was just in the Southern California area, and we would go out and do these
free baseball clinics for the kids and we would try to incorporate education and sports.
Telling the kids that education is just as important because you ask the kids, “who wants
to be a major league ball player?” Well, everybody raises their hand, so then you say to
then, “well, all right, there are 700 positions in major league baseball, what if you don’t
make it, then what?” so we tell them that they’ve got to have something to fall back on,
so we start stressing education in sports to these kids trying to encourage them to stay in
school and have a back-up just in case they don’t make it in the baseball world. 37:27 I
can always relate to that because that’s what happened to me. I thought baseball was
always going to be my career and I didn’t plan for anything else. Fortunately, I got a job
at the telephone company and at that time the companies were more like families. They
weren’t like they are today where your just a number. The telephone company was like a
family, so I had the opportunity to work for them, but to now days not have a back-up, so
that’s what we have been doing now for the last ten or fifteen years, going out to these
clinics and working with young people. 38:19
Interviewer: “How did you wind up hooking up with the men players, but I guess
this is something that maybe happened after the movie “A League of Their Own”
came out?
Right.
Interviewer: “How important was the movie in terms of drawing attention to that
past or having you revisit it or think about it again?”
The movie was everything. Had it not been for the movie we would have still been
obscure. The Cooperstown, that to the ball players, that Cooperstown event was, as far as
I’m concerned, was the most important thing, to be recognized by the Hall of Fame
men’s organization and to be recognized by them in their facility. It was the greatest
thing that ever could have happened to us. 39:19 That was just ball players that had
that, but when the movie came out, that brought it out to the public, brought it out to the
world and that’s what brought us out to the public eye. If it hadn’t been for Penny
Marshal and that movie, we would have known what we thought with the hall of Fame,
but the public would not have known, so yes, the movie was everything.
Interviewer: “What do you think you took out of that experience of playing
professional ball? Did it change you?”
12
�Not only did it change me, but I learned so much about team work, camaraderie, trust in
people, it was just a wonderful experience and I don’t think I could have gotten that from
any other profession that I would have gotten into like I got from that league. 40:33
Interviewer “I’m not sure how you really could in exactly the same way. There
wasn’t anything else like it and for a very long time after. We now have the WNBA
etc., but that’s much more modeled along the way these modern media oriented
teams and things are done. The kind of experience and the closeness that you had as
a group and that sort of thing may be something that didn’t really repeat it’s self in
other places.
I don’t think so. I got so much satisfaction out of the league and we still, as you see, we
still have friendships that have lasted for sixty years. 42:21
Interviewer: “What was it like coming to the reunions and getting involved with
this group and seeing people that maybe you had played with or trained with and
after all those years, there they were again?
My first reunion was—they started earlier in Chicago and I never went to any of those
because I was in California and I just never went, but in 1988 they had a reunion in
Scottsdale Arizona and that was kind of right next door, so I thought it was a good
opportunity for me to go over to Arizona and just—well, I haven’t missed one since and
it has just been such a wonderful experience. 42:08 The first time , that was the first
time seeing these gals after, at that time, forty years and just the expressions on our faces
when we met each other and saw each other for the first time, I just can’t explain it, how
it was.
Interviewer: “It sounds like it was a remarkable experience on the whole and you
tell your story well, so thank you for coming in.
You’re welcome. 42:38
13
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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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/.
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RHC-58_SBurkovich
Title
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Burkovich, Shirley (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
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Burkovich, Shirley
Description
An account of the resource
Shirley Burkovich was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She played softball with the neighborhood boys and her brother throughout her childhood. She first heard about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League one day when she was reading the newspaper. Her brother took her down to where they were holding tryouts; she tried out and afterwards was told to report to Cape Giradeau, Missouri for spring training. She played with the Springfield Sallies during the 1950 softball season and then was traded to the Rockford Peaches where she played out the 1951 season there. During her time in the league, her fondest memory is hitting the game-ending single to center field in 12-inning game. While with the league she played utility infield and utility outfield.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
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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--Illinois
Women
Language
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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
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-09-26
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5752a0125b812e8ce999b065608493ea.m4v
f158fd332a1df13fd393b25e25800d9a
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d8abc97da500f74b820aa52075355b3a.pdf
12163b5a7930c412c229649813d6257b
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Jean Cione
Interviewed by: Gordon Olson September 27, 2009 Milwaukee, WI at the annual alumni
reunion of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer March 4, 2010
Interviewer: Give me a little bit of background if you will. When and where were
you born, your parents names and a little of that sort of information.”
I was born in Rockford, Illinois in 1928 and my parents were Vi and John and I went to
school at a county school for eight grades in Rockford, Illinois. :53
Interviewer: Were all eight grades together at county?”
Yes, oh no, no.
Interviewer: “Then it wasn’t a small country school?”
It wasn’t that small. And I was, as everybody was in those days, an outdoor “tomboy”.
Interviewer: “Which means that you started playing ball as a little kid?”
I started playing ball as a little kid. I played catch with the guy next door who turned out
to be a neurourgeon and my mother thought that that thing that was hanging from my
right hand was part of my anatomy because that’s how often it was there. 1:39
Interviewer: “That was your glove?”
That was my glove.
Interviewer: “And it went everywhere with you?”
It did
Interviewer: “You’re a natural left hander and they didn’t try to change you? A lot
of people our age, young people if they were left handed, and they would try to make
them switch to right handed writing and that sort of thing.”
Well, I’m kind of ambidextrous. I batted right, I threw left, I write right, I iron both
ways, whatever’s handy really. 2:13
Interviewer: “If you’re going to throw, it’s better to throw left handed because
there’s more demand for left handed pitchers.”
There are fewer of us; I guess that’s probably why.
Interviewer: “what are your recollections, before there was a league, of playing
ball? Where did you play and how did you develop as a ball player?”
1
�Well, I played neighborhood ball with the boys. When I was in the eighth grade I played
first base on the boys softball team and since it was a county school we competed with
other county schools and I earned a letter at that county school. I of course went to junior
high school in the city and there was no opportunity for women back then and so I played
in an industrial team league and on industrial league teams. Now, Rockford, Illinois was
the largest machine tool center in the world and the town was full of factories of all kinds.
3:33 They made huge machines and sent them overseas and so forth. Well, each of
those industrial corporations had a men’s baseball team and a women’s softball team.
This was a large city. The second largest city in Illinois at that time and so I played then
in the industrial teams. 4:03
Interviewer: “So there were sports opportunities for women in Rockford?”
There were, definitely. Rockford had a wonderfully developed park system, the
University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana came up and set it up and Rockford was half
Swede and half Canadian with a few Polish and Irish thrown in there, but they put their
money in their city, so there were really opportunities for children. 4:34
Interviewer: “You said that you got a letter for playing on the eighth grade team at
the county school. How unusual was it for girls to be on the school team like that?”
Well, at the luncheon today, they talked about the first and I was the first.
Interviewer: “That makes it unusual. In high school were there any sports you
could play in high school?”
They called it GAA, girls athletic association and we played among ourselves and if we
did have opportunities to play with girls from other schools, with mitts. 5:24
Interviewer: “That’s right, there was a sense that girls shouldn’t be—not only that
girls weren’t so competitive, but they shouldn’t be so competitive.”
Absolutely, and in those days girls were short and supposed to be short as opposed to
now, they step out and they are tall. 5:50
Interviewer: “They’ve been feeding them real well lately. You were playing in the
industrial league when you learned about the opportunity to play women’s
baseball?”
Well, I was born and went to public school in Rockford, Illinois and the “Rockford
Peaches” came into Rockford, Illinois and established Rockford as their home team in
1943 and I was fifteen at the time. 6:19
Interviewer: “Still in high school?”
Yes, still in high school and my dad of course, who was my very best friend, took me to
the ball games and I would say, “Dad, I’m going to play some day”.
2
�Interviewer: “Had he supported you as a ball player? Did you learn any baseball
from him?”
No.
Interviewer: “He was just a fan?”
Yes, he was just a fan. I didn’t learn it from him, but yes, he supported me and my
mother supported me too because it was two against one, my dad and I.
Interviewer: “She might as well go along with it.”
Yes, she might as well go along with it.
Interviewer: “Are there other brothers and sisters in your family?”
I do have a sister, but she’s fourteen years younger. After they had me they had to wait a
long time before having another one. 7:14
Interviewer: “Even if she had been a ball player there wouldn’t have been an
opportunity like you had for her would there?”
No there wasn’t, and we were very, very fortunate. We were just lucky.
Interviewer: “So, the Rockford Peaches come to town and you see some games and
you decide, “I’m going to do that”. How did you go about accomplishing that?”
7:37
Well, they held a tryout a couple of years later and I was seventeen at that time and Max
Carey came into town and he held a tryout and I was invited to spring training. I could
throw, I could hit, I could run. The finer points of the game probably weren’t very
evident, but he saw something there that might be developed.
Interviewer: “At that point did you have a sense of yourself as a pitcher at all yet?”
No.
Interviewer: “That’s coming yet. When you first learned of it—Max Carey comes
to town—did you have an understanding of why they were doing it? You knew
there was a war going on, but did you connect the women of the baseball with the
war or anything like that?” 8:36
No.
Interviewer: “That’s going to come, along with other things. So the tryout is
complete and he likes what he sees, then what happens?”
I went to spring training, it was held in Chicago, we stayed at the Allerton Hotel and
worked out in one of the big Chicago parks and I made the cut. Probably I made the cut
and went with the Rockford team because I was a Rockford girl and there’s some draw in
terms of people coming to the ball game to see me. I was very, very fortunate to play
under the manager who I consider the best manager who ever managed in the league, Bill
Allington from Van Nuys, California and he loved the game you could tell and he was a
3
�good manager. 9:43 All of us bench sitters and rookies had the opportunity to work out
every day we were home. The regulars didn’t because we played every day on a ten
game schedule. From him I learned how to fly, the finer points of the strategy of the
game. He sat us next to him on the bench and made sure we understood the game, all the
cutoff plays, all the finer points of the game so, I was able to survive. 10:28
Interviewer: “You had time to do hitting every day?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “At what point does pitching become part of baseball?”
Well, the league was managed more as a league opposed to individual teams and they
realized that they had to keep competition close in order to make it interesting for the
public so, they had what they called an allocation system and each team could protect x
number of players and the rest of us were put into a pool and I went to Peoria and was
their regular first baseman for a year. They didn’t protect me; they threw me into the
pool “Pop Murphy” from Racine picked me up. 11:43 We had spring training in
Havana Cuba that year and he picked me up and we toured up through Florida along the
Atlantic coast with those particular teams all the way up and he worked with me because
he thought maybe I could pitch—he saw something.
Interviewer: “He saw a fastball I bet.”
I don’t know what he saw, but I appreciated him very much. Those were exhibition game
with two teams would travel up together.
Interviewer: “Do you remember what the other team was?”
No I don’t. I remember going into my first exhibition ball game and striking out Jo
Leonard, who became a very good friend of mine and who I played with much later on,
but I pitched, he threw me in the games, all the way up to Racine and the season started.
12:56 Rockford had some injuries as they came up through their particular area where
they toured and Bill—Racine had won the championship the year before and Bill
Allington asked the league if he could get some help until his pitching crew got back into
physical shape and could play again, so Murphy thought that was a good idea and they
could make mistakes on Bill’s team, so I went to Rockford and I didn’t make too many
mistakes and Murphy wanted me back and I guess there was quite a discussion over a
period of time and in order to keep both managers happy they gave me to Kenosha.
13:52 I was with Kenosha for the rest of my career.
Interviewer: “You stayed in the same general vicinity, but you didn’t get to go
home again.”
No.
Interviewer: “I’ve got a couple questions I want to ask you and it suddenly
occurred to me, I haven’t asked this of other. The make-up of the team that you
4
�play on—you said he needed pitching, how many, do you remember how many were
on the team? There were some bench sitters.”
Yes there were. They carried at least four or five pitchers and nine and five is fourteen
and I think the rosters were seventeen or eighteen players. 14:36
Interviewer: “That’s not many players, particularly if you’re playing every day and
somebody is going to be a little “gimpy” once in a while. That’s not a “deep bench”
as they say.”
That’s probably why Bill took the rookies and those that sat on the bench and worked
with them because we had to go in at times.
Interviewer: “You had to be ready or about as ready as he could get you. The other
thing I wanted to back up to—you said you went to Cuba and came back; do you
have recollection of that time in Cuba and spring training in Cuba?” 15:13
I certainly do.
Interviewer: “Share them with me please.”
There was music twenty-four hours a day in Cuba and it was just wonderful. Music is
something that’s very important to me and I loved it. We were taken to eat at one of the
hotels all the time and the food was terrible, so most of us ate at “Sloppy Joe’s”, the bar
between our hotel and the hotel where they fed us.
Interviewer: “We shouldn’t assume you were in Havana, rather than assuming, the
people listening later will know that the spring training took place in Havana. All
the teams were there?” 15:59
All the teams were there, yes they were. We trained at the University of Havana’s
facilities, huge facilities.
Interviewer: “The Cubans love their baseball.”
Yes they do and they came out in great numbers for the exhibition games and they were
around to watch us train also.
Interviewer: “Did they seem to appreciate the level of the baseball that you
played?”
Yes they did, we heard nothing negative and so you assumed that they accepted you.
Interviewer: “I have also been told that the Cuban men were particularly
impressed by the fact that these were young women out there playing. Is there any
truth to that?” 16:44
Yes they were. Of course the Cuban men are very sexy, very sexy, you would have to
just really be careful.
5
�Interviewer: “I’ve seen a couple of great pictures of a group watching practice. A
group of young men up in the stands watching practice and waiting, I think, for the
first moment that practice was over, so they could get better acquainted.”
They were and after practice we generally showered—we went back to the hotel and
showered and changed clothes and we hired a taxi and he would come and pick us up and
take us all over Havana and make sure if we got thirsty we would have a “cervesa” (for
the non Spanish speakers, “a beer”) and we saw a tremendous amount of the poor and the
rich in Cuba. 17:56
Interviewer: “This is out of context with the story of your baseball career, but it’s
an interesting topic. Your horizons were significantly broadened by the travel
opportunities that came with being a baseball player.”
Absolutely.
Interviewer: “Not only just in terms of seeing places, but seeing other people and
other culture and maybe parts of –the poor as well as those better off and just a
better understanding of humanity in a sense.”
That’s right and appreciated it.
Interviewer: “It carried over later in your life?”
It did, I think it did.
Interviewer: “We may get back to that later and think about that a little bit more,
so this is 1947 and you could throw hard, but the world is full of people who can
throw hard, but they can’t hit what they’re throwing at.” 19:02
I have a funny story to tell you about that. Inez Voyce, she was a left-handed first
baseman.
Interviewer: “For the Grand Rapids “Chicks” among others.”
And South Bend, the South Bend “Blue Sox” and somehow or other she trained, she was
trained with us at our particular area of the ball park and Bill Allington came over to us,
the two of us, and he said, “you two, I want you to go out there in left field and play catch
until you can throw the ball where you’re aiming, you just get out there and work on it”,
and I never ever forgot that. Inez and I share that story together. 20:00
Interviewer: “And it worked.”
It worked, yes.
Interviewer: “Before we move on from Bill Allington, if someone were to say to you,
“I want a short capsule description of him and his personality, behavior--why was
he so good?”
6
�I can only give you from my perspective. He was so good number one, because he really
cared for the game. He instituted many plays that often other teams didn’t use, for
instance, just hitting the ball on the ground and the runner on first base going from first to
third, you know, those kinds of things. That’s what made him good and he cared and I
just really liked him. 21:10
Interviewer: “Big man, small man?”
Very wiry and medium height.
Interviewer: “Loud, quiet, soft spoken?”
It depended on whom he was talking to and what he was saying. I can’t say he was loud
or gregarious, he wasn’t, he tended to business and I liked that because that’s the way I
was brought up. Probably brought up too much that way, really focused on what I was
doing and he was really focused on what he was doing and he expected you to function
that way and that’s why I think he was good. 21:59
Interviewer: “Now, do you have a recollection of the first league game you pitched
in? You were pitching in these exhibition games up north.”
That’s very interesting--you know I don’t, I do not, I don’t remember the first league
game I pitched in.
Interviewer: “Are there other games that stand out over time? Some play off
games?”
My no hit no run games stand out in my mind.
Interviewer: “Gee, I wonder why that is?”
A twelve inning duel with Ziggy, Alma Zeigler from Grand Rapids. I don’t know why
they stand out that way.
Interviewer: “Let’s talk about those no hitters. You had two no hitters in a very
short period of time.”
That must have been a good year. 22:50
Interviewer: “Yes, I guess, so there’s a superstition in baseball that you don’t talk
to the pitcher until they give up a hit. If they get deep into a game you leave them
alone and no one mentions the fact that there are no hits. Did the women follow that
same kind of superstition?”
I think so because I don’t remember discussing it or anybody saying anything about it.
Interviewer: “Did you have a notion what you were doing?” 23:15
Yes.
7
�Interviewer: “Any moments in that game that stand out where they came close to
getting a hit?”
No moments stand out, sorry.
Interviewer: “Ok, that’s ok, sometimes you’re so lost in the next batter you’re not
thinking about anything else. There was two of them up, roughly that and you have
to feel pretty good about yourself at that point, you’ve got this pitching thing figured
out.
I think it was. Well, I’ll tell you something, if you didn’t feel good about yourself, you
didn’t last in that league.
Interviewer: “Do you want to expand on that a little bit?” 23:57
Well, you had to have confidence, you had to think that every time you walked out on
that mound, you walked out on that mound for one purpose and it was to win that ball
game, and if you didn’t have that confidence—athletes cannot perform unless they have
that confidence and some people call it cockiness and whatever it is, if somebody asks
you, “are you good”, you say, “you betch ya”.
Interviewer: “I can strike you out. Describe yourself as a pitcher would you?
What did you throw? What were your strengths and if there was a weakness, what
was it?” 24:46
I was primarily a power pitcher. I developed a cross fire where I stepped to first base and
brought it in right under your ribs. I was not afraid to work the inside of the plate. I had
a changeup and later in years, I developed a two fingered knuckle curve and obviously
that’s a ball that’s thrown with a spin on it and when it loses enough momentum, it falls
off and I was left handed and that was good for pitching against some of the very, very
good left handed hitters. 25:41
Interviewer: “A cross fire’s a pretty effective pitch against some of them too.”
We had –I do remember this—In one of the games I pitched in Kenosha, an Umpire, his
name was Remo, his last name, was behind the plate and he caught every one of those
cross fires and called them strikes and sometimes that’s hard for an Umpire because it
catches the front of the plate and by the time it reaches the back of the plate it’s in the
sand and that probably was very important to my further development as a pitcher. 26:26
Interviewer: “It gave you confidence to keep throwing. It’s a pitch—you say it
starts out from the first base side and if it’s a left handed hitter their tendency is to
lean back or away from it and a right handed hitter, their tendency is to think it’s
coming inside at them and you’re right, if you throw it right it comes right across
the front left hand corner of the plate and it’s still a strike, but the catcher is
reaching beyond the strike zone to pick it up and they will miss it.” 26:47
8
�They will because it’s very easy to miss. I had some Umpires that did miss them and I
didn’t like it.
Interviewer: “Did you ever get in an argument with an Umpire?”
Oh sure.
Interviewer: “Ever get thrown out?”
No, not that big of an argument. 27:16
Interviewer: “What was the quality of the umpiring in your mind? Your standing
up—pitchers have a particular perspective on umpiring, that’s for sure, how would
you assess the umpiring in the games you played in the league as you saw it?”
I think it was very good. I think it was very high quality. They’re going to miss some
stuff, but we didn’t let them know that we thought that they were going to miss some
stuff, they were going to, but I think the quality of the umpiring was excellent. 27:54
Interviewer: “Which is probably not a bad idea—attitude for a pitcher to have
going out there. Think of the Umpire as your friend and if they sensed that at all,
they just might become your friend. As a hitter I always felt that way. Any teams
that you felt a special rivalry with at all?”
Well of course I always felt the rivalry of Rockford. I welcomed going into Rockford
and beating them and they were very, very good, very good. I played with Rockford my
last year in the league and many of them became very close friends, but that was the team
that I welcomed pitching and playing against. 28:53
Interviewer: “It makes sense, if you can’t play with them then the best thing you
can do is to go in and beat them.”
That’s right, that’s right.
Interviewer: “Talk to me, if you will, a little bit about travel. How you go t around,
the teams were fairly close together, but you still had to get from one town to
another on short notice sometimes.”
In 1945, when I played with Rockford, we traveled by train, the Illinois Central out of
Rockford into Chicago and then changed trains to other locations; New York Central up
into Michigan and that was wonderful. Travel by train was just super. Well, the league
figured out that if they had their own buses it would be cheaper and more efficient. If we
had a trip from Kenosha, Wisconsin to Grand Rapids, that’s a long trip and we would
leave after the ball game and stop somewhere and have dinner before we left Kenosha
and then you traveled all night. 30:12 It was much more efficient for the league to go by
bus travel. Big buses and they were comfortable.
Interviewer: “No sleeping berths though on a bus.”
No sleeping berths.
9
�Interviewer: “You had to figure out your own way to get comfortable.”
You just had to kick back and do what you could.
Interviewer: “Now, when you got into—as a visitor coming into a town, you’re in
that town for three or four games, something like that, did you stay in hotels, did
you stay in homes?” 30:52
We stayed in hotels and we stayed in the best hotel in that town, yes we did.
Interviewer: “At that point the league took care of you in that regard.”
They absolutely did. We stayed in the VanOrmin in Fort Wayne and the Pere Marquette
in Peoria, good hotels.
Interviewer: “They probably put you in the Pantlind in Grand Rapids or I would
have to think about where else in Grand Rapids you might have stayed at, there
were a couple big hotels.
I know it was right downtown. 31:26
Interviewer: “Probably the Pantlind. Did the teams you played on get to the
playoffs?”
Once, and it was against Rockford and it was two out of three I believe.
Interviewer: “And this was Racine against Rockford?”
Kenosha, Kenosha against Rockford and they beat us and we were done.
Interviewer: “Did you get to pitch in the playoffs?”
I played first base in that playoff, you know I could hit a little bit and I often played first
base or one of the outfield positions. I took my turn every third or fourth day. 32:20
Interviewer: “Yeah, with the short roster you had, a lot of them played as position
players as well. Ziggy for example, was both a pitcher and a—second baseman,
right and you and a lot of others the same way, if you could hit a little bit.”
You had to be able to hit.
Interviewer: “What was the quality of the hitting in the league? Was it more of a
pitcher’s league or a hitter’s league?”
I think it’s very, very similar to major league baseball now, I really do. It’s not like
softball, which is a pitcher’s game; it was probably pretty well balanced.
Interviewer: ”You saw some scoring.” 33:16
Right, we saw some scoring and our batting champions were hitting up into the mid three
hundreds, so it was probably a pretty balanced game.
10
�Interviewer: “You played through some rules and equipment changes. The base
length changed didn’t it at some point? The ball changed in size, did you like the
changes as they occurred?”
Yes, I did.
Interviewer: “Let’s talk a little more, you tell me what kinds of changes occurred.”
33:58
Of course the pitching distance changed. The change when we went away from strictly
softball pitching and it went to pitching where the hand had to be below the wrist, then it
had to be below the elbow and then it had to be below the shoulder and right over the top.
As that pitching changed and structure changed, the ball got smaller and smaller and of
course as pitchers, we liked that. The bases got longer, the game got more like baseball
and less like softball. 35:00 Much more in the way of double plays, relays from the
outfield to nail them at home and that kind of thing. As the ball got smaller, the game got
faster; I guess that’s what happened.
Interviewer: “The skill level adjusted?”
Yes, it did.
Interviewer: “And there was some training and teaching going on? Bill Allington
wasn’t the only one, or Allington I should say, wasn’t the only one teaching?”
There were many that didn’t.
Interviewer: “True” 35:29
There were many that didn’t, yes.
Interviewer: “ I think Woody English comes to mind, who a lot of the players liked,
as someone who paid attention and took his job seriously is maybe the fair way to
put it.”
Yes he did. The game, I think, was more interesting for the spectators as the bases
lengthened and as the ball got smaller.
Interviewer: “You played then from your first year, which was 1945, until 1954,
basically the end of the league. What are your perspectives on that period when it
went into decline and at some point you could see it coming. What happened? Tell
me about it.” 36:21
You could see it coming. Many of the teams board of directors did what they could to
cut expenses, as tight as they could, we traveled in cars, which was very poor, that was in
the last year, next to the last year.
Interviewer: “Packed tightly in cars or a group of cars?”
It was not a good thing. Not a good thing for the players and for the league in particular.
You could see the decline, your salaries didn’t go down, your meal money didn’t go
11
�down, but you could see it particularly in the travel. The fields were still kept up and
they were beautiful fields. 37:19
Interviewer: “The fields were the responsibility of the local communities, at least in
some cases the parks department had some role in maintaining the fields.”
Well, any team I played on, we had a—I’m thinking golf, a greens keeper.
Interviewer: “Groundskeeper?”
Yes, a groundskeeper who took care of the field and we knew him.
Interviewer: “He was with the team?”
Yes, and the teams were tailored, just like the major league fields now, the fields were
tailored to the team. For instance, Jean Fout, whom I consider to be the best overhand
pitcher in the league, she came from tight from over the top and they built the mound up
for her. 38:14
Interviewer: “So she was even taller out there. Of course, if you were an overhand
pitcher and pitching there, you at least had that same mound to pitch from.”
Oh yes you did, that’s true.
Interviewer: “Did some of the teams water down the area in front of home plate a
little bit?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Let the grass grow a little longer in the infield?”
Yes they did.
Interviewer: “That’s been going on for a long time hasn’t it?”
Yes it has and we took advantage of that. The grounds keeper would work with the
manager and the fields were tailored to the home teams strengths and weaknesses. 38:52
Interviewer: “I said earlier that one of the people I talked to about pitching
suggested that there were things done to the baseball. What she talked about was
an accusation of one team put the balls in the refrigerator before that game just to
make them a little deader. Did you ever hear of such a thing?”
No, (laughingly), never heard of it.
Interviewer: “Did you ever hear of any pitchers that would doctor the ball a little
bit?”
No. 39:28
Interviewer: “Certainly men were accused of such things.”
I know. A friend of mine, who is an athletic director at one of the universities in the
west, said that in one of their publications there was an article by an Umpire and his name
12
�was Petrangeli, and he said that he threw me out of a game for throwing a spit ball and I
said, “that’s ridiculous, he must not have had too much to say and he had to pull on
something”, but he was a Kenosha Umpire and he umpired a lot of my games, but I was
never thrown out. 40:16 Not even for arguing.
Interviewer: “It’s a fine line sometimes to how far you can go and what you can say
and what they’ll listen to and tolerate and what they won’t.”
That’s right. There was not a whole lot of foul language in the girls league.
Interviewer: “I hope not. There were some women who did get tossed, had pretty
fiery tempers.”
Oh yeah.
Interviewer: “I can’t think of her name all of a sudden, she played for Grand
Rapids and all I can think of her is the blonde from Arizona.”
California and she’s gone now—it will come to me. 41:06
Interviewer: “It won’t come to me right now either.”
She was from California and she’s gone now, she died of cancer. She was very good, but
she was fiery and so was Faye Dancer, from California.
Interviewer: “Not afraid of any Umpire.”
Interviewer: “The league is coming to an end and travel is pretty miserable, pay
didn’t go up—to what do you contribute that decline in revenue that they were
grappling with? That means fewer fans, what was happening to cause that?”
I think it was a combination of things. The war was over, the entertainment was
available and the entertainment dollar was spread around. You could now go into
Chicago and see the Sox or Cubs play and the pros that played were retiring and they
were bringing in top-notch softball players and they couldn’t adapt fast enough to the
game. And there were mental errors and people don’t pay to see that. It was really a
combination of things. 42:35
Interviewer: “If it’s sloppy they don’t like it. Did television play any role?”
It was barely started because I remember—I was going to undergraduate school in the off
season and I remember grappling with either working on what I should be working on or
watching the television, but I remember a little tiny screen. I don’t think television was a
factor. 43:10
Interviewer: “Ultimately television played a role in the decline of the minor leagues
in men’s professional baseball, but it was a little later. Unless you’ve got something
more you’d like to say about your career that I haven’t thought to ask you about,
I’d like to move over and talk about your post baseball career a little bit. What did
you do after baseball?” 43:37
13
�Well, during the off-season I went to undergraduate school at Eastern Michigan
University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, and seven miles from Ann Arbor, that big school.
Interviewer: “How did you pick Eastern Michigan, you’re over here in
Wisconsin?”
Well, Eastern Michigan was ranked the third best women’s physical education school in
the country and that was my field of study. I went to Eastern Michigan and got my
Bachelors degree and began teaching in the off-season in the public schools. I taught ten
years in the public schools. I taught in Trenton, Michigan for four years, that was my
first job. I taught for four years in Rockford, Illinois schools, West Rockford, Illinois.
Then I decided after eight years that I better get my Masters, so I went down to the
University of Illinois on a graduate assistantship and got my Masters degree and came
back and was a department head in a new school in Rockford and then I got a cal from
my Alma Mater, Eastern Michigan University, to please join them on their staff and there
is no greater thrill than being asked to join the staff of your undergraduate school. 45:33
Interviewer: “Those who taught you, and you stayed there.”
I stayed there twenty-nine years. I started out teaching theory of team sports, individual
sports, all of those and then I did some further work at the University of Michigan, which
was only seven miles from me and I did some further work in Scientific Foundations of
Physical Education and ended up teaching Scientific Foundations to sports medicine
people. Anatomy, Physiology, Biology Etc. and that’s where I finished my career. 46:18
I loved every bit of it. I loved the public schools, the team sports and the major courses
that I taught in the Scientific Foundations. I kept me from being bored.
Interviewer: “Did someone particularly encourage you to go college? Was that
your own decision?”
It was my own decision, my mother, like all good mothers, wanted me to stay home and
get married so she could have some grand kids and she said, “Well, if you want to go to
school, you can go to Rockford to college”. There was no physical education curriculum
offered there, but she didn’t understand that, so I had to go to school against their wishes.
47:09 When they found out that I was serious, then they accepted the fact that I was
away from home going to school.
Interviewer: “You had been away from home already.”
That was different.
Interviewer: “Did you continue in team sports as a player for a time or involved in
team sports after pro baseball?”
14
�I played one year of slow pitch and it was on a lark. Some of the professors at my
university and some of them at the University of Michigan decided we would get a team
together and we would do some slow pitch and it was fun.
Interviewer: “The strength of it is that it’s a team sport, the weakness is that it’s not
like baseball or even softball, it’s a different game. Let me now move to the final
portion of all this and I’d like you to reflect on it. It has to do in a sense, the
rediscovery of the All American Girls Baseball League, because I suspect you too
went through that period—your friends, you may have told them your baseball
experiences, but few people knew you were a professional baseball player, I’m
guessing. 48:44
Been there, done that and never talked about it. Who would have understood anyhow?
Interviewer: “A few, but not a whole lot, you’re right. All of a sudden though come
this movie and a national awareness that there was this unique group of women and
that they played baseball professionally for several years and they’re still around.
They discovered you at some point again and I bet you remember when that
occurred?” 49:19
Well yes, the Ann Arbor paper wanted to run an article on you and the professors at the
men’s club wanted you to come and talk to them about your baseball career etc., so the
opportunities were many, yes.
Interviewer: “Did the young women that were in your classes want to talk about it
too and get to know you a little more because of that?”
No, I can’t say they did. I can’t say that they did, I’m sure that they respected it. I can
remember them coming to that one year when we played slow pitch, coming to the games
and watching and it always tickled me that I was able to do something that I had taught
them how to do in the team sports class like catch the runner off second base and run at
him and freeze him and then make the throw and I liked that because it helped me to
realize that they understood that I do know what I’m talking about. 50:49
Interviewer: “Darn tootin’ you did. Reflect a little on the role that you perhaps
didn’t see yourself playing at all, but as a pioneer really in women in sports and in
some ways even in the larger movement toward feminism and more roles for women
in our society, you are part of that. Do you think about that, you must?”
I didn’t think about it at the time. Didn’t think about it at all. I supported and still
support the feminist movement. When Billie Jean King played Bobby Riggs, we all got
together and watched it together and the fact that P.K Wrigley insisted that the spectators
knew that those were women out there playing the game by the way they acted, by the
uniforms, how they dressed off the field, made me realize that that was a very important
part of women in sports. 52:30
15
�Interviewer: “That’s an interesting perspective I hadn’t thought of. I always
judged him more harshly for that because I thought he was, you know, because I
thought he was trying to feminize, or overly feminize and take advantage of the fact
and your argument would be quite the contrary. He wanted to make sure—he was
making sure that people knew that these were women. He was very insightful.
He was very, very perceptive—that he was and I think it was important. There was a
professional softball league in Chicago at that time and they dressed in I don’t know what
they dressed in—shorts or whatever. 53:20
Interviewer: “Some of them dressed in trousers almost or long pants.”
They didn’t draw the way we drew. We were entertainment for the industrial workers. It
was a family kind of audience—kids, women and men.
Interviewer: “Do you still hear from fans?”
No.
Interviewer: “You get requests for autographs though?”
Yes, many, many.
Interviewer: “Do you ever get tired of people asking for your autograph or wanting
to talk about what you did?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Do you feel an obligation to keep doing it regardless?” 54:07
Sure, absolutely, I don’t have any more baseball cards, they’re all gone and I had
hundreds and I have to say to them, “I’m sorry I don’t have anymore”, and you can’t get
them either.
Interviewer: “Somebody has got to do a reprint.”
Well they did one some time ago.
Interviewer: “Those of you watching, what have I left out, anything? That was an
easy interview. All we had to do was sit and have a conversation. You saw the
movie when it came out and you have probably seen it more than once since.
What’s your reaction?” 55:03
It was fun and it was a fun movie. I can see why people would enjoy seeing it. The
baseball portion of it was pretty accurate and of course they had to do some Hollywood
tinkering a bit. We did not live all together in our home city. The manager did not come
into the women’s dressing room under any circumstances, but those two things made the
movie very, very entertaining for the average person that would go to a movie. 55:43 It
was fun.
Interviewer: “They did have classes for some of the women to—“
The first year, only the first year.
16
�Interviewer: “There had to be some resistance in the—not everyone—how did they
respond to the fact that they were going to charm school?”
I don’t know, but I can imagine—it was a big joke, that’s how they responded.
Interviewer: “That’s right, you weren’t there because you came two years later and
that would be my guess. It was a man’s idea, I think. to have these classes anyway
and that tells you something about it. 56:25
But that reinforces the idea that P.K Wrigley knew that the aura that the players had to
give off, needed to be a feminine aura or it wasn’t going to go.
Interviewer: “I do appreciate your perspective that it helped women in sports.
That he drew attention to the fact that these were women playing that well and
doing that well. That’s a good insight and I appreciate that.” 57:09
Sometimes I get, along with the request to sign cards etc., questions that they want
answered and one of the is, ”did the men and boys laugh at you in the stands and did they
make it hard for you?” For some reason or other, they thought that they might.
Interviewer: “Did they?”
No, not at all.
Interviewer: “Thank you, thank you very much.”
Thank you for asking me.
17
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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Text
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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RHC-58_JCione
Title
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Cione, Jean (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
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Cione, Jean
Description
An account of the resource
Jean Cione was born in Rockford, Illinois in 1928. She grew up in the Rockford area and played softball with the neighborhood boys and then also played with the local industrial teams. When the Rockford Peaches made Rockford their headquarters, Cione tried out for the team and at age 15 joined the ranks of the Rockford Peaches in 1945 as a reserve rookie first baseman. In 1946, she was traded to the Peoria Red Wings and played first baseman for them but was then traded to the Kenosha Comets in 1947. She remained with the Kenosha Comets from 1947 to 1953 and played sometimes as a left-handed pitcher, first baseman, or outfield. Consequently, the Comets franchise disbanded in 1954 and she was traded back to the Rockford Peaches where she finished out when the All American Girls Baseball League was disbanded.
Contributor
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Olson, Gordon (Interviewer)
Publisher
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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--Illinois
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Michigan
Women
Language
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eng
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2009-09-26
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/321bf422d64f57545b631bfad039a9b3.m4v
16c0ac7d875b0b645c9de85ab02c4a4a
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2d745a9f23369ab95e693aca1ffc99b6.pdf
8e4cc59107df6248816a041ab9e58777
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
VIVIAN KELLOGG, First Base
Women in Baseball
Born: Jackson, Michigan
Resides: Brooklyn, Michigan
Interviewed by: James Smither, PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 5, 2010,
Detroit, Michigan at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, November 12, 2010
Interviewer: “Vivian, can you begin by telling us a little bit about your background.
Start with where were you born?
I was born in Jackson, Michigan and I played softball for a couple of teams in Jackson.
Interviewer: “In what year were you born?”
1922
Interviewer: “When did you first start to play ball?”
Ever since I could get my hands on a ball. My mother died when I was seventeen months
old, so I never knew my mother, but my brothers and sisters actually raised me and time
after time I had a different boss because they would get married and leave home. My
youngest brother was nine years older than I was and he had to baby sit and he set me to
throwing. 10:45 If he ever wanted to go out and play ball, he had to take me or else he
couldn’t go. They would stick me out in the outfield, but eventually I would work up to
playing in the infield, but I played ball as long as I can remember and all my school years
I was into sports. It was my brothers that taught me to play ball.
Interviewer: “At what point did you start to play on a girls’ team?”
You had to be a certain age and I think I was seventeen. We had to sign in too at that
time, have our parents sign. Whichever one was my boss at that time is the one that
signed the paper. 11:42
1
�Interviewer: “Then did you play with a local league?”
Yes, just a local league.
Interviewer: “How is it you got involved with the All American Girls League?”
I was playing in a state tournament representing Michigan and the tournament was held
in Lansing and a scout was scouting for women’s baseball and that’s how I got involved
in it.
Interviewer: “Now, did this scout introduce himself?”
Yes, he told us and I signed the contract, but I didn’t play until after the tournament, our
bowling tournament, but we didn’t come in first place, but anyway we finished.
Interviewer: “So, when did you actually join the league and start playing then?”
12:42
Interviewer: “Did you play in 1943?”
No, that’s when I was playing softball and it was 1944 when I actually played with the
Minneapolis Millerettes.
Interviewer: “When you were going to start the season then in 1944, did you go to
spring training first? Did they have that?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Where was it?”
It was in Chicago and they picked the teams. The girls on different teams and I was
picked for Minneapolis, so when it folded because of no attendance we came to the Fort
Wayne Daisies.
Interviewer: “Did you play a year when you were in Minneapolis or did you
immediately move?”
2
�We used the same ball field as the Minneapolis baseball team because we were playing
when they were on the road, but did we learn a lot in those locker rooms. That’s how we
traveled, but we lived in private homes and when it was folded we were on the bus from
town to town. 14:10 We stayed in hotels because at that time there weren’t motels.
Interviewer: “Did you just have one season in Minneapolis or part of one season?”
Just half a season
Interviewer: “Half a season”
The next season the Fort Wayne franchise bought it.
Interviewer: “In the meantime you were just a kind of barnstorming team then?”
Now, if we were scheduled to play Racine and it was supposed to be on our field, but we
played on Racine’s field, we just reversed who was the home team, but we didn’t have a
home ground until 1945.
Interviewer: “OK now, what position did you play?”
I played first base.
Interviewer: “Why did you play first base other than something else?”
When I played softball I was a catcher, but when I went to play in the baseball league
they put me on first base, so that’s how I got on first base. 15:14
Interviewer: “So, they just told you to play there. Now, were you a good hitter?”
I could hit, but I couldn’t run. I got a standing ovation once because I stole second base,
but I enjoyed the game very much and it was hard at times, but it was gratifying because
we were doing something for our country, we were entertaining on the home front
because in baseball the boys were all drafted. We got to—when we were returning home
from spring training we would play at army camps, different ones. We stayed in the
3
�barracks and seen how they lived. When they put up a diamond they would just mark it
off and we played baseball for the soldiers at camp and on our last trip we played at
Battle Creek and that’s where the German prisoners were held and after the game we
went to Percy Jones Hospital because that’s where the veterans were in the hospital, so
we visited maybe forty five minutes to an hour which they enjoyed because they only
saw the doctors and the nurses and aids during the day, so they enjoyed our visit. 16:55
Interviewer: “Was it part of your motivation to join the league? Was this
something you could do for the war effort?”
When they signed me I had no idea it was for the war effort until I signed the contract
and then Mr. Wrigley and at that time, the President of the United States—that’s why we
got to have gas because we were entertaining on the home front and in the army camps.
Interviewer: “So, you signed the contract just to play ball and you learn then that
this is part of something bigger, so you’re doing something—you’re making your
own contribution there, but you learned about that later?”
Well, I played seven years and I thought it was time I got out because I had to make a
living, so I quit and I stayed in Fort Wayne three years and in ten years I returned home
and I went to work for a dentist and I worked for him for thirty years. 18:40
Interviewer: “Talk a little bit more about the actual experience of playing in the
league. Who do you think were the best players on your team?”
Well, you can’t judge—maybe I give them all credit; give them all credit for the position
they played and how they got along with the teams and with their teammates. So, I think
the Daisies got along together because we spent twenty-four hours, seven days a week
together. 19:26
4
�Interviewer: “Who was the manager while you were with them?”
Well, I had Bill Wambsganns who use to be—Harold Greiner, Jimmy Foxx, and my first
manager was a fellow from the southern states who played in major baseball, but do you
think I can remember his name? 19:50 The manager we had, some of them were retired
baseball players like Jimmy Foxx and that. We did learn things, like, one day I had to
stand on first base for a half hour shifting from one leg to the other to make sure I was
getting the rhythm right, like if I hit my left foot on the base or if I hit my right foot, my
left foot was out, so it was different than softball where you just caught the ball period.
20:42
Interviewer: “So they were giving you some coaching and you were learning more
as you were going. Now, how much of the etiquette training and the make-up stuff,
how much of that did you have to do?”
We always had a physical and we had a check-up with the doctor and sometimes we
would have to get up do practice that day. If the team wasn’t harmonizing, getting along
and losing we would have to have practice.
Interviewer: “In the movie, one of the things they made a big deal of was the
etiquette and Helena Rubenstein and all of that stuff. How much of that did you
experience?” 21:43
Of what?
Interviewer: “Did you have a lot of rules to follow?”
Oh yes, we had to be a certain distance, length and we couldn’t wear slacks outside, we
always had to have a skirt on and in the school they taught us how to sit and how to
appear for the public because, I wasn’t, but a lot of the girls were from the farms, so they
5
�didn’t have that and the charm school was to teach us, like I say, how to handle your self
in public and dress proper. 22:40
Interviewer: “What kind of fan support did you have? Did you have a lot of
people coming to your games?”
At first we took a lot of ribbing, “go home where you belong”, “go take care of your
kids”, but eventually we won them over because it was something to entertain them and
the wives were always wondering why their husbands were always going to the ball park.
All the fans we had, the men were in the service, so we had the youngsters and females
and elderly men. I can remember one time we were playing in Racine, and that’s just
outside of Chicago near the navy station and there was a couple of sailors around first
base were heckling me and at that time we didn’t take our coats to the dugout, we just
threw them up against the fence and he was riding me and riding me and I had a torn
cartilage and I had a knee brace on and when I was going down first base he said, “take
the piano off your back”, so when I got in the dugout I said, “anybody got any money?”
Timmy said, “I have a nickel”, and I said, “give it to me”, so I gave the two fellows a
nickel and said, “put this in your organ “, and afterwards they met me at the gate and
asked us out for dinner. 24:29 Of course we couldn’t because we were chaperoned, but
they were nice enough.
Interviewer: “They had you playing wearing a knee brace?”
Yeah, and as a matter of fact I got two knee braces on now because I have torn cartilage
. At that time they removed it the first time I had a leg wound or torn ligament, but they
don’t do that now, but they went in that knee twice and this knee once, so I was no speed
demon on the bases. 25:11
6
�Interviewer: “I’m a little surprised they had you playing at all, but at first base you
don’t run that much.”
If our right fielder or somebody was hurt and I didn’t have a brace on, I would go out and
play right field, but very seldom because of my hitting and not my running, my hitting.
Interviewer: “Are there particular things that happened in particular games that
you remember really well or if you think back to when you were playing are there
events that you remember?” 26:05
This was all new to me, so everything was an event to me, but I do have a lot of
memories of different things that are gone and the friendships that I made and how the
public treated us. At first, especially the men, didn’t think women should be playing
baseball and we had to block our hearing off so that we wouldn’t be interrupted. We had
to have rabbit ears, that’s what we called them. The only time I ever said anything to a
fan was when those two sailors that were ribbing me and it wasn’t doing any harm to me,
but I could hear them because it was close to first base and after that I never said a thing.
I did get a letter from them saying the next time they come could I go out for a steak
dinner, so I knew I didn’t hurt their feelings. 27:20
Interviewer: “Are there particular games, individual games, that you remember
well? Are there things that stand out from your playing career?”
Dotty Collins was out pitcher and I remember we had a double header and she pitched
both games and won them and we kind of stuck up for one another and backed them up.
See, our rules, we had league rules, but the managers from different teams had different
ideas, so some of the girls didn’t like them for that reason, but I had no complaints
because I was getting paid. 28:16
7
�Interviewer: “How much did they pay you?”
Well, I was working for the telephone company, Michigan Bell Telephone Co. and I was
making $37.50 a week. I signed a contract for $70.00 a week and I thought I was a
millionaire because it was twice as much and back in 1942 $37.50 was good money, but
when they said $75.00, I thought, wow! We had to pay for our own meals at home and
rent, but on the road we got $33.75 a day and back then you could buy breakfast for a
quarter, dinner for seventy-five cents and lunch for a dollar and a half. You could save
that money that you didn’t use, so when you got home you had money for lunches then.
29:21
Interviewer: “Did you save money while you were in the league?”
Yeah, I bought a car when cars were available.
Interviewer: “If you were making seventy dollars a week, that was more money
than some of the other players were making?”
Some made more than that and it was who the scout was and if you notice in the records,
the California gals seemed to come up with the higher wages than others did.
Interviewer: “there were some who were making fifty dollars a week and not
seventy.”
Yeah, there were some under that, but $75.00 is what I started out with.
Interviewer: “While you were playing, did your team ever win the championship?”
Close to it a couple times. 30:30
Interviewer: “What was the closest you got?”
Well, we did win it once and I know I made $500.00 and that’s when I bought my first
car when we won.
8
�Interviewer: “You were talking a little bit about your decision to stop playing,
explain that a little bit more, why did you give up playing?”
The reason was, I wasn’t getting any younger and I was wearing braces because that one
leg was bothering me and I thought, “I’ll get out while I’m still walking, which I’m not
doing today, and then I went to work in Fort Wayne and I worked at different gymnastics
and Turners was a club that sports and I worked for the Lincoln Life Insurance Company.
I worked there three years and I kind of wanted to come home, so I came home, when I
say home, to Jackson, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. 31:29 I had no place to
go and I had to find an apartment. I bought war bonds and I sold war bonds during the
war and those war bonds came in handy for me because then I could find a place to live
and find a job. I went to work for Dr. Schreiner, a dentist, and I worked for him for thirty
years and I started out on the money from the war bonds that I bought and cashed in.
32:25
Interviewer: “If you look back at your baseball career, what effect do you think
that had on you?”
Well, I was shy, I never forwarded myself like when I was in school I might have known
the answer, but I would never raise my hand to answer it. Sometimes when the teacher
would call my attention I would get tongue-tied. It was just that way, but since I’ve
joined the league, I have come out to where I can now go out and speak to youngsters
about sports and the personalities and of the All American Girls league and how it
started. That helped me because otherwise I kind of stood back. 33:23
Interviewer: “Did the people who knew you in Jackson after your baseball career,
did they know you were a ball player?”
9
�No, and when I came home they would ask me where I had been for the last ten years and
I would tell them I was playing baseball and they never heard of it, so I never bothered to
talk about it because nobody believed it and even some close relatives never did. When
the movie came out, A League of Their Own, and they saw Penny Marshall interview
different players that had started in the league, so when the movie came out and we were
inducted, then they said, “why didn’t you tell us, why didn’t you tell us you played ball?”
I said, “Because nobody would listen”. They didn’t believe girls played baseball. 34:19
Interviewer: “When you were playing ball, did you think of yourselves as pioneers
or people who were doing something new and important?”
All I can think of is it was fun, it was tough at times, but it was gratifying knowing we
had done something for our country.
Interviewer: “Later on, when you get into the 1970’s and 1980’s you have a lot
more women in sports, you have title nine and all of that.”
I feel that’s what had to go to ball because we were the ones that pushed that for girls
softball because I can remember when I worked for the Jackson recreation, excuse me,
before I started playing ball and when I came back I worked for them and played rounds
and different things and if the girls had a game and the boys were rained out, the boys
had the privilege of the diamond. When Brooklyn, where I live now, Brooklyn,
Michigan, when they dedicated a ball diamond, there were four at the complex and I said,
“I want one for the girls only”, so that’s what they did, there’s four games played at the
same time and one of them is the girls diamond. 36:07 When they dedicated it they
invited me in to talk to the girls and I said, “this is your diamond and be proud to play on
it. It will help women’s sports”, so they did and they won a championship a couple of
10
�times, the girl’s softball. It’s the high school girls and now I will get a call from one of
them asking if I would like to come out and see a game. No matter who calls me to ask
me to come out and watch them play. Sometimes the boys, the little league, I didn’t
know them because they had helmets and all that equipment on and their mothers would
be sitting next to them and I would say, “which one’s your son’s number”, because of all
the equipment. 37:12 I remember asking one little boy, “who’s the best player on your
team?” He said, “I am”, so I agreed with him. That’s what I got out of my baseball, the
thrill of coaching little girls as well as little boys and I feel the boys were as interested in
it as the girls.
Interviewer: “Interested in the fact that you played? They liked that too.”
Yeah,
Interviewer: “I think now people recognize how unusual your league was and how
significant it was, so now we have a way of understanding that and appreciating it.
Maybe they didn’t have that. Are there any other thoughts you would like to put on
the record here before we close out the interview?”
The people I feel bad about supported us, were here for the recognition and they’re the
ones that supported us and that’s the only regret I have is that we were so long in getting
recognized that they are gone. 38:31
Interviewer: “Other players or other people who started the league? Players that
are gone?”
Oh yes, there are more associates in our league now than there are players, as a matter of
fact, we lost two here this month.
11
�Interviewer: “We’re doing our best to catch up with you while you’re still here, so
thank you very much for coming in and talking to me today.”
Thank you. 38:56
12
�
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
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Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
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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.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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eng
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2017-10-02
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
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RHC-58_VKellogg
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Kellogg, Vivian (Interview transcript and video), 2010
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Kellogg, Vivian
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Vivian Kellogg was born in Jackson, Michigan, in 1922. She grew up playing baseball with her brothers, and joined a girls' team in Jackson when she was seventeen. She was spotted by a scout in 1943, and was assigned to the Minneapolis Millerettes for the 1944 season. The team became the Fort Wayne Daisies in 1945, and she was their starting first baseman through the 1950 season, and then retired due to knee injuries. After working for a number of years in Fort Wayne, she returned to Michigan and coached boys' little league teams and started a girls' softball league.
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Smither, James (Interviewer)
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
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Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Video recordings
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Baseball for women--United States
Baseball
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Minnesota
Women
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2010-08-05
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c42990a60e86b7dbe4c108c04c63ad47.m4v
fa659475ddcb289600fe23ea8a2316ee
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f56e382575eb4a2579dcb68f799e8216.pdf
72a3ca60a73aaccde475c16f7454ebf0
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Toni Palermo
Length of Interview: (01:00:14)
Interviewed by: Gordon Olson GVSU Veterans History Project, September 26, 2009,
Milwaukee, WI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, September 7, 2010
Interviewer: “Let’s start with some easy stuff, just some background, tell me a little
bit about your family and where you grew up before professional baseball?”
Yes, I grew up in Forest Park, Illinois and my parents were from Italy and I spoke no
English when I went to school, so it took some doing. I had a lot of speech practice with
speech in college to eradicate all the Italian mispronunciations and accent, but yes our
family background was very poor and the other thing that I thought was very
interesting—I never had to get permission from my parents to play ball. Today you
almost have to have the legal system supporting you, so I thought that was quite
interesting.
Interviewer: “Did you play ball as a child?” 1:11
Yes,
Interviewer: “With brothers and sisters?”
No, I just played with the boys all the time; there were no you know. In Forest Park there
was a “Parishey Bloomers Girls” professional softball team and they had a farm team and
when I was, I think, ten years old my physical education teacher, who was a “Parishey
Bloomer Girl” professional, retired, told me to try out for their farm team and then to
eventually be on their team and I did and I made it. I was so small and everything that
they had a special uniform for me. The others were black and white and they had a blue
and gold thing that they could find to fit me, but I was strong and mighty, very strong.
Small, but mighty. 1:58
Interviewer: “You looked more like their mascot than one of their players.”
I know it, the glove was bigger than I was.
Interviewer: “Now Parishey, was that a company?”
He owned a construction company and then he owned the professional team. They were
thee professional team, they were the champions of all champions.
Interviewer: “To be selected that young to be trained for that.”
1
�I practiced, I shagged balls, I was out there all the time and it’s just I learned the game
between being with the boys and the Parishey Bloomer girls, I learned the game and I
was very fast, which was nice, so that was a big help too. I could shag more than the
others 2:43
Interviewer: “As they say, and it’s said over and over in all levels of baseball or
other sports, “you can’t teach speed”. If you’re fast--”
You can work on it and improve it, yeah I agree.
Interviewer: “It’s a great asset. How did you learn about, how did you get involved
with the professional baseball league?”
Well, they were scouting and they saw me play, I think when I was eleven, and they came
up and asked me to go to Cuba to do spring training. I really thought they had—I just
thought that they weren’t for real, truly. I was so young and I thought, “why would they
want me to go to Cuba?” And to think that I was good enough. I knew I loved it, but I
had no concept if I was good, bad or different, I just loved the game. They said they
would get tutors for me and this, that and the other and that’s where “Lefty” came from, I
didn’t know if you know Alvarez, Lefty Alvarez and Maita, they all came from Cuba.
3:50 I opt not to do it, I don’t know, just because I didn’t believe it and it would have
been nice to go and I would have found out that I actually belonged there too.
Interviewer: “But they kept watching you.”
They kept pursuing me and then Mr. Parishey pursued me when I was thirteen, so I was
with them before that in what they called the farm team and then he signed me when I
was thirteen, then the league got in touch with me and I got excited about it and on my
own at age fourteen, I can’t believe I did this, got off, got onto the El, got off at Canal
Street, got on that train, went to South Bend, Indiana, nobody caring anything or babying
anybody, got there and then found the ball park you know and I can’t—I think back and
then I went to New York and met the team in New York on the flight, got on the plane
and I look back at all that and I don’t know how I had courage and not been afraid. 4:53
You had a goal and I guess my goal was to get to the team and that took care of all the
problems.
Interviewer: “ You had to have some trust in where you were going and the people
all around that you were going to make it ok?”
Yeah, they gave the directions, here’s how you get there and I just used my brain and on I
went.
Interviewer: “Did you have a contract at that point?”
Not yet, but I—when I went to South Bend, that was a training, and then when I went to,
I think I must have signed the contract wither just before or when I got to New York.
5:27
2
�Interviewer: “When you signed there because, there are a couple of things here that
are very interesting. The fact that you’re fourteen years old and your parents knew
you were doing this.”
Yes, but I never asked permission.
Interviewer: “You just took off?”
No, I think I just said that they wanted me to play and I was going to go. It wasn’t like
today you know. It’s so legalistic today, but yeah, and I think that they were happy that I
was happy and of course I really sent all my money back home, so I think that made them
happy after the fact. 6:06
Interviewer: “How many brothers and sisters in your family?”
I had one sister.
Interviewer: “Before we abandon this line, what did your father—what was the line
of work?”
He was a salesman and my mother a stay at home, but he taught collage classes and that,
he had a university degree, but he never questioned, he just—he saw that I was skilled
and we were poor and he bought me a bike because I said I wanted a bike so I could go
riding with the boys, so he bought me a boys bike and things like that. He just kind of
supported what I wanted and must have thought I had some kind of skill or talent. 6:51
Interviewer: “And he had confidence that you would find your way to south Bend.”
I don’t think that even bothered them and I think because I wasn’t afraid.
Interviewer: “What do you recall about the tryout and the training that you did
there?”
Oh, I loved it, just loved it and again I wasn’t apprehensive. I had confidence and I guess
I didn’t realize that they were going to test me out and decide whether to take me or not.
I just assumed that I was in. You know, I went there, they were going to take me, and it
wasn’t like a question, so I just loved it and they gave tips. For a while there I was being
hit all the time, hit in the arm by the pitches and one time I lost my temper and I threw the
bat and angry that they’re just killing me and then the coach came up and said, “be angry
with yourself, you’re the one stepping into the ball”, he said, “you’re supposed to avoid
the pitch”. 7:49 He said, “you’re running right into the ball”, and he told me that you
have to hit ahead because if you wait for that pitch and it’s curving it’s going to hit you
every time. He said, “I don’t want to see that anger at all again or that temper or
whatever it was, you find a way of keeping out of the way of the ball”. That was a good
lesson learned.
Interviewer: “How many were there at this tryout? It was a tryout and you just
didn’t know it.”
It was packed all over the field and I don’t recall how many.
3
�Interviewer: “A lot.”
Yes, and I know we were at Wrigley Field also. For whatever reason, I remember either
working out or trying out there a lot in that Chicago area. 8:35
Interviewer: “Ultimately you’re selected?”
Yes
Interviewer: “At this point it’s not to play in the all American Girls League. They
had another—they had a barnstorming team.”
Yes, that’s correct.
Interviewer: “Tell me about that.”
That was something else and I didn’t know the difference anyhow whatever it was. It
was called the touring team and we were to be the P.R. people to like introducing it all
over the United States and also kind of finding talent, so in every state that we played
there were tryouts. And that’s how Sue Kidd got in, I don’t know if she’s been
interviewed, but she was picked up in Arkansas and the caliber—there were a lot of
players who had been in the leagues and a few of the teams had broken up or they
weren’t making it financially, so they then came on the touring teams, so we had these
veterans with us and ourselves. We had--Max Carey came out and he showed me how to
initiate a double play like everybody to this day if I were out in the field people are like in
awe and it’s beautiful, how to time it, hit the corner of the bad and get off, and people
would just awe you know. 9:50 That all came from Max Carey and how to—at first,
you know the people who field the grounders, kids are fielding them down here and they
don’t reach out and get them, and he said to all of us, “none of you know how to field a
grounder”, and evidently we were all doing that and I took offense to that inside and
thought, “uh, I’m playing all this time and he’s telling me I don’t know how to field a
grounder”, and I never committed errors, but I took it to heart and it made sense to reach
out, and I use to say, “reach out and touch someone”, you know, reach out and get it.
Then you get to the ball earlier and you have more time to get them and so his help was
very helpful and you know, batting, bunting, we practiced in the sand, sliding in the sand,
you know sliding in the sand. They would time our bat swing, so you’re up there and
they had a flashlight, and they would flash the light and you would swing and the timing
of that, so everybody after the league ended, I would play in the summer leagues in
Madison, they would say, “oh you have the fastest swing, the fastest swing”, and I
thought that all came from the coaching and the training. 11:00
Interviewer: “You’re talking of things that youngsters playing and getting to the
majors too quick don’t know. They talk about young people with what they call the
long swing and it’s the opposite of what you’re describing. It’s a big looping swing
and a good pitcher will take advantage of it, but a short quick swing is not nearly as
easy to get the ball past.”
Yes, and it’s extending, It’s not just a little thing like this, you really are extending, but it
did the job because, see you had more time to adjust the pitches too. If you had a quick
4
�swing, it’s a curve you can reach out, if it’s a fastball you’re not going to be that late on
it, where the slower swing people were caught all the time. 11:46 It was an advantage
and we had all these coaches and managers that really taught—if you were coachable,
and throughout my life I’ve been coachable, and that’s the key. I really love learning.
Interviewer: “It’s about attitude.”
Yes, attitude.
Interviewer: “Now, this is—you were obviously very naturally skilled and what
you’re talking about it the first time you were really formally taught the game, so
you spent how many years with the barnstorming team?”
Two, Two years with the barnstorming team. The interesting thing too is being the P.R.
people, every state we had all these parades and we would be on the fire trucks, we would
be in the airplanes, we were all over and they would have big bands and we would go
into the town. 12:45 We also played Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field, those two places
and I was in the dugout with Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto and he let me use his glove and we
were on theirs and then the Eagles, no not the Eagles, the Phillies, I think they were
called the Phillies, Connie Mack’s team, they were in the other dugout and so we had a
lot of plus opportunities.
Interviewer: “Who were your opponents?”
Each other, we had—it was Chicago Colleens and Springfield Sallies and there was a
bonus, whoever won at the end, the most games, got a higher percentage of the money. It
was a big incentive. We played against each other and then we rode on the bus together,
played against each other and we were tough against each other, but we really respected
each other after the fact. 13:34
Interviewer: “Did they come out pretty even at the end of the year?”
Yes, The first we won, I was a Chicago Colleen, then the next year I came back as a
Chicago Colleen and the teams were unbalanced, we were winning too much, so the
coach came up to me and said, “Toni, I don’t want to spoil your game or your rhythm and
you’re doing so well, but we need to put you on the other team, on the Springfield
Sallyies, so that we can balance it better”. It was just too lopsided, so I agreed to it and
It’s interesting because the shortstop on the other team, who I thought was excellent, she
had long arms and she could—I thought to myself, I had to run ten steps to her one and
she had a beautiful throwing arm, so it was interesting in my mind I thought, “why
would—what difference does it make when she’s so good?” I didn’t think that I was that
much better, but I got to thinking afterwards, “I have an attitude and a spirit that she
didn’t have”. We may have been comparable in skill, I was faster and sometimes when
you have these long—but she was excellent, and I got to thinking that I was inspired
more because I would just dive for every ball and I had kind of an energy and she was
laid back kind of from the south you know. 14:58 That was my assessment because I
couldn’t reconcile why I was going to make a difference and it did make a difference. I
5
�think the team got together and we won. We won by two games at the end. Came from
way back behind and it was nice, it was nice.
Interviewer: “Very satisfying. Did they take then some players from each year
from the barnstorming teams up to the--?”
Yes, and even during this. They were going to take me the first year and then just as I
was about to leave they decided they—not thinking age, decided, “We’ll give her another
year”, but at that time, I stole the most bases and I had the highest on base batting
average, says the coach to me you know, and I was leadoff batter, so I don’t know, it
would have been interesting to see how I would have kind of compared when I got there.
15:55 Were they stronger women because they were they older and more experience?
Twice I was supposed to go up and twice it was rescinded and I think basically it was
they wanted to give me more age time.
Interviewer: “After two years you’re only sixteen or seventeen years old.”
Yes, fourteen, fifteen, just going on sixteen, yeah.
Interviewer: “Just reaching the point where—“
It’s interesting because they knew I was going to steal and I got to steal every time I got
on and I got on a lot because I had a very good eye, so I seldom struck out and I hit with
authority. It seemed like when I hit it was a bullet. They weren’t big home runs, but I hit
really strong, so they had a hard time handling my ball and then I was fast, so the steal
and I said to the coach, “they’re all waiting for me”. I was so tired of sliding and you
know they had lye on the bases and lye on the base and I was just raw all the time, hook
sliding, hook sliding, and he said, “never mind, never mind”, and the other thing is when
I got on first, if there was a hit and run, I had better get to third. 17:03 That was a given,
you just don’t stop you just swish and get all the way to third, so there were challenges,
you know it was exciting, but heart throbbing.
Interviewer: “It sound like you had a coach who was he?”
At that time I think it was Lenny, Lenny Lesnick and then Mitch, Mitch was the second
year.
Interviewer: “It sounds like these were guys whose idea was to take the game to the
opposition to push them all the time.”
Yeah, you had--a lot with the mind, when you were--say a runner on first, what do you do
when the runners on first? Before the ball’s even pitched, what are you saying to
yourself? Well, you had to say to yourself, “well, if it’s a fast runner on first, you have to
know your pitcher, outside, inside, whatever they normally pitch, so you keep that in
mind. If that’s a fast runner, “will there be a double play?” You have to instinctively
prepare that if it’s a ball hit fast to you, you have a chance, if it’s a slow roller, you’re not
going to get her at second, if she’s a slow runner then you have more options. 18:11
That went through my mind every pitch. I don’t know if the kids do that today, I don’t
6
�know if ball players do that. You had to think every pitch and you had to know your
pitcher. I remember one of the older players and she said, “I can’t get over”, and I was
telling her where to be on the field, over there, over there, move in, move out and I never
thought that I was a little shrimp bossing anybody around or whatever, it just—I was in
the game and I would see she was not playing where she should have been and positioned
and I would just say—and one time she came over and said, “I can’t get over, how do you
know where they’re going to hit?” It was the studying of the pitchers, some pitchers
pitch outside a lot, so then obviously they’re not going to zing them right to you, they’re
going to skew away from you, so all those things were on my brain and age fourteen and
fifteen. 19:05 Well, I’m grateful that God endowed me with a great mind, but you
know, it was exciting.
Interviewer: “I think I’m getting a clue as to why they moved you to the other team.
It had to do, not only with your ability, but what you were going to bring to the
other player. You’re right a little bit of a spark plug, but also you were going to set
an example.”
The coach, Mitch, he said, “Toni came here to play ball”, so evidently, I have a feeling,
there were a few slacking a little just because he said, “she’s out there and she came to
play ball, and what about the rest of you?” I t was quite a challenge. 19:46
Interviewer: “Once again, attitude. You mentioned a couple of the managers, any
other coaches or managers that come to mind that you remember yet?”
Yeah, our chaperones were really good, yeah and contrary to the movie, you know how
they went out drinking and this and that, we were so protected. I don’t know if anybody
went out drinking and I don’t know how they could have, but the example—you had to
be setting an example, set an example, you’re out here introducing baseball to people and
they have never seen women play and it’s very important our image to them. We had to
be ladylike, always in the skirts even though you finish the game and shower and always
with the skirts though hardly anyone would see us that hour of the night you know.
Everything was important as to how we presented and their image of women in sports or
women in baseball. 20:42
Interviewer: “I know that in some cases there were actually classes or a bit of
training for the girls on how to comport themselves, even up to how to fix their hair
and everything else. Did you encounter any of that?”
No, I’m glad—that would have been something, but I think I would have gone with the
flow too and would have been part of it. We had to have our hair a little longer, now
mine was never long, but they didn’t want us looking masculine. Everything was
important to look feminine and still be ball players.
Interviewer: “Not always easy.”
Once I was out there, who thought of it right? With the little skirt, sliding into the bases,
skirts flying up, it must have been quite exciting.
7
�Interviewer: “It sold tickets. Now, I keep thinking of that particular image, sliding
into the bases. Now, what did those uniforms look like? You had shorts on
underneath and then a skirt, but there was bare skin and the fields you were playing
on sometimes had some pebbles and things?” 21:50
Oh yeah, except when we toured and played in the stadiums, which was really nice, we
played in the minor league stadiums that was good, but yeah, other places there were
pebbles and you really--it’s interesting, you really adjust to the ground like a golfer does.
Interviewer: “Go out and groom your area a little bit if there’s stones out there, get
them out of there.”
Yeah, and you know they said, “there’s no crying in baseball”, but I have to say, we
wouldn’t have thought to cry. I never saw a woman cry there ever, but I’m going to tell
you, those strawberries and reopening them, because I was on base every night, that was
not an easy thing, but it’s interesting, you didn’t think of it until after you slid and
“oww”, you could hardly get up, but you took it , you toughened. 22:46 In fact, when I
had my knee surgery five weeks ago the doctor said, “you are really tough Toni, you are
tough”, and it all carries through from all that time of being—taking pain and learning to
take pain, you’re not born taking it. 23:00 Being a strong person and adversity.
Interviewer: “You were athletes and if your teammates are dealing with pain, you
better too.”
There was no complaining, moaning, groaning, and no gossiping. For women, think of
all those women together, it could be men too, they could be talkers too, but when I think
of it, with the conditions, no air conditioning, you’re on the bus sweltering, clothes
hanging in your face drying out, and trying to sleep on the bus, taking turns using one
another’s laps as head rests, feet up in the air and then switching off and not being
crabby, that’s amazing, and we would play at night, games over, shower, back into the
bus all dressed, back into the bus and then we would travel all night, get up at eight.
24:01 Probably come in about 2:00 or 3:00 o’clock in the morning and get up at 8:00 and
we were practicing on the field until noon. And practicing, running the bases, let me tell
you, they stood on the base path, you know were you make the cut, well, God help you if
you—they were there and they weren’t going to move and you learned to make that cut.
Interviewer: “Hit the inside of the base and cross over.”
That’s right, and they stood there, they stood there protecting themselves, but you would
get the worst end of it and that was all before the game. You did that until noon and then
we had a little respite time, get dressed and off to the game and when we had double
headers it was nice because you had an extra night to stay, you know to stay. We
traveled sometimes—the bus all the time and then trains. We went to Canada that was by
train then back to the U.S. We were in thirty-three states in the summer the whole time
and then I would go off to high school and come back. 25:03
8
�Interviewer: ‘Very few days off I would think.”
Only when it rained, it was wonderful in Florida; it loves to rain, and pour, pour, pour
then we would have that day off. It was nice because you had a little rest.
Interviewer: “Did you ever play, like a local team or even a men’s team as an
exhibition?”
No, I think they were trying to do a men’s team, but I don’t think—they wouldn’t have
women’s teams at that level, so it would be men, but that seemed to fall through. 25:45
Interviewer: “No men’s team wanted to get beat.”
That could be, yeah.
Interviewer: “How about some of the opposition, are there specific players that
stand out that you either respected or didn’t like in some cases for their attitude
toward the game?”
I think the interesting thing is , I was, I don’t know about the others, I was so involved in
the game that I didn’t have a problem—I didn’t see like imperfections or if they didn’t
have a good attitude or this, that, or the other thing, because on my team they seemed
to—when the coach said to them, ”Toni’s here to play ball and she has a great attitude”, I
didn’t spot them as not having a good attitude and I think he was thinking at a deeper
level, they didn’t have that extra that you need to win. There was this one that I didn’t
like and I dearly love today, but I think I was a jealous little kid, I truly do, and it wasn’t
anything to do with the game itself, she just was more outspoken and kind of so self
assured and I thought she was cocky and you know, you’re raised to be kind of simple
and humble and I just didn’t like that in her. 27:02 She reminded me one time and she
said, “you got mad at me”. I use to set her hair, I use to set everybody’s hair, I was like a
little cosmetologist, cut hair and set them, I just taught myself and one time I was so
angry with her I wouldn’t set her hair and she told me that, reminded me.
Interviewer: “I think I know who that was.”
You’d like her. She’s brilliant and really, I look back and I know it was a jealousy of—
she was do self assured and what I thought was cocky was not and to this day she’s
creative and out there doing things.
Interviewer: “Did you ever set her hair again?”
Oh yes, the day after, the day after, but I don’t know if there were people that didn’t like
one another because you didn’t feel it in tensions or the like. 27:54 More respect and
very close to one another, it’s amazing on both teams.
Interviewer: “How about the fans, what’s your recollection of the fans?”
9
�Oh, they were wonderful, they were wonderful, they were concerned sometimes—there
was a boy that liked me and he followed to different towns. Oh my little heart, and he
held my hand one time and then the bus driver said, “you better watch your step Toni the
ones that are here and fly out, that are here today and then gone tomorrow”, and I didn’t
know what he was talking about. I was so innocent and I was just ignorant of anything
and I was just so flattered that he liked me. They kind of had to watch that because you
know we were young and they were followers of that. I just remember that incident and
he kind of followed, followed, followed and then would write to the hotel and things like
that. 28:57 But he was a nice kid and he wasn’t aggressive, but I think of this of our bus
driver, I was so lean and tiny and he would say, “tiny little waistline you have there Toni,
tiny little waistline”, and I often think today Oh Harold you should see me now. It’s
better now, but when I was injured I—you do gain once in a while.
Interviewer: “They do follow the game and they do follow the players and they do
want to get close to the players.”
Yeah, the fans really, really liked us and I think they were in awe because before the
game they would announce us and our ages and I think it just kind of floored them you
know that most of us—like half were—I was probably—two of us were fourteen I think
and the rest were older, but it was still relatively young if they were up to twenty and then
the older ball players that had been in the league and back and forth were older, twentyfive or whatever. 30:00 The fans were impressed and, I think, very, very floored that we
were as good as we were. We were very tough out there, I mean cleats and all, I mean
the game was played tough. I think they saw that and we didn’t throw like little girls or
whatever they say, in fact they filmed my throw at the University of Wisconsin and I had
one of the fastest women’s throw and that’s after the league. I still have that little film.
Interviewer: “I have to tell you, I played on a co-ed team at one point and one of the
best shortstops I ever played with was a young woman an incredible thrower and
exceptionally good fielder, so you learn to respect after you watch and see how well
they can play and that’s what your fans were seeing as well.” 30:50
Yeah, they did and I think they were just floored. They came out of curiosity and they
went away—we had just a lot of positive feedback in the newspapers and then more fans
came, they seemed to tell other towns, we had big crowds and they came.
Interviewer: “Did you have thousands?”
I’m not sure, I just know it was filled, so I don’t know what the capacity was and I
noticed to in the south, I was so ignorant, I grew up with a father who had such equal
respect for people and so we had—when my mother died we had a woman named
Queenie and she took care of us and we loved her, we loved her like our own mother and
she was African, so I’m in the south now and I went and sat, god forbid, on the bus I
don’t remember if they sat in the back, probably, and I went to sit in the back.
Immediately the bus driver stops the bus and said, “you have to come up here”, and I
didn’t. I did not budge, I just thought it was not right in my heart and finally he just
10
�moved the bus and I sat there and moved on. 32:01 That bothered me and the other
thing that bothered me, and I can see how prejudice is learned, the drinking fountains—
there was one for the whites and one for the and I don’t know if at that time they were
called Negroes, but it made you think that they had some disease or something and that
really bothered me because it was like teaching something that was very foreign to me, so
that’s what I noticed in the south. I also notice that we had no black players either.
Interviewer: “I was going to ask you about that?”
I didn’t see the tryouts, but obviously there were some excellent players around and I
think it was just not open.
Interviewer: “As far as I know the league never had any African American women
players. It’s interesting to me because this is just at the time that Jackie Robinson is
breaking the major league color line for the first time.” 32.57
He came right after—
Interviewer: “forty-seven he came.”
Yeah ok and I was in forty-nine, all right. Yeah see, that should have helped, but not
women probably and it wasn’t easy for him, you read those stories and you know,
nobody liking him and the fans, but that hit me, that really struck me. If you come from
the north and I was raised so respectful, I just had so much love in my heart, I went to a
school that was all white, Negro’s weren’t allowed in the grade school, but in my high
school there were. I remember giving a picture, my picture, to one of the black men and
oh, the repercussion, all my friends would come up to me and say, ”do you realize he’s
going to show it to all his friends and they’re going to thing you’re boy friend and girl
friend”, and blah, blah blah, so those things were eye openers and I’m glad that I had my
positive experience because maybe I stood for something in the south at that one bus
thing and once in the hotel too. 34:10 I remember taking some of my money and giving
money to the maid that was there because I appreciated what she did and those things
bothered me.
Interviewer: “It was a time when the United States was going through a transition
and it was not going to be an easy one we know that and we’re still grappling with
the issue, quite frankly to this day.”
Yeah, yeah
Interviewer: “Two years in the instructional league we’ll call it, or better the
barnstorming.”
No, no, instructional in a sense that they had that throughout the league. No, I think we
were sent there on a mission, a P.R. promotion, introducing it and they were selective. It
wasn’t just little nobodies, it was the cream of the crop of players and you had to be
chosen for that. The ones from the league, where they disbanded and that, they brought
special people there that would be an example and were excellent players, so it wasn’t
11
�minor. 35:10 I think we could have played against anybody in the leagues at south and
given them a run for their money.
Interviewer: “You never got a chance to play against any of the other teams?”
No, no
Interviewer: “That would have been fun. Two years and you decided--at this time
you’re just about ready to graduate from high school?”
Yes, then Parishey Bloomer Girls were knocking on the door again, so I went to play
with them and then I was on several professional softball teams I remember at the time. I
don’t know if one was named the Chicks or what, but they were trying to build, they were
trying to build their teams, so they asked Mr. Parishey if I could go on loan because they
needed to build more players, so I did that and then I was called, South Bend wanted me,
I think to play with South Bend. I think it was a team that had won one of the
championships and I don’t know if it was the South Bend Blue Sox or whatever, but it
was in South Bend. 36:13 At the time, I went for spring training and I was going at it
and I was going to enter the convent that September.
Interviewer: “You had made that decision already?”
Oh yeah, I had made that decision two years prior to that, but I was wanting to help my
father financially and do things, so I waited and did my thing and anyhow, while I was
playing out there it was like a haunting feeling that if I stayed I was not going to enter
because I had such a love for that game. All of a sudden out of the clear blue sky, I was
tormented, I was tortured there, I decided that I had to go home because if I stayed I
never would have left baseball. I didn’t know it was on its way out in the next two years
after that or one year really. I feel I signed a contract, but I at least was close or had
signed it and informed them that I had to go because I was afraid I would not enter the
convent and I made a commitment and that’s one thing I think I learned young on, when
you’re in sports, if you’re truly involved and committed, your word is your bond. 37:21
You don’t mess around, if you say you’re going to do something you do it. I said, “I’m
doing it and I felt I needed to keep my word and I didn’t think I could if I stayed on
because my heart was—I ate, slept and drank baseball.
Interviewer: “You had two loves and they weren’t compatible.”
Yeah, they wouldn’t have been at that time, so then I entered the convent.
Interviewer: “Where?”
Right in Milwaukee, St. Joseph’s Convent and I’m in fifty-five years now believe it or
not.
Interviewer: “And along the way you picked up additional education, additional
degrees.”
12
�I got a degree from Alverno College in English, history, math and education, minor with
math; they kind of mixed that in. That arose out of need, I was supposed to be a high
school teacher, so that was the English, history, and math. 38.13 Then there was a
shortage of elementary, first grade, so they sent me back to get the educational for
primary and I was sent to first grade instead of high school and spent six years doing that.
Then I went on, I wanted to do physical ed and finally they allowed me to do summer
school physical ed. I was going to get a doctorate in physical ed and back tracked on that
and completed a masters in that and then completed a doctorate in six departments and
meanwhile I got the masters, the doctorate and another masters and got all three almost
simultaneously. 38:57 That comes too in baseball, not only did I have intelligence, but I
had—they said they couldn’t keep up with my energy, so you really had work ethic, so I
completed three things, I did the two masters, I did my prelims for my PhD, and three
chapters, all kind of together and the professor said I had too much energy and too much
blah, blah, or something for them to keep up with me, but they were happy to have me.
39:25 From there I completed a masters in psychiatric social work and mental health and
ended up with three masters, the doctorate, the bachelors, and I could have had four
masters, but I decided not to do it because If I had to take another test it would have been
comps again, but I still might do that one. What I really want to do is study law and help
the cause, save the poor.
Interviewer: “I have a feeling you’ll do it.” 39:52
Yeah, I will
Interviewer: “Now, for you’re your PhD you went to the University of Wisconsin?”
Yes, the three masters and the PhD all from Wisconsin and I also taught there. I taught
there for four years.
Interviewer: “Did you—what was your involvement in sports during this time? Did
you stay involved in some way, coaching or playing at some point?”
Yes, in Madison they had all these leagues and I was in the league called the Major
Major, so I played in that and what was interesting, there were two all American
professional ball players that had been observing and they had to choose, they had to
choose one player for recognition and I forgot, it was an all Madison bla, bla, bla and it
was quite an honor and these two, Rusty was one of their names, and they chose me,
which was interesting because they didn’t know I had played. 40:51 They saw my
playing ability and then was honored and the Mayor was there and all the politicians
played, we had two teams, and I got to play out there and was helping them with how to
bat, some of them. Those things happened in Madison and I played every year and then I
was in a serious car accident and I was a passenger. While rehabbing, for three years my
back was in a brace and I had no use of this right leg, all of a sudden this tennis coach
from China came up to me and said, “Toni, Toni, I teach you tennis”, and I said, “Oh,
Mr. Chung”, and I was still in my brace you know, “I can’t” and he said, “Oh, no, no, no,
I teach you tennis”, and I picked it up and I was so good at it that—I tried taking
beginning classes and they kept putting me in advanced classes and what it was, was my
hand eye coordination and I was very fast. 41:43 I just could outrun anything.
13
�Technically I didn’t think I was that great, but I would enter all kinds of tournaments and
I would end up winning some of them, I mean I beat some number one people that were
so skilled and so beautiful, they would hit the ball and pose and while they’re posing I’m
running like some maniac hacking away keeping the ball in play. Anyhow, I got to love
tennis and then I worked so hard at it and ended up being ranked in the state, 2nd in
singles, 2nd in doubles, and 3rd in singles also, thought the years. Then I played national
tennis tournaments and loved it, loved it, loved it and I never got ranked nationally
because, even like Billie Jean King the retired pros enter that, so I played some of the
pros that had been at Wimbledon and that and I can still see myself, I said, “Toni you
have the reputation, your job is to wait, they would always say “good wheels, good
wheels Toni”, your job is to be the retriever, the Golden Retriever, for all the balls they
hit and to build them up”, anyhow they knew I was out there. 42:57
Interviewer: “If there’s anything another player hates, it’s the opponent that won’t
give up.”
That’s right, that’s true and one time the man observing and he said, my deportment was
exemplary, he said anyone else would have run off the tennis court. I playing the number
one seed and said, “you would have thought she was losing”, my attitude was so—I mean
I was out there and if she lost a point to me, I hardly won a point I kid you not, if she lost
a point she was devastated and here I was this happy little thing—people walking by,
they thought I was winning half the time and here—I learned something, she was so
miserable after the thing was over I said, “maybe you ought to think about not playing
tennis for a while”, because she was just an unhappy person. Yeah, people couldn’t tell if
I was winning or losing, but I never gave up. 43:55
Interviewer: “While you’re doing all this, getting your degrees, continuing to play
softball, playing other sports, people didn’t know that you had been a professional
baseball player at one point. Was it the movie that changed the recognition?”
It was after the movie.
Interviewer: “the movie we’re talking about is “A League of Their Own”.”
“A League of Their Own”, and I did not see the movie until in the year 2000. I didn’t
even know it existed. Like you said, “what had I done?” I was busy like really teaching
a lot of children, helping anywhere I could help, in all kinds of things, sports, everything
and also, did a lot with the poor, conducted workshops all over the country, I was flying
all over the place giving talks and this and that, so I didn’t keep up with watching TV or
anything and one day I’m watching this TV and I see this movie and I hear them singing
our song and I thought, “my God that’s our group”, and I recognized some of the people,
our players, at the end who were in the movie. 44:58 That was my first inkling of it and
that was like in 2000 and they hadn’t found me, they didn’t know where I was.
Interviewer: “Your name was different, you were a Sister.”
14
�Yes, Toni Ann Palermo and Sister—I think those who knew I entered probably thought
that I could never come out and you know, come to anything and that I was gone forever
Interviewer: “Incarceration”
Yeah, so that first experience was, I think it might be seven years now that I was really
found, found, but I forgot, was there a part of a question that I missed?
Interviewer: “I’m asking, and you’re talking about it, that the movie end up
changing your life thereafter. Once you were found.”
Yes, all of a sudden one time on television, I saw this Mary O’Meara. Mary O’Meara
was Mary Froning, who was a ball player on the, I think, the Blue Sox, a South Bend
team, and she was in Madison and I was in Madison. 45.14 I played on her co-ed team
and she had about seven or eight children, so that comprised her co-ed team, plus Mary,
plus myself. I think there were nine or ten plus her husband and that was the team. I
recognized her in tournaments, she was not on the same team I was on, in fact she was in
a lower league. I don’t know how she managed to be down there, but she was in a lower
league. We played against her and I recognized how smart she was out there and we just
took to each other, but never, never sharing that we had played, so I played on her co-ed
team, I taught her some tennis, she got involved in tennis and years go by. One day at
church she sees me, Rockford was having a mini-reunion, she seed me and said,” Toni
have you ever played professional ball?” I said, “yes”, and she said, “well, they’re
looking for you”, and I said, “oh”. All those years we knew each other and she was
going to all these reunions and never said a word because she didn’t connect it. 47:04
Interviewer: “Never put it all together.”
Excuse me for scratching my nose, but that’s how and once they found me—so that’s
how and I’m so grateful to be here with you and this beautiful group and have this
privilege.
Interviewer: “You get, I’m sure you get invitations now to speak?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “And a chance to teach?”
Yes, yes and Jackie Baumgart and I were just honored at Alverno College because she
graduated from Alverno and I graduated from Alverno and we were both in A League of
Their Own or The American Girls Professional League and it was a sports orientation or
fundraiser and we were honored and it was just about maybe a month ago or two months
ago.
Interviewer: “Do you get requests for autographs or stuff in the mail?”
Oh, signing all the time, yes a lot. People are in awe, which it really touches you because
it’s I don’t know, I’m humbled by it. I’m really humbled by it because it touches my
heart that they think enough to want our autographs at something that we love so and we
15
�were privileged to do. 48:09 I grew up where women didn’t have the opportunities.
However, in Forest Park, Chicago we had more opportunities than all these other states.
Wisconsin was way behind, so I never felt the stigma that I was a girl and couldn’t do
this and couldn’t do that. I was at every sport possible and anything I did I always
succeeded. Swimming, number three in the state and half drowning some of the time you
know, I was in everything and that’s because we had no limitations set on us and we were
privileged, but other places were not. 48:52
Interviewer: “Women had a lot of limitations, that’s for sure. As you look now
from the time you began as a professional athlete and you have a chance now to see
the changes that have gone on in sports and in women professional athletes, do have
some thoughts that you would like to share with us on what’s happened and where
we are today?”
Yeah, I’m in awe at the quality, the quality of, say in all sports, with the women. In awe
with it, because when I came up to Wisconsin I was shocked at the level, it was so bad. I
would go to the women’s basketball and it was so bad. I played before the Harlem Globe
Trotters, that’s how good we were. We had the same teams that were during the summer,
we played basketball and men’s rules at that time was, and girls rules were half court, and
we played men’s rules and we played in front of all these crowds before the Harlem
Globe Trotters. 49:57
Interviewer: “So you were a traveling basketball team?”
Yeah, and we were quality you know, nothing bad. But I came up here and I would go to
the games and I could hardly take it, it was bad, they shot poorly, they didn’t have that
technique, nothing was there, and I have watched them through the years. I am in awe; I
mean they are skilled today. I came up in 1970 and then 1970 to 1980 it wasn’t good and
yet I could see them improving, improving and I see the volleyball the same, the
basketball, softball, it is outstanding, I mean they are excellent and tough. I watch all the
time, I watch all the top teams, Tennessee and all and UConn and the women, the level
you know and I am really—I—they wouldn’t be there, something was lifted for them you
know. 50:56
Interviewer: “I’m going to ask you the question I’ve asked others and you’re kind
of leading into it, it is this. At the time, did you have an awareness that you were
pioneering as a feminist in a sense, or a female athlete and now that you have a
chance to look back, do you see that you were?”
I don’t know how many thought that because we were put into it, we were focused and
we loved it and we were so happy to be doing it that I don’t—maybe those that did not
have as much as I did in Forest Park, I had no limitations, they maybe felt like they were
pioneering, I did not think I was pioneering because I always did it, but as I look back
now it absolutely opened doors and I think and the movie, even though it was 1992, it
should have come a lot sooner to help some of the causes and I think it helped men to.
51:56 It helped young men, I think, believe in themselves and do more than they have
16
�ever done and help those that were skilled enough to get to a higher level. Now I see us
as pioneers and definitely inspired some people. I get letters from young women and it’s
touching, it’s touching and then when I meet someone and I’m signing up and it’s a little
thirteen year old and say, “you know I was playing professional softball when I was
thirteen. Now, I’m going to put a challenge to you bla, bla, bla,”, because let them see,
let them hear--here’s this little person, tiny little thing and they’re coming and I was
playing ball and I was getting at one time $75.00 a week, that was big-time.
Interviewer: “At that time it was good money and you sent most of that home?”
Oh yeah, and the coach, Norma Whitney and I, she was the second baseman and I was
shortstop, she and I were, and I don’t know if there were others, but we would send our
monies home and the coach said, “you know Toni I have to tell you, while you’re eating
hot dogs and burgers, all the others are eating steaks and why aren’t you spending money
on yourself?” 53.09 First of all I grew up with the mentality of poverty, so I didn’t think
I was starving and it was important for me to send that home. My mother had died, my
father was so distraught, and I just—it was not an issue. Yes, that was big money,
seventy-five a week for a little fourteen, fifteen year old was very respectable. All and all
the experience in the league and what it did for us personally, also, the women that you
see here, they’re tough cookies you know, so they had that mentality. A lot of them
went into professions, they were teachers, many of them were teachers, so can you
imagine what people all got? 53:56 I had that same mentality, never do things by halves,
not to be a quitter. There’s nothing like winning, I know they all say “put your guts into
it “, but if you have been in sports there is nothing like winning, I’m telling you. Like
you play three sets in tennis, killing yourself and then they say, ”well you got to the finals
and went three sets”, but I’ll tell you, losing as opposed to winning, there’s nothing like
winning that and I use to say, “why not, why not be able to win it?” What I did learn is,
in softball too when I was coaching that, don’t say, “oh, if I can only get a hit”, I said say,
“I’m going four for four tonight”, you know, shoot high. If you go four for four
mentally, you might get three hits, but if you say, “if I only get one hit”, you’re lucky if
you get a hit and that’s the same way—you know they say in tennis and in other sports,
people, play not to lose, play to win, and when you play not to lose it’s a different game.
55:05 It’s too careful, and I remember, I was in this tennis tournament and I was
winning, 5-2 and I only had two more sets to go and I remember saying, “Toni, only two
more, one at a time, only two more”, and I lost 7-5 because I altered my game. I played
not to lose and I thought just play one at a time and no, I had to have that same drive, that
same intensity. What it teaches you in life, and it’s really interesting to me, is you have
to maintain that intensity. If you watch football games and that, they can’t go four
quarters, they fade out in the fourth quarter, so the name of the game is, you have to
consistently hold it. I remember one time a ref was watching me play tennis and I was
out against the number one player in a big national tournament and running my behinder
off and I remember so distinctly that I wanted a point and it was spectacular, bam, bam,
bam, and I won the point and then afterwards the referee said, “Toni, you know what?
You have the ability to really be a winner in this, but what happens, you don’t
consistently play every point the way you played that one point”. 56:26 So, I play that
one point and maybe lose the next three and then zoom in there, so it teaches you
17
�discipline, and it really is a lost art today. The discipline of keeping going, keeping
going, not settling for less and not giving in to that, you know, that’s life. All those
principles that—you know life is not easy, right? Basically if you have the attitude and
you have the consistency of discipline, life is a lot easier and you can take the bumps and
you can kind of take the hard things and survive them and you move on, you move on.
57:02 Say, “I’ve been given this much time in life and I’m not going to let it drain me”,
we move on.
Interviewer: “I was just thinking, as an athlete, as someone who did succeed, you
can say that to others and they will listen and in that sense the league helped you, it
gave you credentials that you could use.”
Yes, yes, that’s well said. It gave me the credentials and gave this belief that we are
special and it’s imparted to the people, so we are recipients of that wonderful, wonderful
gift that people have given to us.
Interviewer: “And then you can pass it on.”
I can pass it on.
Interviewer: “Now, I think I have run out of questions, do any of the rest of you
have thoughts or areas we should cover?”
We want to give a standing ovation, clap, clap, and clap.
Interviewer: “A wonderful job, a tremendous job.”
I feel so privileged that I got to do this, really. 58:11
Interviewer: “I thought of one thing, I haven’t asked anybody about the umpires.
Do you have some thoughts on umpiring?”
Oh, let me think a minute. Of course you’re never too happy with umpping.
Interviewer: “Who were the umpires?”
They were always from the minor leagues.
Interviewer: “The umpires traveled with you?”
No, they were there.
Interviewer: “They were from the neighborhood?”
Yeah, I don’t think at that time—we were so disciplined at keeping your mouth shut that
we didn’t—you know the chaperones could do the arguing, but I do remember one time
they called a—I thought it was a balk, so I’m hollering balk, balk and thinking I should
be awarded second base and meanwhile at the fourth they called me out because they’re
tagging me out and I’m calling bla, bla, bla, I was so upset and that was the one and only
time and I really argued. 59:00 I really had an I and I just knew and I called it. Well,
you can’t call it the ump has to call it, so while I’m calling it their tagging me out and I’m
18
�just not about to move because they were in the wrong and there wasn’t a lot of arguing, I
think because we were just like a—I was thinking, Jackie Robinson, he was told to zip it
and we were told like that too because people would not have liked us if we were
combative. I think they would have liked a spirit of maybe once and a while, but it’s a
good question.
Interviewer: “I’ve seen a couple pictures-- there where a couple at the league level
that went after the umpires pretty good.”
Yeah, and I believe they did. I think we just had to for the P.R.
Interviewer: “You were ambassadors.” 60:00
Ambassadors, yeah, truly
Interviewer: “Ok”
Think of us highly now.
Interviewer: “I will never say instructional again.”
Never again and thank you so much
Interviewer: “Thank you”
19
�20
�
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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Grand Valley State University. History Department
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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.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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Text
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eng
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2017-10-02
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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RHC-58_TPalermo
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Palermo, Toni (Interview transcript and video), 2009
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Palermo, Toni
Description
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Toni Palermo was born and grew up in Forest Park, Illinois. When she was ten, her P.E. teacher encouraged her to try out for a professional softball league in Chicago. She played for a farm team until she turned fourteen when she joined the professional team. She was recruited into the All American Girls Professional Baseball League shortly afterward, and played two years with their barnstorming teams, the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies. Over the next several years she alternated between playing on AAGPBL teams and a Chicago softball team. She played shortstop throughout her career. She went on to become a nun as well as a teacher, and remained active in competitive sports.
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Olson, Gordon (Interviewer)
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
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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--Illinois
Women
Language
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2009-09-26
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
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
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
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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.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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Text
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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RHC-58_SKidd
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Kidd, Sue (Interview transcript and video), 2009
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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
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Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
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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
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
Text
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2009-09-25
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/746e90103525506d9addde930e24f34e.m4v
a05b76cf1f886a9891f0fa73ad8b22ad
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1173e9a8169c4a0b0c562cd7db651a76.pdf
dabe6d8795ce1346ac2e513491746740
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Rosemary Stevenson
Length of Interview (00:41:40)
Interviewed by: Frank Boring
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, August 30, 2008
Interviewer: “Can we begin with your name and where and when were you born?”
My name is Rosemary Stevenson; I was born on July 2, 1936 in a little town called
Stalwart, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula.
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like?”
I grew up on a farm and was the oldest of seven. A life I wouldn’t change, growing up on
a farm was neat because, I don’t know, you have your own built in playground with the
animals and even the chores. You grow up with a good work ethic also. 1:21
Interviewer: “Were you athletically inclined at an early age?”
Yes, the neighbor kids had twelve and we had seven so, almost every night after our
chores, we had a ball game going on in the field.
Interviewer: “So you were playing baseball very early on?”
Right.
Interviewer: “And what position did you favor when you were a young kid?”
I don’t know, we just played wherever there was a spot. We chose up teams and the
leader pointed you out and you played there, just played.
Interviewer: “What kind of equipment did you have?”
Probably a flat old glove back then and whatever bat was lying around. 2:03
Interviewer: “What was your schooling like?”
I grew up going to a one-room schoolhouse and I started there in the kinder grade and I
went through the seventh grade and I skipped the eighth grade and went into high school
in the little town of Pickford, Michigan. I graduated from there in 1954 and when I
graduated on a Thursday night, on Friday my coach brought me to Grand Rapids and on
Saturday I was playing my first professional baseball game. 2:42
Interviewer: “Oh my goodness, you jumped into this.”
I jumped in, oh yeah.
1
�Interviewer: “Let’s back up a bit then. By 1950—you said you joined in 1954? The
league had almost ended, and since 1943 there was already a league going. Did you
know anything about the women’s professional baseball league?”
I did not know about it until the spring of 1954.
Interviewer: “How come? It was a pretty big phenomenon, wasn’t it?”
Well, think maybe because I was in the Upper Peninsula and no scouts ever came up
there. I accidentally was reading a softball rulebook and in the back it said, “Women’s
Professional Baseball” and it gave a name and an address in Fort Wayne, Indiana so, I
wrote to them. 3:41
Interviewer: “Hold on a second. I know this is going to sound like a very stupid
question, but why were you interested?”
I was always interested in playing ball, but it just interested me all the more when I found
out there was women’s baseball. At that point I had been playing organized softball since
I was eleven.
Interviewer: “By organized softball, it’s similar to what we have today, just
neighborhood teams playing against other towns and things like that?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “But there was no real—the organized leagues, were they part of your
school or just community type teams, the softball?”
They were community, each little community had their own girl’s softball team and they
traveled around, usually on a Sunday afternoon and played one another. 4:47 I played in
a league that was the team that I played with was the Sault Lockettes out of Sault Ste.
Marie, Michigan and we played in a league with the Canadian teams, which was a much
faster fast pitch league and we call, “Across the river”. 5:07
Interviewer: “Did you have any—you knew that men had professional baseball?
You also knew that women couldn’t play in men’s baseball? Was there any sense
of, ”Gee, I wish that I could play professional baseball”?”
There might have been, in my heart, but it wasn’t brought forward until I read about that
there was a league.
Interviewer: “I guess you wouldn’t think about it because there was no chance of
it?”
Right.
2
�Interviewer: “So, you found this book and you read in the back of this book that
there actually was a professional league so, before you jump into it, what happened
after you saw that?”
Well, I wrote to the gentleman’s name and address, and I don’t remember his name now,
in Fort Wayne, Indiana and they sent me a letter back and said, “We are having a try out
camp in Battle Creek, Michigan”, and I believe it was the 13th, 14th and 15th of May of
1954 and, “If you are interested come on down, and if you make a team we will pay all of
your expenses”. So, I went there. 6:23
Interviewer: “How did you get there?”
By my coach, he took me down there—this gentleman was a real neat guy, he was a fullblooded Chippewa Indian and loved helping kids and fortunately he was my coach. He
took me down there and there was a tryout from Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we did
everything: run, throw, catch.
Interviewer: “I want to back up before you get into that. He brings you by car?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Give me a visual of—I remember from the movie, ‘A league of Their
Own”, when Geena Davis and her sister walk on and she suddenly sees the big
baseball league, what was your experience like when you arrive with your coach, try
to give me an idea, the visual of what you saw?”
What I saw was a lot of girls out there to try out for teams. There were a hundred and six
of us from the Midwest that had come there to try out to see if we could make a team.
Like I said, we went through all the routines, we ran, we batted, we slid, everything so
they could see how we could perform and then on Sunday they said they would post our
names. On Sunday, six of us made it. 8:00
Interviewer: “While you were there doing the tryouts, were you in any kind of a
uniform or did you wear regular clothes or what were you wearing?”
Blue Jeans and T-shirt.
Interviewer: “Most of the women were just in clothes that they could slide into base
or hit the ball or anything like that?”
Right.
Interviewer: “Did it seem to you that it was very well organized?”
Yes, it was, very much so and there were a lot of coaches and managers around there
watching all the time. They were just, I assume, like the big league was, watching for the
best talent. 8:43
Interviewer: “What did you feel that you excelled at?”
3
�My coach said, the thing that I excelled there at, was my arm. He said that when I—there
were two balls from the outfield that they hit out there and when I hit the perfect strike to
home plate, that sealed it.
Interviewer: “He drove you back?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “What was the conversation in the car like?”
Well, he was excited. They had told me right there that I was accepted by the “Grand
Rapids Chicks” and I would be getting a contract in the mail for my parents to sign.
Interviewer: “Why for your parents to sign?”
Because I was a minor.
Interviewer: “Ah, how old were you?”
Seventeen and so he was excited that I had gotten that far and was chosen to play
professional baseball. 9:31
Interviewer: “Did he know very much about the league?”
He didn’t know any more than I did.
Interviewer: ‘Ok, how did your parents react to this?”
Well, my dad was never one to really speak out about anything I did really so, he never
really said too much. My mom had pride and she came back down when my coach
brought me down to Grand Rapids, she came along, but my dad never saw me play
professional baseball. 10:05
Interviewer: “He was a farmer?”
Yea, a farmer and he worked off of the farm also.
Interviewer “So, the contract came in the mail finally?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “And how much were you paid?”
I was paid fifty dollars a week, plus expenses.
Interviewer: “So, give me an idea of the process of getting into the “Grand Rapids,
Chicks? You went to the tryouts, you made the cut of six out of 120—“
It was a hundred and six.
Interviewer: “That’s pretty amazing, you’ve got the contract, you’ve signed it,
alright, where did you go and what was the first stage of your becoming a
professional baseball player?” 10:47
4
�OK, I got the contract, my folks signed it and we sent it back and we got a letter saying to
report, it was like the Friday after I graduated, I graduated on a Thursday night in May of
1954, and I don’t remember the date, but it was like the latter part of May so, Friday we
left the Upper Peninsula, my coach, my mom and I and they had a place already set up
for us. We stayed with families that would rent us a room for five bucks, and so we went
there and first we checked into the office, the business office, and they gave us some
details etc. about what I was supposed to do, which was—I would get a uniform, come
back and pick up the uniform and then check with this address because that’s where in on
Prospect St. in Grand Rapids. Then when I had the uniform, I was to be in uniform on
Saturday morning for warm-ups and the game would be Saturday night and it would be
up to Woody English, the manager, to put me in the line-up. 12:09
Interviewer: “Now, some of these questions are going to sound stupid, but I’m
trying to get to as much detail as possible. There is already an existing “Grand
Rapids Chicks” team and they have a pitcher and a catcher and fielders and all
that, How many women were actually on the team, I know how many actually play
at a given game, but how many were actually on the team that you can recall?”
I say there were maybe fifteen on the roster. 12:33
Interviewer: “So, not everybody could play in a given game?”
Right.
Interviewer: “You’re the new kid on the block. What was your first game like?
Let me go through it, first you got the uniform? Where did you get that?”
From the business office.
Interviewer: “Ok, Did it fit?”
Yup, they ask you the size.
Interviewer: “Describe in detail the uniform. What did it look like?”
It was the—home uniforms were white with blue trim, our away uniforms were gray with
blue trim and they carried them with them, they took care of them and laundered them so
I didn’t have to take care of them as far as laundry or anything like that, but we had two
uniforms to wear. You had your cap and you had what they called your little blue
bloomers that you wore underneath. No sliding pads. 13:41
Interviewer: “You were wearing skirts.”
We were wearing skirts and they were—it was embarrassing to wear as I grew up as a
farm girl and was used to wearing blue jeans. When you put a skirt on that’s probably
knee length, you feel like you’re undressed.
5
�Interviewer: “Well, in those days—this is before the mini skirts, this is before
women wore skirts that short and here you are parading out in front of thousands of
people, I can imagine it must have been—what about the shoes, the socks, did they
come up to the knee?”
Right, they came up mid-calf and the shoes were our regular baseball spikes that we had.
14:20
Interviewer: “Were they cleats?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Ok. So, you now have your uniform and how did you get to, because
I assume your coach is now back home, how did you get to the baseball diamond?”
I was close enough to walk. I would walk to the baseball diamond.
Interviewer: “Had you met any of the other girls yet?”
Not until the first day that I got in the ballpark.
Interviewer: That’s what I want to get at now. You’re the new kid on the block,
you’re from the Upper Peninsula, a farm girl, what was the reaction of these
professional baseball players to you when you first got there?”
When I first got there I was introduced by the chaperone to all the girls and vice versa,
and you know, you seem to be accepted, again you’re the new kid on the block, but
through the course of that summer you were not really accepted by the pros so to speak
because the rookies always felt that they had the feeling that we were going to take their
job away from them. If there was a party or a get together or something, you were never
invited with them, so you were kind of a loner. 15:42
Interviewer: “Were you with other rookies?”
There was one more rookie.
Interviewer: “Did you start a relationship with that person?”
Not really, not really, I started—I actually started a relationship with—there were five
girls that had graduated that same year from local schools in Grand Rapids that came to
the games and we started kind of started jelling together. They kind of took me around
town, you know. 16:13
Interviewer: “You mentioned a chaperone, now I know what it is, but for the
record, what was the chaperone?”
6
�Dolly Hunter was out chaperone, she was a real neat lady, I mean she was like a
surrogate mother for one thing, and she also made sure that we represented the league
well in our dress, our actions and our voice, how we talked. 16:41
Interviewer: “Did you have clothing requirements, because you made mention
earlier that you felt comfortable in blue jeans and a t-shirt, were you allowed to go
out in public that way?”
No. If you were not around the ballpark, you could because nobody knew who you were,
but if you were, say for instance, an example would be if we were traveling, we traveled
by leased station wagons, Orson Coe leased them to us, if you had to stop to go to the
restroom and you were wearing shorts, you had to have a wrap around skirt or something
to put on to go out of the van or the station wagon to go to the bathroom. You couldn’t
be seen smoking in public, but you had to be dressed like a lady. You know the same
thing, if you came out of—after a game and you came out of the clubhouse, then you
better have a skirt and blouse on. You didn’t come out of there in slacks or blue jeans.
17:47
Interviewer: “What happened if you did?”
You probably would have been suspended from the games or something.
Interviewer: “So, there were penalties, and that was made clear to you?”
Yes, and how strict the penalty was—we can jump back to the—in the tryout camp we
had, there was one young lady from Wisconsin was super good, she would have made a
team anyplace, but she broke the rules, she went out on the fire escape and had a cigarette
and the next day she was on the bus home. 18:18 The rules were very strict.
Interviewer: “Did you have to go through—because I know that, in the research
that I have done, that you had a kind of a charm school?”
No, that was gone by the time I came.
Interviewer: “But, they did instruct you in terms of your behavior and made it
clear that you had to dress a certain way and you couldn’t smoke and all those sort
of things?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Let’s go right to your first day, your first actual game, do you
remember whom it was against?”
I think it was Kalamazoo.
Interviewer: “What was that experience like? You got to the ballpark, you say you
walked there, you got there—“
7
�Well, the first game, my coach and mom were still here so, I got a ride with them and
they got to see the first game I played in. We went to the park, which was South Field,
and got dressed in the clubhouse and the manager said, “I’m going to put you in the
lineup tonight, your mom and coach are here and I’m going to put you in the lineup”. I
played right field so, I honestly don’t remember if I got a hit or not. 19:34
Interviewer: “But, you must have been excited, you coach was out there and your
mom was out there and it was your first professional—you’re getting played to play
baseball?”
Yes, yes, it was exciting. A dream like you never thought was going to happen.
Interviewer: “What was the next game like? It doesn’t have to be the very next
one, but early on as you’re starting to play the first few times. You played in
seasons right?”
Yes, we played every night of the week and double headers on Sunday and at that time
there were only five teams and you would have an open day once in a while. As I got
more comfortable with the league and with the team, I dealt and I did pretty well. I don’t
know if I’m jumping ahead of your story, but I batted 223, I had three home runs for a
rookie, I don’t remember how many runs batted in or anything like that, but it seems like
it was seven I’m not exactly sure, but I felt a little more comfortable of getting to the
plate, of playing positions, mainly I was a utility outfielder and I usually played either
right or left. 20:54
Interviewer: “How good were the other teams?”
Very good, it always seemed like when we went against Fort Wayne it was a chore
because they had good players and Rockford was the same thing.
Interviewer: “That’s the “Rockford Peaches”?”
Right.
Interviewer: “They were probably the most famous.”
Right, but Fort Wayne had some real good hitters and they had some good pitchers too.
So, it was—they were all, I think, evenly balanced, so the games were good.
Interviewer: “What kind of crowds were you drawing?”
When I first got there, in the first part of the season, the crowds were really not good. I
mean—I’m guessing maybe a thousand people some times—it depends who you were
playing, but I do remember towards the end of the season, standing in the outfield in
Rockford and counting a hundred and twenty five in the stands. So, you knew something
was going on, but you didn’t know what. 21:54
8
�Interviewer: “What was the reaction of the crowds, from your own personal
perspective, not what you have read about, but from your personal perspective,
what was the reaction of the crowds to your team and the teams that you were
playing? They came there to see women’s baseball, were there hecklers? Were
people laughing?”
No, by the time that I got there, they were behind the teams, I mean they were shouting
for them, there were certain players that they were really shouting for and it was neat.
There was no heckling, no carrying on or anything like that and the kids would come
there and they would want you to sign their arm or a baseball or something so, it was
neat. 22:39
Interviewer: “Were there a lot of younger kids?”
Yes there was and there were a lot of people who would follow, if we were playing say
Kalamazoo, or maybe South Bend or any of those, they would follow the team and be
right there when we played that night.
Interviewer: “How far did you have to travel to play games? Were you basically
within a certain tri-state area?”
Midwest, just the Midwest area and I think the furthest one that I traveled to, when I was
playing, was Rockford, Illinois. We had South Bend, Rockford, Illinois, Kalamazoo,
Grand Rapids and Fort Wayne, at that time, that were still in the leagues. 23:27
Interviewer: “Did you get a chance, when you traveled to other towns, did you get a
chance so socialize with the other teams or go out and see what the town looked like,
or were you pretty much driven there, play a game, go to your hotel and come back
home?”
It all depends if we got there late at night. You might be bushed, so you want to go to
bed and didn’t feel like doing anything. I liked to get out and walk around the towns and
back then you could walk around the towns. I did meet different people there and they
weren’t the ball players, it was usually local people. 24:03
Interviewer: “Did you let them know you were a baseball player?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “And what was their reaction?”
Kind of surprised and yet some were—“Oh yeah, we know about the ball team here in
town.” It was just nice to meet and talk to the local folks.
Interviewer: ‘Was there much media coverage, from your experience playing the
games, did you see cameras, did you see people with movie cameras, Movietone
news for example was the thing of the day, you would go to the movies and there
9
�would be Movietone News and I’ve seen of course, a lot of this film footage of yours,
“There’s the diamond gals, can you hit the ball?” A kind of condescending kind of
attitude, did you ever see any of the media there?”
I never saw any.
Interviewer: “Were you interviewed by the newspapers at that time?”
Yes. Quite a few articles were written up in the newspapers and then radio—went on
radio different times. Probably three times I was interviewed in the Upper Peninsula at
the radio stations there and the local papers up there, plus the local papers here. 25:10
Interviewer: “What were some of your memorable games?”
I guess the one that really sticks out in my mind is when we were playing Fort Wayne
and I was playing center field at that time and one of the Foss girls, actually all of the
Foss girls were really big farm girls and when they hit that ball you might as well stand
next to the fence because it was going to go out. This one she hit one to the center field,
actually the right center, and I remember going up the wall to get it and saved a home
run. 25:42 That to me stood out in my career.
Interviewer: “did you get a big reaction from the crowd?”
Oh yes, It was oohs and ahs, and she didn’t get the home run.
Interviewer: “Your time out in the outfield you spent of course, fly balls are coming
out there, you’ve got balls that hit out into there. What were the most difficult ones
to field? Pop ups are obviously easy to catch, what were some of the ones that you
found—you were saying to yourself—oh, oh, there’s one of those coming at me?”
Well, sometimes it would be if it was like a line drive that missed the infield, got by the
infield, that was—it hits the ground and you don’t know where it’s going to go so, you’re
trying to out judge the ball. That would be the ones or the ones that you would lose in the
sun. 26:41
Interviewer: “Now you had a good arm so, from the outfield you could actually hit
home plate?”
I could hit home plate or I could hit it on a bounce, depending on the distance.
Interviewer: “You had mentioned earlier, since you were the rookie, there was this
sense the pros a little bit reluctant to be involved with you because you were there to
take their job or they just weren’t friendly, did that change at all during the course
of your time with the “Chicks”?”
10
�I think it changed after the league folded. I became good friends with some of the old
timers, formers and I think it has you know, it has changed somewhat now that we come
together as a group and the group is getting smaller, unfortunately and with our reunions
that we have every year, you got to know the other players a little bit better, because
you’re in the—for a week-end you’re in a hotel someplace, and you’re getting together at
mealtime and just sitting around talking. You get to know them a little bit better and I
think after the league folded, I think, at least myself, I got to know the players better.
28:04
Interviewer: “Did you actually get to talk to that Foss girl that hit that, what she
was a home run, and you caught it?”
Oh, I’m sure I did, but I don’t remember.
Interviewer: “What was your coach like?”
He was a good coach, yes. Being my first year I learned a lot from him.
Interviewer: “You know the movie, the Tom Hanks movie, the Penny Marshall
movie and I know it was an exaggeration, I know it was a movie, there was a sense
of a male coach having to coach female baseball players. Did you feel anything like
that with your coach? What was his background for example?” 28:43
He played for the Cubs, he was a shortstop for the Cubs and I didn’t feel anything like
what they portrayed in the movie, like Tom Hanks. You know, he would scream at us
once in a while, but he probably had a right to, but I never saw him go through the
shenanigans like Tom Hanks did. 29:12
Interviewer: “At the conclusion of a baseball game, at least when I was playing
baseball in little league, each of the teams would line up and you would shake their
hand, did that same thing happen to you?”
The same thing, yes.
Interviewer: “So you got a chance to see eye to eye, some of the people you played
and were up against? But again, there was no socializing afterwards though?”
They didn’t encourage socializing and going out afterwards. That again, was against the
rules. 29:48
Interviewer: “Did you ever break any of those rules?”
No, I don’t recall ever doing that.
Interviewer: “So you guys never went out for a beer party or anything like that?”
No, I’m not a beer party person.
Interviewer: “How many seasons did you play?”
The last year.
11
�Interviewer: “And that was how many months?”
It was May through September.
Interviewer: “So, now you’re getting towards the end of September, what were you
told in terms of, the season is over with and since 1943 there has been a new season
and a new season, were you told that there was going to be a new season?”
No, we had no idea that the league was going to fold other than what I said about
Rockford, less fans in the stands, there were just different things that were kind of going
on, but nobody told us anything. In December we got a letter stating that the league had
folded and there would be no more baseball for women. 30:52
Interviewer: “What were—before we get to that letter, it’s September, the season is
now over with, what were you planning to do? Go home?”
Well, I had already gone home. We were playing in the tournaments at the end of the
season and we were playing against Fort Wayne and Fort Wayne loaded their lineup. We
played one game against them and we had to play another game and Woody didn’t like it
when he found out they were stacking the line up and he pulled us out and he brought us
home, so we walked out on the tournament, so I packed up and I went back home to the
Upper Peninsula, got a job with the idea that I would be back playing ball for somebody
until I got that letter in December. 31:51
Interviewer: “What was your reaction?”
Broken hearted, I was thinking, “One year and the dream bubble’s broken so, where do
you go from there”.
Interviewer: “Were you, and I realize that you were very young, were you
anticipating a career, a full blown career as a professional baseball player?”
I guess I just thought I would play as long as—I hoped the league would be there a long
time so I guess the idea was yes, I did have that dream. 32:33
Interviewer: “Did you have alternative plans?”
No, no.
Interviewer: “At seventeen you very rarely do. So, you’re thinking that you’re
going to be playing professional baseball for the conceivable future, into you
twenties or whatever you can, and then you get the letter telling you it is over
completely. Did you ever try to find out why or what happened, or did you just
accept that it was over with?”
Well I did, this one young lady that I was good friends with in Grand Rapids, her father
was on the board and so through her I did find out the league just didn’t have any
financing. 33:10 They couldn’t afford to pay the salaries anymore so therefore, they
12
�disbanded, again the men came back from being in the war, television, people were
buying television sets and watching that instead of coming out to the ball games, and the
gas was not rationed anymore. That was another issue that we had, that it was rationed
and you only got so many gallons and so, people were getting out and doing other things
instead of going to the ball parks. And so, it just—the era had died, which is unfortunate
it happened. 33:50
Interviewer: “What did you end up doing then as a job, you’re only eighteen years
old or something, what did you decide to do for a living?”
Well, when I went back to the Upper Peninsula, I got a job in a restaurant and I decided I
wasn’t going to do that the rest of my life. So, I came back to Grand Rapids and again
through this friend and her family, I got a job at Keeler Brass and I worked there for
probably three or four months and I was allergic to the oil on the drill presses, and one of
the girls that I was playing softball with, here in Grand Rapids, said, “We got some
openings at the telephone company”, and I said, “Well, I don’t want to be a telephone
operator”, and she said, “No, you don’t have to be—I work in the office and connect the
wires in there that supply dial tone and that’s the kind of work I do”, and she said I
should go and apply so, I went down and applied and the next day I’m working at the
telephone company. 34:49 I worked there for thirty four and a half years and I retired
from there.
Interviewer: “You mentioned softball so, you went right back into playing again?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “This time for a Grand Rapids area team?”
I played for Grand Rapids Bissell and I played for Michigan Bell. I coached both teams,
I coached and played softball for fifty-two years and I played a lot of my softball in
Zeeland, Michigan, the Zeeland league out there. 35:25
Interviewer: “So, baseball still, even though you couldn’t play professional
baseball, it’s still a major part of your life.”
It is, yes.
Interviewer: “What was the appeal?”
I don’t know.
Interviewer: “I know this is a funny question, but to devote your life to a particular
sport—I understand that you’re athletic and you enjoy athletics and all, but what is
it about baseball?” 35:49
I don’t know, just the sport. You know it’s funny because the class prophesy, you know
they write it up in the year book, I was supposed to be playing basketball for the
“Redheads” out west and I never played basketball in my life, but my dad was an umpire
for baseball and we went around every Saturday afternoon where he was umpiring and he
13
�actually coached baseball teams, the men’s baseball teams. I had two uncles that were
pitchers so, it’s in the family you know, and my siblings are the same way, they have all
played in the sport. I love working with young kids when it comes to softball and I was
varsity softball coach for Muskegon Catholic Central for two years and I don’t know, it’s
just there. 36:40
Interviewer: “I think you answered it. How do you think your experience, even
though it was very short, how did that experience change your life, or did it change
your life or have some kind of an effect on your life? You obviously went back into
baseball again and you‘ve tried to instill in young people your love for the game, but
that one season, did it have any effect on you in terms of your life?”
Well, probably coming from a small community, it probably allowed me to reach out and
broaden my circle of friends. 37:24
Interviewer: “So, being from a smaller community, you went out into the world so
to speak. Were you very shy as a child?”
No.
Interviewer: “So, you didn’t have any problem getting into that?”
No.
Interviewer: “What do you say to young girls today about your experience? I
imagine a lot of these girls playing ball may not even know—I’m amazed at the
number of college students that I talk to that had no idea there was women’s
professional baseball. Do you find that there’s—the younger people you talk to, are
they aware of what you did and the fact that there was a professional league?”
A lot of them are not. I go around with a friend of mine who played pro ball with
Kalamazoo, we go around and talk to schools and quite often the teacher will have them
watch the movie, “A League of Their Own”, so they can ask us questions and they’re in
awe as much as their parent because their parents haven’t seen it and they didn’t know
there was women’s baseball. So, there are still people out there who are not aware that
we’re even around. People say, “Why didn’t you ever talk about it before?” But, nobody
listened because they thought we were playing softball. 38:53
Interviewer: “Well, The Library of Congress is interested so, as of this particular
interview and the ones we’re going to do with your fellow ball players, I think it’s an
important part of American history and I am very, very pleased that we got a
chance to sit down and talk. 39:10 I have a couple more questions for you though,
This is kind of a difficult one to answer because it’s going to require you to really
give some thought to—do you think the experience of women’s professional baseball
had an effect on the way that women today, and even right after you, the
opportunities that were opened up as people saw a woman get up and hit a home
run or to slide into a base and have a crowd go nuts, just like a men’s team. Do you
14
�think that the women’s professional baseball league had any affect on the
progression, if you will, of the opportunity for women?” 40:02
I think we did. I do believe that we opened the door for women in sports. We didn’t
know it at the time, but I honestly think that was the beginning.
Interviewer: ‘What about things like women having more opportunity to go beyond
being a nurse, being a teacher, being a homemaker, do you think the fact that they
saw baseball, and you maybe didn’t even think about it at the time, I’m asking you
to think about it now, the fact that people saw women doing something that a man
could do might of opened up some opportunities for—somebody might say the don’t
want to be a baseball player, maybe I’ll be a basketball player, or maybe I’ll be this
or I’ll be that?” 40:47
I believe it also opened the door for them, it allowed the young ladies follow their
dreams, whatever their dream was.
Interviewer: “I couldn’t have asked for a better ending right there. That’s just
wonderful, just wonderful. Are there any other things that you can think of that
you would like to say—something that happened in a game or just a commentary
that you have before we close?”
I just thank god that I had the ability and the opportunity to play professional baseball.
Interviewer: “Rosemary, it’s been a real delight, thank you so much.” 41:26
Thank you.
15
�16
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
Rights
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<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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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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/.
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RHC-58_RStevenson
Title
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Stevenson, Rosemary (Interview transcript and video), 2008
Creator
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Stevenson, Rosemary
Description
An account of the resource
Rosemary Stevenson was born on July 2, 1936 in Stalwart in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Growing up she loved to play baseball with the neighborhood kids. Before entering the All American Girls Professional Baseball League she played for the Sault Lockettes. She first heard about the All American Girls from a baseball scouting book and then tried out in Battle Creek in summer 1954. After tryouts she signed with the Grand Rapids Chicks and played both left and right field. One of her career highlights during the 1954 season was saving a home run against Fort Wayne Daisies.
Contributor
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Boring, Frank (Interviewer)
Publisher
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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
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
2008-06-10
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
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bd0f453c3a40866bec3cf03c51eeafff.m4v
3812f027512cfff457e7406e59d022bb
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a3231b8061e3eadca4e02ed2cc105680.pdf
1fa05fc89baa431e119c9a2c0f5900d5
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
NORMA DEARFIELD, Second Base
Women in Baseball
Born: 1928 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania
Resides: White Oak, Pennsylvania
Interviewed by: James Smither, PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 7, 2010,
Detroit, MI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, October 13, 2010
Interviewer: “Can you start by giving us a little bit of background on yourself? To
begin with, where and when were you born?”
I was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania to Mr. And Mrs. James Whitney. There were
five of us in our family and I was the second oldest.
Interviewer: “In what year were you born?”
I was born in 1928.
Interviewer: “What did your family do for a living then?”
Dad worked on the railroad and my mother stayed at home and was a homemaker and
took care of all of us. 1:34
Interviewer: “Now with the railroad, was your father able to keep his job then
during the depression?”
He did keep his job, but he was on what they called the extra board and he went out when
they called him and he was one of his family members that, of the men, that still really
kept their job and worked. They shared with each other, food that they had gotten from
some of the places that gave out certain foods, so they shared with each other and made it
through. 2:08
Interviewer: “How did you get involved in sports?”
1
�Well, when I was very young I always had a tennis ball, always, and I was throwing it
into the house or anywhere and catching it. I don’t know, I just liked playing ball and the
Christmas when I was about twelve years old, I asked for a baseball glove and my mother
told me that girls don’t get baseball gloves and I said, “then I don’t want anything for
Christmas, if I can’t have a glove, I don’t want anything”, so needless to say, I did have
this glove and it was the same glove I played--my dad bought me a good glove at the time
which surprised me, but it was the same glove that I still have today ad that I played in
the league with. We didn’t have organized sports at that time in our city, so we just
made up our own teams and played other cities next to us. 3:17 We played each other
and my dad was out coach and I just played until I was probably eighteen or so and after
high school I just got a job and I was working and I saw a little piece in the paper, just a
little tiny article, for tryouts in McKeesport, Pennsylvania for the All American Girls
Professional Baseball League. Well, I never had heard about it, I didn’t know anything
about it, so I called the girls on our team and I asked them, “let’s go out and see what this
is all about”, so when we got there seventy-five to a hundred girls were there from Ohio,
West Virginia and different places, so we got out there and we had to bat, field, infield,
outfield, slide into base, just everything they wanted us to do we had to do, so when it
was over they just said that they would send us a letter saying whether we made it or not.
4:30 I had gotten a letter to South Bend, myself and another girl, so then my dad and my
mother knew nothing about this league and they didn’t know if they wanted me to go by
myself, so my dad said, “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay for a few days to find out what this
is all about”. So, being that he worked on a railroad we had a pass and off we went to
Chicago to go on the train. He had a sister that lived in Gary, Indiana, so he stayed with
2
�her you know, and would come back where we were on the field and stayed with me for
three days and talked with whoever he had to talk with and felt comfortable leaving.
5:20 Then I had to tryout there. Davie Bancroft was the one that was doing it the day
that I was trying out, was coaching us. I can remember we had to go out on a field at the
position that we played and I had never had a baseball hit to me, I had softballs and the
field was shorter and the balls were bigger, so the first time I fielded the ball, I did field it
and I turned my head a little and he pointed the bat at me and said, “if you want to play in
this league you can break your nose or knock your teeth out, but don’t turn your head”.
6:13 Now I’m more nervous and I thought I better do what I know that I can do, so I did,
so then I had to do everything that they expected of us to do you know and then when
that time was over eventually, I was told that I was going to stay and I was put on the
team.
Interviewer: “So when you got to South Bend and you were doing the tryout, were
there a lot of other girls trying out at the same time or just you?”
Oh yeah, there were many of them, I don’t know how many, but there were many of them
all trying out.
Interviewer: “Did you have any sense of where they were from or how far they had
come to do this?”
Not really, at the time I didn’t know them and I really didn’t know anybody, I was just—I
felt so alone, but you make good friends with them real fast and most of them were
from—a lot of them that I was friends with were from the states around here. 7:13
Interviewer: “But basically you were just going on with your life in Pennsylvania,
what kind of a job did you have when you were there?”
3
�After school I got a job at the J.C. Murphy Co. warehouse and I worked there just filling
orders for the stores and things.
Interviewer: “The league that you were playing in, was it a women’s league or a
girls league? What was that?”
Back home? It was girls they were all girls.
Interviewer: “Did you have people actually come to watch the games or did you
just go and play?”
Oh yeah, the local people, we had not a lot, but they knew when we were playing and
they gathered around. We went to different cities close to us and played other teams
because we had to organize our own games ahead of time and schedule the women that
played. 8:16 We played from the time I started at sixteen I guess until I was called to go
to this league.
Interviewer: “What year was it that you joined the league?”
1949
Interviewer: “So now you have gotten the call and you tried out. Probably most of
those girls trying out at South Bend didn’t make the team, they had a lot of them.”
A lot of them didn’t I guess.
Interviewer: “Did they tell you right there whether you made the team or not?”
Yes, at the end of the few days that I was there. That’s when they told us if we were
placed or not and everyday we tried out and had to do something different and different
things you know.
Interviewer: “Could you hit as well as field?”
4
�I did pretty good, I had a couple triples, but I never had a home run. I was a fast runner
and I could steal bases. I batted second all the time and most of the time if I’d gone on
from hitting I knew I was going to get to second or third. 9:22
Interviewer: “I’m going to go back here. You signed up with the South Bend club
at the start of the season or was the season already going?”
At the start and I left in, I think it was May, and I didn’t come home until September. I
stayed right there the whole time.
Interviewer: “Did they have any kind of spring training before the games started or
did you just start playing games?”
Well, we had some spring training and that’s—I can’t remember what field we tried out
at, but I was over in South Bend for spring training before we started.
Interviewer: “So, they were doing their training just right there. They weren’t off
in some other location that year?”
Right
Interviewer: “When you joined the team that year, were most of the players
veteran players who had been there for a while or did they have a lot of new ones?”
10:16
Most of them were veteran players who had been there over the years, but that was
during spring training and then I was put on the touring team which were all new players.
We toured the country, more or less, to keep baseball alive.
Interviewer: “The league had two touring teams didn’t they and they would travel
around together and play each other?”
Yes, the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies.
5
�Interviewer: “Which one were you on?”
The Chicago Colleens
Interviewer: The Chicago Colleens, all right, they were all basically newer or
younger players who were doing this?”
Some were—we had one or two that were fifteen or sixteen and at that time I was
eighteen, nineteen.
Interviewer: “If it was 1949, probably twenty, twenty one. So, you were a little bit
older then?” 11:19
Older than some of them, but a lot were around my age or even older.
Interviewer: “Do you remember where you went, some of the places or states you
went to?”
We were in like thirty-eight states. We went through the Midwest and out as far as
Texas, Oklahoma, all in through some of the western states, South Carolina and Georgia,
almost all of them. I have little pennants from every state and I had one wall filled with
every city that we played in because we played in several cities in one state when we
would get there. We traveled all night.
Interviewer: “How were you getting around?”
By bus, it was like a school bus and not a very comfortable one, but we would travel
short distances some of the time and sometimes as long as two or three hundred miles to
the next city. 12:21
Interviewer: “All right now, what kind of reception did you get in the towns that
you played in?”
6
�Oh, a lot, there were a lot of people and they were very receptive to us. They had a lot—
I’m trying to think, several times we had several thousand people there for the games.
Interviewer: “Are there any particular places you went that stand out in your mind
and you went to a lot?”
Not too many because we really didn’t have time to do a lot of sightseeing or anything
like that, but we had some time during the day, but most of the time it was just play ball,
take the bus to the next town, go to bed because you didn’t sleep good because you
traveled all night and then you had to get to the Laundromat to wash the clothes that you
had. You only had a little small suitcase and you weren’t allowed to take much of
anything. 13:32
Interviewer: “This version of the league, or this part of it, how much of the sort of
rules and regulations on dress or conduct or things like that, how much of that
applied to you?”
About the same as what was in the league. We were not allowed to wear shorts or slacks
on the street. We had to have skirts on. We could change in the bus, just pull them up
and take the shorts off and put a skirt on to go out. When I was in spring training I had to
go to charm school to learn how to sit and conduct yourself sitting, walking, drinking
coffee and things like that. 14:28
Interviewer: “Was this new to you or just new to some of the other girls, having
particular rules like that to follow?
No, pretty much at home we had to “yes ma’am”, “no ma’am”, we didn’t get up from the
table unless we asked to be excused and I still did that with my kids today, so it was easy
to do.
7
�Interviewer: “Did they have rules about socializing or anything else like that? If
you were riding around on the bus all the time you didn’t need to worry about it.”
We didn’t have time to—like the girls in the league, they had more time to go out in the
evening, in the daytime rather and socialize, but we didn’t have very much time to
socialize. We were busy just playing ball. Every night we played a game including
Sunday and sometimes two on Sunday. 15:24
Interviewer: “What sort of people did you have in your audience, who would come
to watch these games?”
There were children and all sorts of people that were with them. A couple of servicemen,
you would see them in the crowd, but most of them were just families and people that
wanted to come and watch because they advertised ahead of time, so they knew. They
had our pictures in store windows and different things before we got there. 16:32
Interviewer: “Now, when you came into a town, did they ever do anything for you
or any promotional events or did you have to show up places for different things?”
Not too much, not too much because like I said, we were—by the time we would come in
most of us would try to get an hour or two of sleep because you had to try to sleep on the
bus sitting up on the straight seat. We had some free time that we could walk down the
street and look things a little bit over, but not too much, it was mostly all-Interviewer: “Alright now, you were playing in skirts right?”
Right
Interviewer: “You had these skirts etc. and you were a runner and a base stealer, so
did you have problems with “Strawberries” and all that?”
Yes I did, several times on the side from sliding, stove fingers. 17:30
8
�Interviewer: “ You’re playing on whatever playing field is available too, so were
some of them in not so good shape?”
Some of them were not real smooth, but we managed and we played on them.
Interviewer: “Did the group of you traveling together, did you kind of make a good
set of friends there, being together with these women all the time?”
Oh yeah, even though we were two teams, we were all very close and we still are today.
Interviewer: “Did you play the full season?”
Yeah, I played every game except toward the end of the season I got hit in the eye with
an elbow, actually my manager’s elbow, and I had double vision for two weeks, so I
didn’t play. Then I went back on and I played every game, so after that I played, which
resulted in an eye injury later and it stopped my playing ball. 18:37
Interviewer: “How did you get a manager’s elbow in your eye?”
We were—a bunch of us kind of fooling around and it just swung around or something, I
think it was his elbow or something and so that—that’s the only time I didn’t play.
Interviewer: “But then you did not come back for the next season?”
Well, what happened was between the two seasons I went back to work at Murphy
company, at my job, and my sister worked there also, so I was coming home, got off the
bus and was walking down the street to home and I got terrific pain in my eye and I
grabbed it, that same eye that I had—it was like a very sharp pain, so I just pulled my
eyelid down because I thought maybe I got something in my eye and I said, ok,
everything’s ok”, and we went on until I got in the house. Shortly after I thought, “I can’t
see out of this eye”, so I would hold my good eye and I’d look at my sister of my mother
or my dad and I said, “daddy, I can’t see too much out of this eye, and I had a sharp pain
9
�in it. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I can’t see very good”. 20:02 The next day he
took me to an eye doctor and he looked in it and said, “there’s something there, but I’m
not sure, I think you need to see a surgeon”, so he took me to an eye surgeon the next day
and he looked in my eye and he said, “you have a detached retina”. I didn’t know what a
detached retina was and I said, “What is that?” He said, “that means you’re going right
from here to the hospital”. I said, “oh no, I can’t” and I was dating my husband at that
time and he played “roller hockey’, so he had a game in Ohio and his birthday was
coming up and this was on a Wednesday that I was at the doctor and I said, “I can’t go,
I’ll come back on Monday”, and he said, “you’ll be operated on Friday, this is very
serious and we’ve got to get this taken care of”, so I was operated on Friday and I laid
thirty three days in a hospital with both eyes bandaged, they had to tell me when to open
my mouth and feed me, I couldn’t move, my bed was flat, my head was hurting, my dad
tried to get a little thin air pillow and they said absolutely not. 21:24 Back then you laid
all that time, so the last day I was ready to come home and the doctor sat on the bed
beside me, at the time I knew I was going to go to south Bend up in the league, so he
said, “your dad tells me that you play baseball?”, and I said, “yeah and I’m excited
because this year I’m going up in the league”, and he said, “I just hate to tell you this, but
you’re not going to be able to play baseball any more”, and I said, “oh yeah, I’m going to,
I have to you know”, and he said, “If you do you’ll have, if it detaches again, little or no
eyesight in that eye”. 22:18 Naturally my parents did not allow me to go and that kind
of ended my baseball career, which was very devastating. I really, really wanted to go
especially up in the lake you know, even though I enjoyed where I was, everything we
did. Then I had to wear those big pin point glasses with the little dot for about two
10
�months after and I was led around like a—my dad had to build a box so my plate would
sit level and I wasn’t allowed to—if I sneezed I had to hold my head. I had a whole list
of do’s and don’ts. So, I guess at that time, so now when I go for new glasses my doctor
said, “Norma, if you had that detached retina today you would be playing ball in two
weeks because they glue it”, so that was the end of my career, but I’ve come to all the
reunions and stayed in touch with all the girls. 23:16
Interviewer: “Did you stay in touch with the girls immediately after you left or did
you connect after the organization formed?”
That’s part of it, I mostly was with the girls that I knew from the two teams, but the more
I came to the reunions I got to know everybody, so we just talk to anybody that comes
past.
Interviewer: “Once you stopped having to wear pin point glasses and all that kind
of thing, did you go get married then or what did you do?”
Shortly after, well no, we dated for a couple of years and after that he and my dad came
out a couple places to see me while we were dating. We played in Springfield, Ohio and
one place in Pennsylvania and I just—yeah, we dated and then after three years of that we
ended up getting married and I had four children and now I have ten grandchildren and
three great grandsons. 24:30
Interviewer: “In this case your husband knew you played ball, and did your family
know that, did your friends know that because a lot of players just went off and
nobody knew they had ever done that?”
Well, I don’t think anybody like in the city or anything like that really knew. My family
knew, in fact when we were in Pennsylvania and Ohio a couple of them came there to see
11
�us play, but it wasn’t until after the movie that kind of—even myself I just went off, got
married, raised kids and I never worked after that and it just went on until I got a letter
one day to come to the film if I wanted to, so I went and I played in the movie. I played
second base at the end of the movie and other than that it was just life after baseball.
25:34
Interviewer: “Aside from getting an elbow in your eye, how do you think that
experience affected you? Did it change you at all or did you take anything with it?”
With what?
Interviewer: “The experience of playing in the league for that year.”
You mean—I’m not understanding.
Interviewer: “Well, basically the experience of having played professional baseball
for a year and going around with those teams and that kind of thing. Do you think
that had any kind of a lasting effect on you and did you learn something from it or
gain something from it that stayed with you?”
Well, you were just—when you were finished playing ball that was just the end of it. It
seemed like—it didn’t do anything after that and like I said, I got married shortly after
and just went on. It was just a lot of friendship that we made and I’ve kept them over the
years and I still keep in close contact with several of them mostly talking on the phone.
26:52
Interviewer: “It got sort of into the seventies and the eighties and you had things
like Title IX coming in and you actually had an effort to recruit girls into organized
sports and this kind of thing, did you pay much attention to that?”
12
�Yes, I coached girls softball and was on the board of directors of the McKeesport Board
Association which then was starting to be organized sports, but I coached girls softball
for several years until—I even had to take the children with me, not when they were little
I didn’t get involved, but when they started getting bigger I got involved in sports and
like I said, I did coach girls softball and then stayed involved for a while in this
organization with them trying to get other fields because they didn’t have a lot for girls,
back in our town it was all boys. 27:56 Where I tried out at our local park in
McKeesport the park had a lot of property there we worked hard trying to—we wanted
to have a whole complex like four fields maybe and concession stands and that and we
got a lot of people to donate equipment and everything, but you know they—it just
wouldn’t go, they just blocked us in different ways. I guess it was going to cost them a
lot of money, the city, but we had a lot of volunteers, but it didn’t work out. 28:43 then
baseball just—you know you got older and kind of—I mean I’m still very, I mean I never
miss a game from the Pirates not seeing them, and I mean I do see several and I’ll watch
them and they will say, “are you still watching them Pittsburgh Pirates?” and I say, “well,
yeah”, it’s the only team we have, so I have to root them on.
29:03
Interviewer: “ I’m afraid I’ve been a Cubs fan all my life, so I know something
about following futility.”
You know what, when my daughter—my son-in law is an oral surgeon and he did his
oral surgery residency down at Charleston South Carolina and I would go down there and
the only two teams I could see was the Cubs or the Atlanta Braves, so I was—I have
13
�relatives in Ohio and Indiana, so I’m kind of like a Cub fan also because that’s what I
watched when I was down there and that’s what they would watch. 29:54
Interviewer: “At least the Pirates have won a few world series in the past century,
so—to think back to the year you spent traveling around with the Colleens, are
there particular people who stand out in your memory? Are there particularly good
friends that you made and spent a lot of time with?”
There are several that I have stayed real close with, Toni Palermo, she was a shortstop, so
she and I had a combination there and there are several that I have kept in contact with at,
Jane Moffet, in fact I was up in New Jersey three weeks ago for—they were honoring her
for her life more or less, before baseball, during baseball and also her eightieth birthday
party, so there were about eight girls up there and they were the ones that were real close
here at reunions. I do, I stay in touch with a lot of them yet. 30:59
Interviewer: “Are there anything that happened, any particular moments in any of
those games that stand out in your mind?”
One game stands out in my memory, we were losing and two were on base and I got a
triple and won the game more or less, so you have memories like that and you kind of
clear the bases, but I wasn’t real big, so I wasn’t strong enough to get some of the home
runs, but I did have a couple triples, but it was mostly singles and doubles and things like
that. 31:42
Interviewer: “Were you a good defensive player?”
Yes, I felt I was
Interviewer: “So, you could turn a double play?”
Yes and Toni was really good at that too.
14
�Interviewer: “She’s a dynamic character, we talked to her last year some. All right,
anything you would like to add to the record here before we close out the
interview?”
No, just that the memories have lasted forever playing ball. Like I said, we lost the part
we weren’t together, but you never forgot those days and the friends even before the
movie we were still friends with some of them and we still are. It’s sad when every year
we’re losing so many of them now, but I still keep pretty active. I go to aerobics four
days a week, I most days for an hour, I don’t know how far I walk, but I walk for about
an hour and I do a lot of volunteer work taking older people to their doctors appointments
and helping kids do thing, so I stay pretty active. 33:05
Interviewer: “That’s pretty impressive and thank you very much for coming and
talking to us.”
Well, I enjoyed it.
:
15
�16
�
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
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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
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<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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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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/.
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RHC-58_NDearfield
Title
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Dearfield, Norma (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
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Dearfield, Norma
Description
An account of the resource
Norma Dearfield was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in 1928. She talked her parents into giving her a baseball glove for Christmas when she was twelve, and played on local girls' teams while in high school. She saw an ad in the newspaper for tryouts for the All Americans in the spring of 1949, and played all that summer for the Chicago Colleens on their barnstorming tour. She played second base, batted second and stole a lot of bases. An eye injury at the end of the season ended her professional career, but she later coached girls' softball teams in her home town.
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--Illinois
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
2010-08-05
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
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/edf6ea96ce3a3b8d27b8aa8486091ae9.m4v
516fe0549183d38c91a9a8edb4954cfb
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/278bfd3f3ddb49309938f0317af82d00.pdf
4a152365e58ab35fb6c00d81193c56f3
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans’ History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Mary Pratt
Length of Interview: (00:55:55)
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
MARY PRATT, Pitcher
Women in Baseball
Born: Bridgeport Connecticut 1918
Resides:
Interviewed by: Frank Boring, GVSU Veterans History Project, September 27, 2009,
Milwaukee, WI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, June 11, 2010
Interviewer: “If we can begin with your name and where and when were you
born?”
My name is Mary Pratt and I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1918.
Interviewer: “Shat was your early childhood like?”
My early childhood, I would say, would be up until the time that we left Connecticut and
came up to Massachusetts because my dad had been working down in Groton,
Connecticut on the submarines and all of a sudden the war was over, so he became a
Certified Public Accountant and then came the depression, so I have been able to be a
part, in my lifetime, of going through those eras. :56 In 1926, I believe, we all came
back to where my dad was an only child up in Quincy, Massachusetts and there I went
into junior high school.
Interviewer: “Before high school, when did you first start getting involved in
sports? Was it any kind of sports or was it baseball first?”
Well, it was anything that the boys would let me join in and so I would go over, this was
down in Connecticut, I would go over into the back yard of the boys across the way who
had that familiar peach basket and they would let me shoot. It’s a thing that I will never
regret and even though I’m looking for the girls to get more leadership roles, but if it
wasn’t for the boys who gave me the opportunity and mother never said no as long as she
knew where I was she let me go right along and it was the boys, see I grew up in an era
where there were few opportunities for girls especially where I lived on the east coast of
the U.S.A. 1:57
Interviewer: “What was the appeal of baseball early on, not later, but early on?
What was the appeal of baseball?”
1
�Well, it was just the fact that—when I look back I often wonder, “Why did I just all of a
sudden start pitching and playing with the boys?” I think I maybe just had a normal way
of throwing and maybe it just came to me naturally and as a result they let me play and
that continued right on until I’m getting out of college and still playing with the boys.
2:26
Interviewer: “Now you did graduate from high school?”
I graduated from North Quincy High School, the class of 1936.
Interviewer: “What happened after that? Where were you going after that?”
After that—I always had in my mind that I wanted to go on to college and I want to
become a physical educator. As I look back now, never realizing that I was going to be a
teacher and I didn’t really realize what were the hardships that I was going to follow
through because everything that I got in my undergraduate wasn’t going to be—it would
help me a little bit, but it wasn’t going to be the thing that enabled me then to teach that
whole vast area of physical education and in the end to be working in special needs. 3:14
Interviewer: “So, what university did you decide to go to?”
I went to Boston University and Sargent College, which is a unit in the university and it
was then over in Cambridge right next to the Harvard tennis courts. It wasn’t until the
fifties that the university took Sargent and we went on to the campus on Commonwealth
Avenue. I graduated from college in 1940 and was so fortunate that in 1941 I would get
a position for eleven hundred dollars, twenty-seven fifty a week, but I thought I had the
world with a fence around it. I had gotten a permanent job. 4:02
Interviewer: “While you were in college though, you started playing ball, is that
right?”
Well, I always remained active, but see I was still going through college where there was
not any collegiate competition for girls, but we did have a wide and a broad program
where I got introduced to lacrosse, to field hockey, to the things that I had never had in
high school because in high school it was just all intramurals. 4:34
Interviewer: “Now, did you play softball in college?”
Well, I played softball in college because in 1939 I got word that Walter Brown, who
owned the Boston Garden, wanted to do something in the summer and there had never
been much going on and all of a sudden I heard that he was going to sponsor a team and
then I walked to the Boston Garden and walked out to short stop and of course I was a
“lefty” and they said to me, “you know you can’t play short stop, you’re a lefty”, so I
went home and there was a gentleman who had just come off the last boat from Ireland
and there curling was quite similar to the way we pitched softball and I was always quite
2
�determined, so I went out in the back yard and practiced with my father and pitched in the
Boston Garden in 1939, and in 1940 it was an honor to think that Walter Brown took us
down to Madison Square Garden and we played in New York. 5:32
Interviewer: “What kind of a team was that? Was it a women’s team?”
It was a women’s team and it really was not a league. Some places like New York we
heard did have leagues between New York and Connecticut, but this was just something
that Mr. Brown did. He actually made up a schedule—well, we played in a lot of
different places, but we were not playing in a regular league. 5:58
Interviewer: “In college you knew you wanted to be in physical education, beyond
that did you think in terms of being a teacher in a high school? What were your
goals at that time?”
It really wasn’t, it was just a thought that I wanted to teach physical education. I never
really knew what teaching was all about and I had to learn the hard way, but I just found
that through physical education I was indirectly teaching a child how to take care of
themselves and I hope that I was an example for them and that I wasn’t just teaching
them a lot of theory. 6:41
Interviewer: “Now, first of all you were a left hander and you were playing
shortstop and then turned into a pitcher?”
I was a lefty, a long arm they call it. Yes, because they told me that the extra step that I
would have to take to get my body in position to throw over to first would be the step that
I would lose the runner, so I took to pitching, but prior to that I had always played with
the boys on the playgrounds and so I always threw overhand, so they understood what I
was doing when I was pitching, but of course when I went to get into the All American it
was softball style pitching. 7:28
Interviewer: “We’ll get to that. Now, The Boston Olympets?”
The Olympets, the Limpets was the Boston Garden semi-pro hockey team and they had
the Boston Olympets, which was us. I played for two seasons there, 1939 and 1940.
They took the diamond and put it on a diagonal and they put a post down by first base
and as a lefty you could quite readily hit into the stands, but that would only go for a
single, but to hit it to left field was a long, long distance at the garden. 8:09
Interviewer: “You did finally graduate and got a degree, what were you thinking
you were going to do next? What were your plans once you got your degree?”
I got my bachelors degree. 1940, I just wanted to be sure I could get a position and at the
beginning I didn’t my first year, but I had taken up officiating and that filled the void a
little tiny bit and I went to one of the private schools, an academy there in Braintree and I
did their after school program. In 1941 I signed on with Quincy and continued my
officiating for fifty years because see, there were no opportunities for me to coach. 8:50
3
�Interviewer: “1941, December, do you remember where you were on Pearl Harbor
day?”
Oh that’s right, not only did thoughts come back to what is it thirty years later I go out to
the Pacific and go to where I saw where the—the boat was still down there where it was
sunk.
Interviewer: “Do you remember Pearl Harbor Day and where you were?”
I remember it and I remember people were celebrating and I say the same thing, I was so
busy working and teaching school and being wrapped up in my officiating and then
starting to get in with my alumni associations that it never appeared to me that I was
losing out on everything, I was just constantly active, mostly in elementary and then
eventually they added the junior high and eventually I left the public schools and went on
to the colleges. 9:50
Interviewer: “We’re going to back up now, 1943, I think you got an invitation of
some kind?”
Oh, I got that nice call and Ralph Wheeler, he was the schoolboy editor for the Boston
Herald and he apparently had been contacted to see if there was anyone in this area who
had played a little organized ball. Dotty Green, who has now passed on, Dotty was from
Natick and she had played with me in the garden and she had already got out to Chicago,
so she must have mentioned my name and Ralph Wheeler asked me if I would want to go
out to Chicago and here I had been making twenty-seven fifty teaching school and I was
offered sixty dollars to play ball and to think that when I arrived in Chicago after getting
off the nights sleeper they could have sent me to South Band, they could have sent me to
Kenosha, they could have sent me to Racine and where did they send me, to Rockford
and I became a Rockford Peach in July of 1943. 11:02
Interviewer: “Now the Rockford Peaches, that was one of the original teams.”
One of the original teams and when they put me on the night sleeper and I got out to
Chicago I met Mr. Salls at the Merchandise Mart and Mr. Salls had been Mr. Wrigley’s
right hand man and he must have gotten me on another train and I landed at the 15th
Avenue stadium and I had become a Rockford Peach and sixty years later Penny
Marshall made a movie and it centered around the Rockford Peaches . 11:39
Interviewer: “I want you to go back to that day when you first walked on the field
as a Rockford Peach. Do you remember that?”
I was very humble because see, I had never really had much competition and who did I
run into? All the California girls and Canadians who couldn’t understand why I had
never had the opportunity to be in league competition, so when I got there in 1943 so
many outstanding girls from California and then in 1944 along come the Californians
who had also played a lot, so we on the east coast, I think, did well to be able to fit into
4
�that style of play and to think that I was able to play for Marty McManus who had
managed the Boston Red Sox and Johnny Gottselig who was a Chicago Blackhawk
hockey player. 12:37 It was the start of a wonderful experience that I just never will
forget.
Interviewer: “What were your first games like? Did you start pitching right
away?”
I was pitching—I’m short and I wasn’t that great a hitter, so I didn’t get off of outfield or
first base, but as I look back on it, I don’t know how it was that I wasn’t kind of scared ,
but it’s just that I’ve always had enough interest in sports to know that you don’t do
anything by yourself and maybe that attitude came across to some of the girls that I
played with because some of the girls that I played against, pitchers, they were
outstanding, they had brought so much experience into the league, but I’ve always
listened and I knew some day I might coach, so I listened to those coaches and we had
outstanding coaches and I learned so much from them. 13:30
Interviewer: “In 1943 they weren’t pitching overhand and you had been pitching
overhand, is that correct?”
Oh, when I was playing with the boys on the regular playground, that was overhand
pitching, but when I played in the garden, that was softball style.
Interviewer: “How was it in 1943? How were you pitching in 1943?”
In 1943, when I got out to Rockford, I pitched—as I look back there were variations of
“windmill” and “slingshot” and I think I was just doing the traditional “windmill” where
as I noticed the Canadian girls, they used that same old “figure eight”, but I just watched
because whether I knew that I was going to go into a profession that maybe had the sport.
I had to wait a long time because they wouldn’t let the girls coach, but it eventually came
and all that helped me as I went along and finally got some girls into ASA competition
and into a world tournament. 14:44
Interviewer: “Now, I realize looking back on it you can make lots of recognition of
what you accomplished, but while you were playing in 1943, did you have any idea
that this was going to go on another year or two years?”
No, because they signed us to contracts every year, so in 1943 as I said, I’d just got
assigned to Rockford, but I was new and as I look back at it I didn’t have what you would
call a good record, but I think the coaches always used to notice that I was really
interested and if they wanted someone to coach down on first, I would go. In 1944 I had
the opportunity to get out on time for spring training and in 1943 I didn’t. The season
had been going for about three or four weeks. In 1944 I had a chance to go out to spring
training where we all trained together and I found out that I was again going to be
assigned to Rockford. 15:44 A few weeks into the season, Mr. Wrigley, although I
never met him, but I heard of the various rules and regulations he made. We belonged to
5
�them, so if anything happened we were asked to go to another team and see, we were
playing a hundred and twenty-five games, so we carried four pitchers and when I was at
Rockford, all of a sudden I got word that I was being sent over to Kenosha because two
of their pitchers were hurt, but little did I know that I was going to go Kenosha and play
for Marty McManus, who had managed the Boston Red Sox and they played behind me
and that’s why I say, “you don’t do it by yourself”, and I won twenty-one games in 1944,
but I never had a good season after that. 16:31
Interviewer: “We’re jumping ahead here, so lets go back a little bit. Now, in the
early days, in 1943, there was more than just playing baseball, did you go through
the etiquette?”
Oh, we went—when Helena Rubenstein came in and we learned how to walk properly
and how to keep our hair nice. Many things weren’t popular then, but when I saw the
uniform—see I had just started to teach school, and the uniform was so much like the
uniform I wore when I was teaching. Four inches above the knee and just like in the
movie, it was the peach color and to think that I had the opportunity when I was at
Cooperstown to have Mr. Salls interview me, with some people down in New York, and
to hear him say, “Mr. Wrigley gave me a hundred thousand dollars to go around the
country to bring into his league girls that were ladies. I think that’s why we heard that we
were going to look like ladies, dress like ladies and act like ladies. 17:42 It made a great
hit with me because that’s the type of uniform that I was wearing. Now, they were four
inches above the knee, but as the years went on I noticed that they got a little shorter, but
it just reminded me how I had just started teaching and that I was going to be able to
combine this activity, that I had never had a chance to do because see—I came through
Sargent College when I then began to play lacrosse and I played against the British when
they would come over here and to think that’s become such a popular sport today, but it’s
just that I’ve been a part of being able to see the programs for the girls expand, but I’m
still looking for our girls to get the leadership roles, which I think they so deserve. 18:33
Interviewer: “I want to go into some of the details of how you were actually
recruited. Remember this is for the archives and we’re trying to get the exact
details. How were you actually recruited and then was there a contract that you
signed? How did you get your uniforms? Did they fit you? Walk us through that
process before you actually went out to play?”
As I said, we had played in the garden and Dottie Green, who was a catcher, a tall girl,
Dottie apparently had already gone out there and she said something that’s when I got the
call in school from Ralph Wheeler, but I had to wait until school finished because they
had started in May and I don’t know when I signed the contract. I must have signed it
before I left, but I’ve got it today with the sixty dollars right on it and I keep it along with
the rest of my memorabilia. 19:32 As soon as school got out they assigned me to a
sleeper and I went out on a night sleeper and I got out to the Merchandise Mart and Mr.
Salls, who was Mr. Wrigley’s right hand man--I never met Mr. Wrigley, he was the one
that met me and got me on another form of transportation and got me out to Rockford.
19:55 I know then that I must have signed the contract then because they made
6
�arrangements, they gave me my uniform. We had chaperones and she would take care of
our uniforms and she would give us our paycheck each week and then when we were on
the road we lived in nice hotels and they gave us two dollars and eighty-five cents, but we
would go to McDonald’s, which was then Alexander’s and I could get my cheeseburger
and my French fries and a coke for twenty-five cents. I could send my money home to
save, so in 1947 I drove my first brand new car out in 1947 to Rockford. 20:39 They
treated us just so well—the movie, some people were upset because they thought the
movie was going to maybe portray things not exactly the way it was, but they spoke to
Penny Marshall and she assured them. She said, “I’m not doing a documentary, I’m
doing a story about something that happened sixty years ago, so I’ll take a few liberties”,
which she did, but I could tell it never spoiled it because that movie continues to be
shown over and over again. And to think that I was just a small part of it and because of
the way they ran that league I say it and I really mean it, “there’s nothing today in 2009
that yet will equate to what Mr. Wrigley did when he got together with Branch Rickey
and decided that maybe it was the time to do something”. 21:37 The boys were going
off in the service and so when I went to Rockford of course, Camp Grant was right near
there and they use to come over and tell us that we were making better money than they
were making. As I look back, just a—I was just in the right place at the right time and to
think as I go and talk to the kiddo’s about my experience and let them know it’s the
friends that I made all over the country and that’s what sports is all about. 22:03
Baseball’s America, so they took to that game that we were playing.
Interviewer: “Did you actually have to go through a charm school? Tell us about
that, what was that like?”
Yes, we went to charm school because we all trained together for the two or three weeks
that we were there and every night we would have inter squad games and one night
Helena Rubenstein’s ladies came in. Sometimes I smile because I think they kind of
portrayed it almost the same way in the movie, but it was just a case to think that Mr.
Wrigley had it in his mind that we were going to dress like ladies and look like ladies and
of course that’s the thing that I—people always had the impression that if you loved
sports you were masculine and that use to break my heart because I was always so fussy
about making all my lady like things. The league was great and I’ve heard some
California girls and some of the Canadians sometime complain that they always played in
shorts, they never played in a skirt, but see, it fit into the philosophy that he had and the
only thing that was difficult with the lefty’s, we had to pin our skirt over so as you went
by you wouldn’t be hitting your skirt. 23:23 I will remember us walking with the books
on our heads and them talking about the mascara and they played it up in the movie and I
can tell people that it was true. They had the best intentions and yet the Midwest and the
California girls and the Canadians, they had competed. Not us in the east, but I still think
that the part that we see where one of the players thought that she wouldn’t play if she
was going to have to wear that uniform and in the movie he says, “well, you’ll either play
with that or you won’t play at all”. I thought it was so great that when I came home and I
had girls ask me if I would coach, this was outside of school, and I asked them, “would
you wear the same uniform, the type that we wore?” I said, “I don’t care if you don’t
slide”, because we would get strawberries because we just had little tights, but they went
7
�along with me, and my mother and I went down and we made those uniforms. In a world
tournament some of the girls from Japan happened to say to us when they saw us walking
out on the field, “what, you going to a dance?” 24:31 I thought, and I still feel that way,
girls must portray the image that we are young ladies and now as I see it advancing and
we see how skilled the girls are, six-two, six-four, when I go over to Harvard and I see
them playing BC, those girls can run like deer.
Interviewer: “Now, you mentioned that in your second time around you actually
did get a chance to go to spring training, but you missed out the first time. Once
again we’re trying to get this for the record because none of us were there, so tell us
about what happened during spring training? Give us a visual, what did you see?”
It portrayed a little bit like they portrayed in the movie, but we didn’t train there, we
trained in LaSalle and Peru in Indiana and what all would have been like the eight teams,
we all trained there like they depicted in the movie. 25:34 You really went through
spring training with the idea you didn’t know just exactly who you were going to get
assigned to and during the day there were all the skill drills and at night they would have
inter-squad games and after the inter-squad games, that’s when we would go in and they
came in from Chicago and showed us how to cross our legs and not to pile our dishes up
when we went out because—that’s one thing that I will remember, that we were looked
upon so highly by the fraternal organizations and there were a few girls that were a little
younger and they might have possibly with the Rotary Club and the Elks, want to get
there and pile their dishes, but I just thought it was so great to think that they thought of
all those extra things for us to do. 26:20 To be sure that we were in and night and gave
us an hour or so after the games and the chaperones were there to see that we did the right
things and I was never anyone who was too sociably inclined, so I wanted to carve my
scrapbooks and wanted to collect my articles, so when the games were over I would go
back up into my room, and we were on the road and I made those books that are all part
of my memorabilia today. 26:48
Interviewer: “Tell us about your chaperone, when you were with the Peaches.”
Oh yes, one of my chaperones was Marie Timm, a schoolteacher from Milwaukee, West
Allis, and she dressed just like we did. She wore the same uniform, but the next year
they went more like an airline hostess and they had the white coats with the red jackets
and after I went over to Kenosha I left Marie Timm, but I went and I had a new
chaperone who had met Marty McManus and that’s how she got the job with Marty. It
was then, when we were at Kenosha, that that opportunity came for us to go to Wrigley
Field to play for the service and four of the teams went into Wrigley Field and we were
the first people who played under the lights because they put all the portable lights up and
every time I recount all the experience I had, I think wasn’t it unique to have a thing run
so top notch and the fellows that would be at Camp Grant and it would be at the naval
station when we would be going down past the U.S. naval station going down to South
Bend. 28:04 To think that they kept everything so kind of high class and I think that’s
the reason why, coupled with the fact that Penny Marshal is so skilled, she had been able
8
�to make that movie and it is shown time and time again and I was just a small little part of
it. 28:23
Interviewer: “After the spring training you went through and all the teams were in
one place, did you already know what team you were playing on?”
No, after the end of spring training they announced where we were going. A little bit like
they depicted it in the movie, but there was no question as to what uniforms we were
going to wear. I never heard anybody say anything and I’ve got the pictures where we all
assigned and the big buses all came and off we went to our towns. We trained in
LaSalle/Peru, twin cities in Illinois. 29:04
Interviewer: “What was the typical season like? How many games did you play?
Were they daytime?”
A hundred and twenty-five games and I shouldn’t do it, but sometimes I look today and
see how the boys are treated well. They can’t pitch nine innings and to think that we had
our strawberries and we were playing every night, so we must have got a few aches and
pains, but I think everybody will tell you that we were having so much fun and it was
such a unique thing even though the California girls and the Canadians all came in with
experience. 29:38
Interviewer: “Now, in the very early days what were the fans like?”
Great, Olive Little from Canada loved olives and they would bring her big bottles. They
were very good to us and of course the fraternal organizations always had us in for the
noon luncheons they were having. Even at the end when we had our first reunion in
Chicago in 1982 I think it was 1982, we had some fans even coming then, who
remembered what we had done and now as we’ve grown into an organization and we’re
now in Milwaukee—the last time we were in Milwaukee they must have gotten
Johnson’s Wax to put up some money. They took us on side trips to Racine and to
Kenosha and to think that so many of the Racine people came in to see their players.
30:33 Racine had been fortunate enough to be able to maintain their players, so when the
league got up to the time where some of the teams were dropping out, Racine still had
about eight of their originals, but it was a little—kind of shady because, but they had that
loyalty with the Racine fans and to think that years later the fans came back and
remembered us. We started with reunions every two years, now they’re every year and to
think when they start to make—they were trying to see if perhaps Cooperstown would
look favorably upon us, not to be inducted, but to be—and to think that when Ted
Spencer saw the names of all the girls that had played here was this gym teacher that he
had had in grammar school and Ted has just recently retired, so every time I go up to
Cooperstown I think how Ted would say and some of the others, “you’re the one that
flunked him because he didn’t have his white sneakers”. 31:40 To think that we did get
recognized in 1988, didn’t get inducted and I think some women took it—I think they
thought we should have, but no it’s a mans organization and by doing things in a nice
positive way, which we did, and to think we now have a statue on the side lawn and the
9
�little display we had has been expanded to include the “Silver Bullets” that came along
after we had finished and Boston College and all those way back when, were playing a
little competitive softball. 32:17
Interviewer: “You were talking about the season then with the Peaches, but then
you moved on to Kenosha. Why or how did that happen?”
The Kenosha Comets, and that’s because we carried four pitchers and Helen Nichol, Fox
McKanda, one of the most outstanding, and Elise Harney, a girl from Illinois, they had
come up with some sore arms or something and so, we carried four pitchers and that’s
when I was told to go over there. In due time Harney and Nicky they were fine and we
carried on with four pitchers and one of the girls who is with me today at our second
reunion in Milwaukee, Rose Foldra. Rose, who had won a scholarship--they were
offering scholarships and Rose had won a scholarship, but somehow as things happen,
she met the right person, she got in his truck with him and out she went and to this day,
out to Carnation, Washington. 33:16 She only played the one year, but when the movie
came out she wrote me a letter and wondered if by any chance I remembered her because
we roomed together in Kenosha. To think the years have gone on and Rose today has
come to our reunion today in Milwaukee.
Interviewer: “Now, you said you roomed together, as a group then you would travel
by bus? How did you get from town to town?”
We went on the buses after our second year. The first two years we had our bags and if
you recall the four teams were all in a ninety mile radius of Chicago, so as I tell people
that when we were going through the streets of Chicago to catch the rapid transit to go to
South Bend we would all be singing, “Oh we hail from Illinois it’s just across the line,
we’re not too young, we’re not too old, in fact we’re in our prime, Oh we hit the ball
with might, in fielding we are fast, we are the Rockford ball club and we always dress in
class, so we never kick the gong and we’re always on our toes, not only in the ball park ,
but when we’re with our bows. Oh. We’re in bed by ten o’clock that is a dirty lie, we are
the Rockford ball club a model do or die”, and we’d be clapping and I always remember
the words. 34:35 It reminded me so much of my training when I was going to B.U.
because I had to go four months to camp to get a lot of the outside things and it’s a
wonderful life and as I look back, it’s the memories that I have and I can still remain
active enough to be able to follow through on so many places that invite me to come and
speak. 35:00 I stood in front of children , but I never stood in front of adults and to think
of the wonderful experience I’ve had and to be able to go to all these four hundred places
and be a part of Fan Fest.
Interviewer: “Let’s get again to the actual routines of a typical season let’s say, with
Kenosha. Before you traveled by bus?”
We were going by Inter-Urban and then we went by bus, so then we would drive on the
bus all night and then go into the town because most towns we went into, you stayed
there for three or four games. They didn’t like us going up to Lake Geneva and that to
10
�swim because they thought we should take care of ourselves. Many a time we had
workouts in the morning, especially when we were home, but it was conducted in such an
outstanding way and the fact that we were invited to the
elks and Kiwanis, I just thought it was—
Interviewer: “I want to get into the actual—so somebody that didn’t know anything
about your experience—you’re traveling by bus all night, you arrive in the city,
what happens?” 36:11
At five o’clock we would report—we would have been assigned to our hotel rooms,
because they all knew the rooms we were going to be in, and then we would head out at
five o’clock to have a batting practice and do infield and then we would play sometimes
double headers, but we most often played single games, but on Sundays we would play a
double header and especially in Racine. They would play in the afternoon because they
had an overhead structure like the little bit that was portrayed in the movie, but otherwise
we tried to play mostly the games at seven o’clock, so you wouldn’t be in the heat of the
sun. they divided the season in half and the winner of the first half played the winner of
the second and when I was in Kenosha we did happen to make the playoffs, but in the
first round they played a round robin and we lost out, but that’s alright because I could
call back to the school department to say that I’d be back on time because we were out.
37:13 We then started the reunions. A girl that had been a bat girl, and it had always
been her desire because I read things that someday she would be able to play, and it
ended up that she was the one to organize our first reunion in Chicago, which we began
to have every two years, but as girls passes on we have them just one year, but to think
that I would go to my first one in Chicago and there I would see Audrey Wagner, now a
Gynecologist and an Obstetrician. She had taken the money—she was from Bensenville
in Illinois and when we would go to South Bend you could just turn your head once and
you’d be through the little town, but she went on to medical school and when I saw her at
our first reunion she said, “yes, if I ever come to Boston Pratty, I’ll come and see you
because I fly my own airplane”, and that season, if she and her nurse didn’t get caught in
a wind pocket and got killed. Audrey Wagner, one of the most outstanding ball players.
38:19
Interviewer: “What would you say are some of the highlights of your time with the
original team, with Rockford?”
The highlights? I think the highlight would be what I did in 1944. I did win twenty-one
games and I did pitch a no hitter, but I still have to emphasize that you don’t do it by
yourself, your team played behind you. I’ve always felt that way and I think that’s why
when I went to Kenosha they readily accepted me, so it’s something, I can’t say it was in
my bringing up, but my love of sports let me realize, even when I went to teach, I can
teach a person to think, I’m not going to go out there and make the plays for you and I
think it’s that I was always just so wrapped up in how you do things and if you do things
the right way and if you think ahead of time and that’s what I try to get across when I go
to the schools. 39:18 It’s more than just winning games and having a good record. It’s
just the friendships that you’ve gained and the people that you’ve taught and now that
11
�I’m in my nineties I find that people that I had in school remember me. It’s very
rewarding although I wish I would have met the right fella and married, but I ended up an
old maid school teacher for forty eight years, but I taught at every level and then the last
twenty we were doing a lot as what is being done today to realize children, if their not
doing well academically there’s something wrong and we can’t be that authoritative
teacher that just says their going to---to find out that I worked physical education, motor
development, start to get that body going and it’s funny how that—you don’t become Phi
Beta Kappa, but you’re not flunking everything. 40:14 I think that’s what helped me so
much and I thought that last twenty years was great and today running into children who
are coming from disoriented families and to think, through the avenue of physical
education and where I don’t like to say it, sometimes the men are still just throwing out
the ball and I don’t think that’s what physical education is.
Interviewer: “I found something very interesting while I was doing some research
on your particular story and that is, all through this interview you talked about how
much you loved school and loved teaching, you loved school, but in 1946 your school
wouldn’t release you for spring training. What happened?” 40:59
I quit and I know my mother wouldn’t care, but I remember going to my principal and he
said to me, “Mary you wouldn’t drop your job”, so I said, “no, don’t you look up to
Bobby Doerr and Ted Williams?” I so admired the men—just the fact that they could
compete and so, I did, I asked for the time off and I believe it was 1945 and it ended up
that we didn’t get into the playoffs that year and I think the superintendent called my
mother and offered her the opportunity to ask me if I would want to come back. I can
remember my mother saying, “I know she would never come back unless you knew that
she was doing the right work”, so it was, I did go back, but in 1946 and 1947 I never gave
any thought of dropping my job then because I was twenty-two or twenty-three and I
thought they had deprived themselves of a lot of things to send me to college because
then it was four hundred and thirty-two dollars. 42:07 A hundred and forty four three
times a year and to think today forty one or forty two thousand, so they had a hard time,
but they stuck with me. My mother—they never went on to college, my father became a
Certified Public Accountant and all that, but it just—everything just worked out well, so
I’ve stayed very involved because of the all American. I just feel that’s part of what I
should do and I served two years, I’ve served two years on the board and because I got
Ken Burns, he decided he was going to do a documentary and these are the things that
amaze me. I’m just a little person from the east coast and the Californians and the
Canadians, they seemed to have more opportunities and it just show you that if you’re
doing the right thing how it ended up that Ken Burns asked us if we would take part and
the other day I turned on channel sixteen at home and all of a sudden I looked and I saw
this black and white film and it was Jackie Robinson. 43:16 Ken had decided he was
going to do his thing by innings and the era of Jackie Robinson and the All American he
was putting in the sixth inning and all of a sudden I looked because I had taped it myself
every Sunday and I bought the book, but I had never seen this and here is Dotty Green
and myself didn’t come out in color. I couldn’t believe it, I mean I looked so nice and we
were answering the questions and I thought, “I never would have thought all of this
would come, and someone will see me and “Mary I saw you on channel two”. To think
12
�he has always been doing all these different historic ones, but to think that we got
included in it and then to get on with Robin Roberts, it’s really been a wonderful life.
44:07
Interviewer: “I’m really curious and there’s something here we haven’t gotten to
yet. We haven’t gotten to something that I’m very curious about and that is that
with your love of school and you’re playing baseball, but there was a moment in
1946 when you had to make a decision. You had to make a choice and you even
went, in a sense, against the better wishes of your parents. Why? Why did you play
baseball instead of just saying, “well, I guess?” 44:35
Yeah, and well, I think my father saw in me what he didn’t see in my brother. We were
only thirteen months apart and my mother was fourteen when she left Kingston, Jamaica
to come to the states and to eventually meet my dad and then when they married to have
two children thirteen months apart. Whether she knew that I was doing the right thing—
you know, playing with the boys, she never said no, but as I look back, in her quiet way
and having come from a little bit of wealth down there in Kingston, Jamaica, her brother
was the Gores that did all the Gores cigars and all that, but she came on here after she go
tout of high school, Convent of Mercy she went to, so I think she was really overly
protective of me, she always mad my clothes and all that, but it’s amazing where, unless
she ever play Cricket, she was not adapted to sports, but she loved the Red Sox and at the
end she would go with me and go to all the games. 45:38 I always thought basketball
was my best sport, but I just took part in everything, but we never realize what our
parents have done until years later because see I taught at the end when I now just
recently was told there’s a hundred and fifty homeless children in Quincy and I can’t
believe it. My mother was there all the time for us. 46:00
Interviewer: “Once again I want to get back to this idea of the decision you made to
play baseball and actually quit school.”
Because I just thought it was so—I guess in my own way I thought that I might learn
something the might help me in coaching, but it seemed as though it was an opportunity I
would never have thought of and if I hadn’t played at the garden and Dottie Green, who
had already gotten out there and Maddy English, who’s now gone, she was from Evert
and she stayed at the all American longer than I did and she eventually came back and
finished up at B.U., but I have wondered that, it’s a good question when you ask it
because except to play catch with my father, you know, the boys would just ask—
somehow I think whether it’s because my mother, I still, I hope, acted like a lady and not
a roughian and that’s what keeps me going. When I talk to the kiddo’s to let them realize
what sports is all about. That it’s learning to get along with people and someone has to
win and someone has to lose. 47:16 I can get all these different stories and as long as
they know I take my ball cards and give them some ball cards and I’ve been to over six
hundred places and just recently a girl went to take an advanced degree at Syracuse and
she told me—she came to visit and saw some of my pictures and to think there is enough
interest that the other day she sent me her disc “Rosy at the Bat”, so I think we touch
lives in so many ways that we never think of and yet sometimes I get the feeling that
there are maybe some people my age where I am now living in a senior project, but not in
13
�assisted living. I gave my four-bedroom house to my nephew. 48:02 There are still
some people who would say, “that’s not something that a girl does”, and that’s why I stay
with it, to think that if we can get the girls coaching because the men tend to do a little
roughhouse because we are young ladies and to think that—I never met him, but that’s
what Mr. Wrigley was pushing for and that’s what was my background at Sargent.
Interviewer: “Now, you went on to play with Rockford again, right? 1946 to
1947?”
That’s why I think that they must have noticed—not to say that I had anything, but they
were then overhand pitching and it’s like little league. Those girls, when we couldn’t get
softball pitchers in 1943, 1944 and 1945 they started sidearm well, eventually it became
overhand and just like the boys at about forty feet and they throw in fast, but somehow
those girls that could throw hard and I don’t know why it was, it was only for the
summer, Rockford asked me to come back. 49:08 I don’t know, but there must have
been something in my attitude, or whatnot, that they thought that I was going to be an
addition to the club and I wasn’t going to get upset because some other people pitching
were maybe better than I, so I coached a lot, the coaches would coach on third, on first,
but I really—when I look back I think it was either something that came out of me
through my home that I was taught the right things and without them battering me, that I
did it and I think it came through. 49:47 When I was going to do my undergraduate
work, I never forgot that I was supposed to be a young lady and act like a lady.
Interviewer: “You also went to the U of M, the University of Michigan, the U of
M?”
No, the University of Michigan is what two of the girls—University of Michigan was one
of the girls when I went to Salem State.
Interviewer: “But didn’t you go to the U of M?” 50:12
No, I went—no, the University of Michigan, I’ve been out--Interviewer: “Where did you get your degree after that though?”
I stayed at B.U. and then I took the B.U. Harvard extension courses and I got fifty-two B
on my masters, but I was taking courses at U. Mass Boston and then I go into B.U.
because Sargent had now come on to the B.U. Campus.
Interviewer: “That was Mass, I’m sorry, I got the wrong M.”
I got my fifty-two year—I got my associate degree, but I didn’t go beyond to get my
doctorate because you had to be an administrator and that’s one thing I have regretted, I
never did get out of the trenches, but I have no regrets now. 51:02 I don’t think you do
anything better than working with children.
Interviewer: “1995 Boston Garden Hall of Fame. Tell us about that.”
Oh yeah, they not only were going to change the garden, they were doing some different
things, so they started to do a Hall of Fame and they had it—I don’t know where they had
it around, but the next thing I knew, I had been inducted into it, so I went in with Derek
14
�Sanderson I think, and I went in with one of the gentlemen who did maybe some of the
menial work around the garden and it was great because they had me come in and we
went up to those sky view seats where the company’s now all pay for the whole place,
and to think that I went down on the garden floor with Sanderson, and I forget who else
got honored and they got—I have a nice plaque and then as a follow up they started on
the very top floor opening up some of the exhibits of girls in basketball and whatnot and
as a result, school children started to come in and I volunteered to go in and take them
around on the—and see all the views of the upstairs of the—particularly hockey, but then
they took a tape of the closing of the Boston Garden and to think that I was there when
Woody Dumont and Bobby Bauer and Milt Schmidt were going off to fight for Canada
and that I was up there when I saw them go and I was there when Cunningham went his
two minute mile. 52:51 I just was so wrapped up in everything and I think a lot was my
father, he took me to a lot of those things, so it’s been a wonderful life.
Interviewer: “Do you want some water?”
No, I’m fine.
Interviewer: “Let’s wrap it up with—looking back you made several comments
about how this has had an effect on you, but personally, you personally, not in terms
of the whole league, how has playing in this league affected you personally?” 53:23
When you are talking this league you’re referring to the all American?
Interviewer: “Yes”
It has affected me to the point that I have—you know maybe I have accepted the way
they doing everything, but when I look back and I think that every bit of their interest was
to do the thing right by us. To have chaperones who would be there because see, in the
movie you see Tom Hanks in the locker room and I have to tell people sometimes
remember—Penny Marshall told us, she said, “I’m not doing a documentary, I’m doing a
story about something that happened years ago, so I’ll take a few liberties”, so when I go
I can tell people that Tom played a great part and I said we were told that he did it for that
reason because he was playing Jimmy Fox and the drinking took both of them, but to
think that I was part of that and combined with my background that I had at home and the
background of the wonderful teachers that I had when I look back at it now. 54:31 To
think of the background that I’ve got and to think that the highlight would be baseball and
that baseball is America and now I get asked—I’m going back to Bosox on Friday when I
go because two women’s groups that have been playing baseball are being honored and
I’m to go and sit at the table with them. 54:55 I just feel like I have something to offer
and they can see that I’ve taken care of myself and I I’ve made it to ninety and I’m on my
way to ninety one and to think that I can still go and talk in such a way that people think
I’m sincere. I answer the things that I get because I’m still getting—I do this Out and
About Project and they send me the blank of where they have been and I send them back
another blank, so I know that—besides some people who never send them, we are Out
and About and that’s how we’re preserving the legacy of the all American.
Interviewer: “Thank you so much.”
15
�Hope you got enough, so you can piece it together right because you ask nice questions.
Interviewer: “Thank you.”
16
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
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RHC-58
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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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/.
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RHC-58_MPratt
Title
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Pratt, Mary (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
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Pratt, Mary
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Pratt was born in 1918 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Throughout her early childhood and on through college she played baseball. Before joining the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, Pratt played hockey for two seasons with the Boston Olympets from 1939 to 1940. She got her start professionally in baseball with the Rockford Peaches in 1943. In 1944, she played for the Rockford Peaches and the Kenosha Comets and then in 1945 played just for the Kenosha Comets. From 1946 to 1947 she played for the Rockford Peaches. Throughout her professional career she played as a pitcher and saw how the rules in softball changed how the game was played. The highlights in her professional career were from her 1944 season when she won 21 games and pitched a no-hitter.
Contributor
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Boring, Frank (Interviewer)
Publisher
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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--Illinois
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Women
Language
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eng
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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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
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b7a66745ea215e0bc2736060a6b0bdd4.m4v
383bb850d6fc9dd58b65ac321c047f4c
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/04972d69a48528b42796da7289189efe.pdf
371474edf275f985a93aaeefc2b19f2e
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans’ History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Marilyn Jenkins
Interviewed by: Frank Boring
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer August 15, 2008
Interviewer: “ Marilyn, if we could begin with your name and where and when were
you born?” (02:46:25)
I’m Marilyn Jenkins and I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on September 18, 1934.
(02:46:29)
Interviewer: ”What was your early childhood like?” (02:46:38)
Well, I had one sister who married when I was four years old and so I was like an only
child within a sense. Probably that was good because times were touch then coming out
of the Depression and anyway, I grew up on the near south side of Grand Rapids near the
corner of Cass and Hall Street, which was about a long block and a railroad track from
South Field where the “Chicks” played. I had a good childhood. During the war dad
would pile the neighborhood kids in the car and take them to the lake swimming etc. I
have a lot of fond memories of my childhood. Growing up in the neighborhood, it was a
neighborhood then and you knew everybody. There was a lot of porch activity at night
and it was a good time. (00:02:46:48)
Interviewer: “What did your father do for a living?” (02:47:42)
MY father sold meat for Swift and Company and then again coming out of the
depression, at night he would cut the meat for Jim Nader at Nader’ss grocery store on
Hall Street, which was right around the corner. I kind of fed into that too because I
would go and visit him there and he would bring me candy bars. (02:47:43)
Interviewer: “How about your mother?” (02:48:05)
She was pretty much a housewife except I remember for a short period of time during
WWII she was a “Rosie the Riveter” at a local place here in Grand Rapids. I don’t
remember what it was called at that time, but I remember her in the bib overalls and the
hat. (00:02:48:06)
Interviewer: “Just like the picture.” (02:48:23)
Just like the picture, right. She didn’t like it, but she did it for a while. (02:48:24)
Interviewer: “When was your first exposure to baseball, or sports of any kind?”
(02:48:35)
1
�Well, dad was a real sports fan and frequently on Sunday afternoons he would take me to
Valley Field to watch the black leagues play over there and I met some of those fellows
that played there. In fact I met one just the other day. Anyway, I liked baseball—he
taught me to like baseball—he played catch with me and all that. He wanted a boy, but
he got a girl and consequently he was doing something in his short life that he lived after
I was born. (02:48:38)
Interviewer: “This period of time in America was very difficult economically. How
did your family fare?” (02:49:11)
Well, dad worked two jobs and mother went to work there for a period of time. We were
coming out of the Depression and I don’t know that I was anticipated product there. I
don’t know that they wanted another child, but dad would—I think we fared—we always
had enough to eat. Dad would exchange coupons for meat, gas and all that. For gas he
would exchange with neighbors. They would switch back and forth because he had all
the meat, because he was in meat. We got along all right, we weren’t wealthy by any
means, but we made it. (02:49:15)
Interviewer: “You mentioned the black leagues, but were there other baseball
related activities going on around you?” 02:50:00)
I don’t recall any. (02:50:04)
Interviewer: “So the exposure was through your father and seeing these other
players?”(02:50:07)
I was always interested. I remember I use to—all sports—scour the Sunday papers for
pictures. I’m a U of M fan and I would study those and baseball—different seasons and
different sports and I really got into it big time. 02:50:11)
Interviewer: “Did you have a radio?” (02:50:30)
Yes, we had a radio. (02:50:31)
Interviewer: “So, did you hear broadcasts?” (02:50:33)
Broadcasts of sports. I would sit and cross my legs in front of the radio and watch—
listen to them. (02:50:35)
Interviewer: “You said watch, this is before TV.” (02:50:40)
This was watch—we had one of the upright radios. (02:50:45)
2
�Interviewer: “I understand from an earlier conversation that tragedy struck your
family when you were still quite young and in your teens. What actually
happened?” (02:50:50)
Dad—when I was thirteen, I think the summer when I was thirteen, he was diagnosed
with Leukemia and that fall he passed away and of course that changed the whole
dynamics of the family. Now there was just mother and I because my sister had married
a Navy man and they were stationed in Long Beach. Anyway, there was mother and I
and it changed significantly. I remembered we struggled. I think she got a small pension
because he had been in WWI, dad had, and he had been injured in WWI, nothing that
affected his walking or his thinking or anything, but I think it was frozen feet and a few
other things. Anyway, it changed our lives and what it did to me was—I was thirteen and
I was going to South High School. I had to cut right through the alley to get to the high
school and I got a job. I don’t know if I was thirteen or fourteen, but I got a job up on
Division at a sundry store, a Quick Mart today, and I worked there, not during the
summer because that was the “Chicks”, but I worked there after school and I think I was
making 50 or 40 cents an hour maybe, but it helped. Mother was—one thing I remember
is that we had a car, we had a 1939 Chevrolet and if my memory is correct, in 1947 when
my dad died, cars were in great demand. It was in the garage, mother didn’t drive, which
was not unusual for women at that time and I wasn’t driving yet, and she had them lined
up at her door to buy that car. I remember she got a thousand dollars out of it and it was
eight years old. Anyway, that helped. A thousand dollars went a long way then.
Anyway, I got a job and I worked right through graduation from high school. (02:01:00)
Interviewer: “What did you—I realize you were very young at that time and young
people don’t always know what they want to do with their lives, but what were you
thinking about? What were you going to do?” (02:53:17)
What was I going to do? Right. Well, one thing I had to do was I had to play baseball.
Anything more secure or substantial than that wasn’t on my money. I knew there was no
money to go to college, there weren’t scholarships and all that business and in what? I
wasn’t qualified. I was a good student in high school, but anyway, I had to play ball.
When the ball league ended in 1954 I went to x-ray school. I became a radiology
technologist at Butterworth Hospital and I worked at that until 1972 I think, but in that
interim period of time, I also went to Community College, I went nights. (02:53:28)
Interviewer: “Lets get back to that a little later. You’re in high school and at what
point did you discover that there was a baseball league? That there was a women’s
league?” (02:54:39)
I have to go way back. In 1945, dad was still alive, and he saw in the Sunday paper that
there was going to be a women’s baseball league coming to Grand Rapids and it was
going to be at South Field, which was just a short distance from my house. Summers
were kind of—I remember playing softball at Jefferson School grounds, but he told me
that I should go over to the field and see if I could get a job, doing what I didn’t know at
eleven years old. (02:54:41)
3
�Interviewer: “Let me go back. You said you were playing softball?”
Yes, I played on the school grounds there.
Interviewer: “But there was no team?”
No, just the neighborhood boys, and we set up teams and played there a lot. (02:55:56)
Interviewer: “Were you the only girl?”
I was the only girl.
Interviewer: “So, you already felt that you liked the game?
Yes, I liked the game.
Interviewer: “What position were you playing when you played with the boys?”
Any position. It was just a lot of neighborhood kids and we had a good time.
Interviewer: “So there was no official high school girls baseball team?”
No, in high school at South, our gym activities included square dancing, kickball,
badminton, volleyball, but nothing organized. There may have been archery that was
organized, but nothing that interested me. 2:56
Interviewer: “So now your father sees that there is a team in Grand Rapids and he
suggests to you to go and check this out. Tell us about the day you went there.”
Well, I don’t remember the specific day I went there, but I was pretty timid and I met the
groundskeeper there, I didn’t know anybody, it wasn’t a case of who you know, I didn’t
know anyone, but I just went over there and I met the grounds keeper and his name was
“Chick Batts”. Has anybody else mentioned that name to you? He was probably a fifty
year old man at that time and he had a little helper by the name of Pete something, I don’t
remember, but the interesting thing about “Chick” was that he only had one arm and I
was amazed as I watched him throw a ball by switching the mitt between his underarm of
the stub to his good arm. Anyway, I asked him if there was any work I could do and he
said, “sure”. 2:57 Well, the first job I did was—this is right at the beginning of the
league now, they had cut the grass out because South Field was a football field at that
time. They cut the grass out and the diamond, the dirt was full of stones so I picked
stones out of the diamond. I don’t know how long I did that. Another job I had was
cleaning under the bleachers, which was kind of a fun job because you would find nickels
and dimes out of people’s pockets. Anyway, in that period of time, it was just a short
period of time, and somebody, I don’t recall who it was, asked me if I would be batgirl
so, would I be batgirl, of course I would be batgirl. I was privileged to be in that
4
�position. I became batgirl and I was batgirl from the time I was eleven, which was 1945,
until 19—through 1951. 2:58
Interviewer: “Back up just a minute. During the period of time that you were
picking up the stones and all that, did you actually meet the players?”
Absolutely.
Interviewer: “Let’s talk about that.”
Talk about being in awe, I got into the game—I don’t know who was batgirl in the
beginning, but I became batgirl pretty quick. Anyway, I got into the games free, that was
Dad’s purpose in sending me over there so, if I worked I could get into the games free.
These women, I was just in awe and thunderstruck by them. A bunch of wonderful
women, and I remember they were nice to me too, every one of them was. When I saw
that Connie Wisnewski back in 1945, it’s too bad that Connie is still not alive because
she would be a wonderful interview. She was the pitcher at the beginning there, and
Gabby Ziegler and I don’t know, I could go on with lots of names, but I was just
awestruck by them. 2:59
Interviewer: “So, I don’t expect you to remember exactly this moment, but when
the first games were being played, what was your reaction to seeing these women
playing baseball?”
Just astounded. Dad would come over to a few games too. He had to make sure that I
was in an all right sitting there because he was that kind of a dad. Anyway, it was just
amazing, and then to see the people in the stands was another amazing think. Have you
been by South Field here?
Interviewer: “Yes.”
Of course you can’t tell where it was right now. It had a short right field porch, but
anyway—when I think back to the period of time when I was batgirl, the box seats that
were right around where I was sitting, the prominent people in Grand Rapids were there
and they were supporting this at that time. 3:00 The stands would be full and at one time
they built more stand out in the left field because it used to be that you could hit the ball
forever out there. The women playing ball—it was phenomenal. I think it progressed
though, it progressed from a game of softball to a game of baseball, we know that.
Interviewer: “Yes, because they were pitching underhand and side hand and
eventually overhand.”
In 1947 it went sidearm and then overhand, that’s when Beansie came in, she never
would have made it if it hadn’t and she says that. 3:01
Interviewer: “She did say that, yes. Did you have any inkling at this point you’re
the batgirl there, that you could eventually play baseball?”
5
�Absolutely, and I had a lot of opportunity too, that’s one thing that was given to me.
Batting practice sometimes, as I got a little older, I’d throw batting practice and
sometimes I would even catch at batting practice, that’s how I ended up being catcher, or
I would roam in the outfield. Oh yeah, I had to—if I hadn’t, not that I was that good, but
if I hadn’t had the opportunity in 1952, that’s when I graduated from high school, to play,
that probably would have been the biggest disappointment of my life. 3:02
Interviewer: “This might be a stupid question, but what does a batgirl do?”
Well, a batgirl goes out and gets the bat after the hitter hits, you see them in the major
leagues today too, they have batboy on their back, and you got out and get the bat or they
bring the umpire balls, or they also, to get into this a little bit more, you shine the shoes,
you carry the bats and balls down to the field from the club house, and you run errands,
and you’re in very close contact with the ball players and man did I admire them.
Interviewer: “From that period, and I realize that we’re going back quite a distance
and you were a very young girl at that time, what were some of the things that you
saw that really amazed you? I understand that you’re in awe and you’re watching
these women, but somebody hit a homerun or something happened.” 3:03
Well, it would hard for me to be specific, but when I saw the home runs, I saw the no
hitters, which in softball was not uncommon, and the competition, that was—I think I
really developed the competitive spirit then, although I think it’s calmed down as I’ve
gotten older. It was phenomenal. I can tell you, but maybe I should wait until later, one
of my biggest thrills playing. So you want to hear it now?”
Interviewer: “Sure, while you’re in the mood.”
At one point, I don’t remember if it was the last year or the year before—1953 or 1954,
we converted to a regulation baseball. Now I loved that because my hands were small
and I could throw it better and everything. I think my first time at bat, if I remember
correctly, with a regulation baseball; I hit one out of the park. Oh man, what a thrill and I
don’t remember if it was South Bend or Kalamazoo, it was one of those two cities. That
was a thrill.
Interviewer: “Going back again to being a batgirl. You were an only child
basically, your father died while you were very young, you’re struggling with your
mom to survive, but you go to this baseball team and you were batgirl. These were
amazing women, did you get a sense of family or a feeling of family?” 3:04
Maybe a little bit, I never thought of it that way, but I was batgirl when dad died and I
remember Dotty Hunter, our chaperone, was living in town then, and I remember she
came to see me then and man, that meant a lot. They sent me cards etc., and yeah, they
were sort of my family. I never thought of it that way. That was my purpose in life at
that time other than looking after my mother at home. 3:05
6
�Interviewer: “When did it—did you develop an idea that you wanted to play on the
team or did something just happen, how did that transition from batgirl to trying
out?”
Well, as I said, I had been terribly disappointed, but I was encouraged by many of them
along the way too. I had a pretty good arm, not for pitching because I didn’t have good
control, but it was something that I had to do. It was a huge part of my life after dad died
and maybe even before. You brought up family and that could be it.
Interviewer: “Did you consciously, as you’re watching, you have a job to do of
course, you’ve the bats and all this and we can’t downplay this because it’s an
important part of the game and you have to do these things, but were there
moments when you thought—I’m going to do that?”
I don’t know if I ever thought that, but I knew that I wanted to play. I had some thrills,
Beansie probably told you about her favorite story about her game in Kalamazoo—well I
was catching that game and I wanted to do it, in fact, if I had a choice when I graduated
from high school of playing for the “Chicks” or going to college, I’d have taken the
“Chicks”. Later on I probably would have taken going to college, but I did that anyway.
3:06
Interviewer: “So, what was the actual transition? When did this transition from
batgirl to—did you have to tryout?”
Yes, I had to go through that and there were others trying out too. It was in the spring of
1952 was when I was graduating from high school and there were other people there
trying out. 3:07
Interviewer: “What were the tryouts like?”
Well, they put you through the drills.
Interviewer: “So you were at the same field you were at before?”
South
field—at this point the league had changed significantly and it was at South Field. There
were local girls trying out. too.
Interviewer: “About how many do you think?”
About ten.
Interviewer: “So, now you got the baseball field, the manager, was he the one that
was setting everything up?
7
�Yes.
Interviewer: “So what did you have to do to tryout?”
They would hit fly balls, you would bat, you would take infield practice, they would talk
to you and I think one of the things, as the league was losing its popularity there, which it
did significantly we know that, they wanted a local girl, which makes sense to me. They
figured I would bring in some people, but I don’t know if I did or not. Getting back
there a little bit, I remember when it was in June of 1952 we were playing—I remember
my first game well, but anyway, it was a matter of if I was going to play or graduate from
high school. Well, I did the smart thing and I graduated. I went through the ceremony.
It was a quandary. My first game I played was at Bigelow Field, I’m sure it was,
anyway, I remember well the first batter up was Dotty Key of the Rockford Peaches. I
was playing center field then and she hit a line drive right smack at me. 3:08
I think the thing was going up and man, am I glad I caught it. If I hadn’t, it would have
gone to the fence and been history. That’s just a side there. I had to play, that was the
key. I had to have the opportunity and I’m still thankful for it. 3:09
Interviewer: “Your first game and you caught the line drive, wow.”
It came smack at me and if it had gone over my head, it would have gone forever at
Bigelow Field. 3:10
Interviewer: “How do you feel about your first game?”
Nervous, very nervous. Here I was—the gals were all nice to me, they had known me a
long time, but here I was having the first opportunity to do what I wanted to do, full
uniform, full everything and butterflies.
Interviewer: “But, when you caught that ball?”
That helped. That helped a lot. That was the big difference there.
Interviewer: “ I played little league and so I do understand the camaraderie. I have
never played professionally, but I know that when I pitched and I got right into that
zone and the guy swung, it was a feeling of excitement and when you caught that
ball?”
It was a feeling. You hit that—like this rookie catcher for the Tigers the other night, his
first hit is that triple that wins the game. He’ll never forget that, he’ll never forget that.
If he never gets another hit, he’ll never forget. 3:11
Interviewer: “Tell me about the uniform.”
Well, I think the uniform was in the 1940’s a significant part of the drawing of the
crowds, the fans that came to the game. As I remember the 40’s, women didn’t wear
8
�shorts, not in public, I don’t know if they wore them, but they didn’t wear shorts in
public. You come out with this—a lot of these gals were really attractive, too-- and you
come out in this short uniform with these good looking legs and that uniform was it.
There whole purpose of developing this league, or beginning this league, that uniform
was a significant part of it, as I see it. 3:12
Interviewer: “I grew up in the 60’s when the mini skirt became very popular and
this is pretty close to being a mini skirt and this is the 40’s and 50’s.”
Right, I mean the legs are bare from up here to the top of your socks and you know it’s
silly to talk about that today, isn’t it? It’s history I know, not that I wear shorts that much
anymore, but what you see the girls in today.
Interviewer: “Then it was significant, because it was something you didn’t see
normally. Rosemary talked about how she was embarrassed to come out.”
I sensed that because I had the experience before, you’re embarrassed.
Interviewer: “What about as a practical, this is the part that always amazed me,
because I’ve seen pictures and film footage of girls, I should say women, sliding into
a base. Now, the men had these long protected pants. What was that like?” 3:13
You know, I think it was something that—it wasn’t pleasant and I had some pretty good
“strawberries”, as we called them, but it was expected of us. That was—I think and I can
say this with a reasonable amount of certainty too, that if you would have put these
women in 1945, in a pant, forget it, it wouldn’t have worked. That’s the way I see it. I
would have been easier on their legs—I think that was—I’ve heard Dotty Hunter talk
about this. That was the magic. Phil Wrigley was really sharp and his advisors there, the
way they put things together. The movie depicted that well too. 3:14
Interviewer: “We’ll talk about that a little later. So, you got through your first
game. What was the reaction of your fellow teammates to the fact that you caught
that ball?”
I don’t know that they reacted because they expected me to do it. That’s what I was out
there for. I wasn’t any hero. They’re pros and they were good ball players. I wish there
was more footage, film footage, of some of those games. 3:14
Interviewer: “But, the cameras were there on occasion, right?”
They were there on occasion, right. I remember seeing the only motion picture, so to
speak, it was the Kalamazoo Klouters, I’m sure you’re aware of that aren’t you?
Interviewer: “We have a whole list of all the teams, yes.”
It’s one that Kalamazoo put out and that’s the one thing we’ve seen in the last few years
here, but there wasn’t a lot. There were stills, but think back to what film was like then.
9
�My colored pictures that I took in the early fifties are kind of faded. 3:15
Interviewer: “ So, lets go through some of the games you played. You got through
the first one, and I imagine your confidence level must have gotten better, so what
were the other games like?”
Well, I played that first game in center field, but I actually was a catcher, I had been
made into a catcher, and one of the first games I caught, Marge Silvestri was pitching and
I’m not exaggerating, this was overhand, she had a drop ball that dropped 8-12 inches
and of course I didn’t have any experience calling a game so to speak, so she called the
game from the mound and told me what she was going to throw, and we won. That was a
big thrill too, catching, I came through it pretty good. I don’t have any trouble with my
knees so to speak and the only thing I have is a crooked finger right here that was
dislocated and never put back in, but I loved catching once I got into it. 3:16
Interviewer: “I never could understand it myself. I was a pitcher.”
You’re part of the game. With every pitch you’re part of the game.
Interviewer: “What were some of the games like? You quoted one already.”
I have a problem pulling that out. They were competitive. I don’t think I specify any
particular games. I can’t.
Interviewer: “Well, who were the main rivals?”
Oh, the main rivals, toward the end—Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne always had a good team,
Rockford always had a good team, I think those were the main rivals as I remember.
Interviewer: “The one game that Beans was talking about, you were catching. Let’s
go into detail about that particular game.”
Well, here’s the deal that happened. Mamie Redman was pretty much the regular
catcher and I never—my statistics—I caught a lot of games, but Mamie would go back to
college when the playoffs started, so I was thrown in as the catcher. She was much more
experienced than I was and I tell her to this day—“Mamie, I could hit better and run
faster”. 3:17 So, Mamie went back to college and I was thrown in to be the catcher and
it was a championship game in the playoffs that year that Beansie pitched and it was in
Kalamazoo and it was forty degrees. It was really cold, really cold. Anyway, and I don’t
want to take away from her story, but she struck out that last batter and we won it. That
was probably both of our biggest thrills.
Interviewer. “What about the tension? That was the playoffs, what did you
experience?”
10
�A lot of tension. The one thing that I always thought and I still think to this day,
catcher’s gloves were hard to break in and we used the regular catcher’s glove—hard to
break in and they were expensive. The first one I bought, which we had to buy ourselves,
burned up in the fire at Bigelow and I had to buy another one. 3:18 Well, it wasn’t
broken in and Beansie thought the ball popped out of my mitt too much. I had a crease in
it and in fact, that glove is in the museum here in town now and you can still see that
crease. When they had that exhibit I noticed it and I could never work that out. They
weren’t as flexible as today’s. Anyway, that three-two pitch that she threw, there was a
lot of tension. Beansie was kind of nonchalant on the mound, tall, both she and Connie
Wisnewski probably were two of the taller ones in the league. Anyway, she was
nonchalant and she fired it and it stuck in my glove. That ball is in Cooperstown today,
right where it should be. 3:19
Interviewer: “What were the crowds like when you first started?”
They were phenomenal. 10,000 people at South Field, I don’t know where they put them
all, but going back, that’s wartime again. Tickets were cheap, people didn’t have cars,
but it was on the near south side and a lot of people could walk to the games, including
me. Anyway, it really, really was—I think it hit its real popularity in the late 40’s after
the war, but then as cars became more available and television hit the scene, it had an
affect on it. I think historians say that television and availability of the auto, really
changed the success of the league. 3:20
Interviewer: “Just a quick question, how much was your salary working as a
professional?”
I think it was fifty-five dollars a week, which wasn’t bad.
Interviewer: “That was a lot of money back then.”
It was a lot of money back then, yes.
Interviewer: “And that was helping to supplement your family, your mother?”
Right. Keep me going. As you get a little older and in your teens, you need things. You
think you do anyway.
Interviewer: “What did you do with your money?”
Well, I don’t think I had that much, I’m sure. While I was playing, my mother had
remarried, so I had a stepfather, so my money I used for myself. Whatever I needed. I
think I bought a car. A hundred dollar whopper.
Interviewer: “While you were playing as a professional baseball player, did you get
an opportunity for travel?” 3:21
11
�Yes we did, we traveled a lot on road trips. One thing I will say—even when I was
batgirl, after my dad died Dotty Hunter was a remarkable woman, she was a Canadian,
I’m sure you know more about her maybe than I do—anyway, she was out chaperone and
I think in the summer of 1948, she took me on a road trip and I think it was to Racine,
Wisconsin. Now I hadn’t, we didn’t travel back then, and the one thing I remember
about it—I was there and somebody famous died. She took care of me—in 1948 I was
fourteen. I had a room in a hotel, with a cardboard suitcase with stickers on it. It was a
wonderful experience. 3:22
Interviewer: “Later on you’re playing professionally, do you travel also?”
We traveled either by bus or the last couple years, I think we were in these cars and on
the side of one of the cars it said, “Here come the Grand Rapids Chicks”.
Interviewer: “So, during that period of time then, it was the first time you had been
outside Grand Rapids?”
Well, very far outside Grand Rapids. When my dad died in 1947, he was buried in
Allendale, but no we didn’t do that—you didn’t have drive-in, you didn’t have
McDonald’s, you didn’t have all that stuff.
Interviewer: “Did you travel out of the country?”
No, I never did.
Interviewer: “I know they had the American and the Cuban leagues.”
I think Beansie did. 3:23
Interviewer: “You had mentioned earlier about the crowds being huge, 10,000
people. Did you notice the drop off?”
Absolutely, I noticed it to the point where, as 1952 was approaching, I was thinking as
the crowds were dropping off, I might never have the opportunity to play because they
might end the league and by 1954 we could really see that coming. One of the things I
remember, was one of my last paychecks was handed out to me in one dollar bills. That
tells you a lot. That even told me a lot as a kid because I was only nineteen when this
was all over. 3:24
Interviewer: “I know that when we interviewed Rosemary, she was taken
completely by surprise of course and she only played at the last.”
Yes, she was only there the last three months or so and that was the last season. No, I
wasn’t taken by surprise at all. There were rumblings about this—they tried different
cities, but each city had its core fan base. There were fan clubs and all that and it didn’t
surprise me, really at all. I could see it coming.
12
�Interviewer: “Well, if you did see it coming, were you thinking about alternatives?”
3:25
Probably, quietly—what I did during the years that I played—in the winter I would work
at Wilson athletic goods—I think that was the only place I worked. It was a job you
could get making golf clubs, putting grips on them—a dirty job, a dirty job, standing in a
spot where the glue would drip and your shoes would be stuck to the floor, but when I
think back on that, it was piecework and it was good money—good money. When it was
over with I had to do something and I had been encouraged—I was a good student in
high school and I had been encouraged to do something. Well, Beansie got into x-ray, I
don’t know how she did, but she encouraged me and I got into it and actually worked at
it—I started in 1955 with my training, that went through 1957 and then I became an RT,
a Registered Technologist, and then after that I started going to night school and then I
while I was going to night school, I worked for Dr. Stonehouse and Dawson, right over
here in the Medical Arts building. I completed Community College and then I went back
to Butterworth Hospital and I got into the teaching program there, of x-ray students.
3:26 I had a degree then etc. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I got very disillusioned
in the 70’s and I might have been an activist too in the 70’s, but I just was dismayed with
patient care. That was after Medicare had come in and the situation kind of changed, but
we won’t go into that. Anyway, then I left that and I went to work for a person injury
attorney in town. Bill Reamon, he has passed away, but he was one of the hot shots in
town and I had a lot of respect for him. I worked for him from 1972 through 1977 and
then that firm split and then I did a lot of work for other attorneys because I had learned
to put together a settlement brochure that was quite popular with them at that time. 3:27
I worked for Bill up through 1988 part time, but also in 1981 I started doing estate sales
in town. I was always interested in antiques so, I was doing estate sales and I am still
doing them today. In fact I’m working on a big one right now. 3:28
Interviewer: “Looking back on the last year, 1954, you said that you heard the
rumbling and you kind of figured that this was starting to happen and you started
to think about what you are going to do next. How did it actually happen to you?
How did you physically know? Was it a letter? How did you know that it was over
with?”
I think it was through the press. I don’t remember a letter or anything. 3:29 Maybe, but
I don’t know. If there was one—in 1978 I donated all my stuff to the public museum
here and it would be in there if there was. I don’t remember that.
Interviewer. “What was your reaction?”
Well, I expected it. You can’t deny what you expect can you? It wasn’t the end of the
world for me. I was nineteen years old and I had to do something with my life anyway—
the funs not going to go on forever, right? Maybe, if you get the right job. Anyway I just
went on. Beansie was terribly disappointed and she expressed that to you, and I’m sure a
13
�lot of the others were too. It was like—it was a fact of life, but she stayed here and she
has done well here in town. 3:29
Interviewer: “Looking back, how do you think the specific experience of baseball
affected you and the person you are today?”
Well, I think probably significant to that was and to how it affected me was that it made
me competitive, but I think in a good way. It also taught me winning and losing and
winning isn’t everything. The way you lose can mean a lot too. I said that before about
winning and losing and competitive—having the opportunity to meet all these wonderful
women, who at that time that the league ended, we had no idea that all this would be
happening. It was over, it was over, but as out association got going and we got—I only
saw the local people here after that, but when the association got going, we have had
more fun at these reunions than you can believe. 3:30 I wish some of you could have
been at the reunion in Fort Wayne in, I want to say, 1984. There was more enthusiasm
there and more good times. There were other ones too, we had a wonderful one in Grand
Rapids in 2001 which Dolly Wisniewski was the chair person of and she said we helped
her, but I don’t know if we did that much, but basically it taught me a lot. It taught me
how to travel, how to pack a suitcase, which I don’t know today, how to eat out, because
we didn’t eat out, I didn’t anyway. My family didn’t and yours probably too. Anyway, it
matured me in a lot of ways. 3:31
Interviewer: “ If you look back on that time when girls, women didn’t really have a
whole lot of options. You could basically become of course a mother, a homemaker,
you could become a nurse, perhaps a teacher, but there weren’t a whole lot of other
things available. After the women’s professional baseball that seemed to change
and there are baseball teams and there are girl’s sports and whatnot. How much do
you think your experience and the experience of the baseball league had on girls
doing things today?” 3:32
Well, I’m led to believe that it had a great effect. My personal experience or contacts
haven’t shown me, other than what I have read or seen, but I guess it’s like Title IX or
whatever, and all this and I have a good friend who taught in college and she is a good
example of this. She had the opportunity to go to college right out of high school and she
could either be a nurse, a teacher or homemaker. Well, she wanted to be an engineer, but
women didn’t do that so, she became a teacher and had a successful career. She has
enlightened me about a lot of the changes because she taught at the local college here.
3:33 I see changes—I’m watching this Olympic team and I’m watching even some
sandlot stuff and there’s a lot of women out there that could be playing baseball and they
have tried it, but it doesn’t catch on and I’ve said, I don’t think it ever will. It might in
another hundred years or something and I want to stress something—there were good ball
players, but there are today too, but the skirts, the uniform, the timing, it’s in a little
pocket there of history where it fit in perfectly and I don’t know where your going to find
another pocket like that. You could make some changes that would be significant, but
this was wartime and wartime then was a lot different than wartime now--much different.
3:34
14
�Interviewer: “Penny Marshall decided to make the movie called “A League of
Their Own”. How were you contacted about that? How did you find out about it?”
I wasn’t personally, but June Peppis in Kalamazoo, she had started the players
association and we were getting together someplace and having a great time once a year
or twice a year. Anyway, she had these two writers come over one year, I don’t
remember their names, but they developed the storyline, never dreaming it would lead
into this, but it did. I don’t know how Penny Marshall got involved myself, but I do
remember in Cooperstown in 1988 when they recognized us, that Penny Marshall was
there. What a brilliant mind. 3:35 She’s brilliant and the way she put together that
movie and all the little twists and innuendos and everything else—it’s phenomenal—even
to “There’s no crying in baseball”, I don’t think anybody had said that before had they to
your knowledge? Anyway, we didn’t even dream at that point yet before the movie, what
it meant to other people as whole, as a unit there.
Interviewer: “I know and I’ve been told this by other baseball player, the storyline
itself was very much fictional account, but overall, did the film express, did it show
the experience?”
I think it showed the experience beautifully, but I think that the experience that it
depicted was more at the beginning of the league. I’m not sure why I say the, I just feel
that way. I think it did an exceptional job. Then to get gals that could play ball and all—
it was wonderful. 3:36 It was wonderful and it’s going to be a movie that’s going to be
around forever I’m sure. It’s going to be a good fill in forever, isn’t it?
Interviewer: “I think so and it kind of becomes like the 1940’s classics—it has the
flavor of that period and it doesn’t have all the stuff you see in so many movies
today. It stands on it’s own. How did the movie affect the association, affect you
and the association?” 3:37
The movie had a fantastic effect on the association, not just monetary, although there was
some there, but it found players that were off in somewhere, although there had been
great searches trying to locate people. It strengthened the association and almost gave the
association a purpose. I sometimes struggle with that—what’s the association s purpose
right now? Well, it’s to perpetuate the league, but I’m one of the youngest. Rosemary, I
said, is younger than I, but I was one of the youngest that was around from the beginning.
It isn’t going to be many more years—the associate members are beginning to take over
control, which has to be, but they’ve been around long enough where they’re picking up
the stories etc. It’s hard to put into a few words what the experience meant to each and
every one of them. To Beansie it meant getting out of Okalahoma, to me, I’ve always
been here. I went to South High School, played on the same South thing and the
connection with Jerry Ford—I’m into Grand Rapids history. 3:38
Interviewer: “That’s why you get along so well with Gordon Olson. He has a love
for this place.”
15
�Yes, he’s done a lot for us too. There are a lot of people who have stepped up and really
made us feel like somebody again as we get into our older years.
Interviewer: “I think one of the things that I found as a documentary film maker,
I’ve done films about the Flying Tigers, film about the Red Arrow and during the
experience itself you know you’re doing something and in your case your playing
baseball and your enjoying it and all that, but you don’t think in terms of what it is
going to mean fifty years from now.” 3:39
Absolutely not ever had a thought that way.
Interviewer: “But at the same time I think it’s important that historians do take the
tie and sit back say, “Guess what, this had an effect and this happened because of
what you did during that period.” A time when you were just a teenager.”
I was just a teenager, but I’ve had a good life since. I haven’t—I participated in the
meeting and the association and the reunions etc., but it hasn’t encompassed my life like
some others.
Interviewer: “But it’s an important part of your life.”
I haven’t forgotten and I never will. I know that dad would have been proud of me had
he lived to see me playing. 3:40
Interviewer: “I think it’s important that he encouraged you to begin with.”
That was and the boys in the neighborhood added to it too. I remember about ten days
before dad died, it was in November, he had me out between the houses in our
neighborhood where I grew up, throwing a football. Interesting—that was almost his last
day of consciousness. He had just come home from the hospital and he was built-up a
little bit.
Interviewer: “But your mom got a chance to see your success.”
She wasn’t interested in baseball, not at all. I think she knew though—one thing she said,
I remember and it was when I graduated from Community College, she said, “You’re the
first person in the family to get a degree.” It was only an Associates Degree, but it was a
degree, it was putting two years together. I think she was, but I don’t think she ever came
over to see a game. I’m not sure about that, maybe she did. 3:41
Interviewer: “Do you have other family?”
No, I have cousins that I don’t know—not really.
Interviewer: “I’m an only child also.”
You miss a lot.
16
�Interviewer: “You do, but on the other hand there’s a comfort level being by
yourself that have families don’t have.”
That is true. You think a little differently.
Interviewer. “I think so and if you actually take time to improve yourself and your
independence, it strengthens you, but I have very close friends.”
I do too, a lot of wonderful friends and that means a lot.
Interviewer: “Are there any thoughts that you want to add?”
No, I can’t think of any unless you want to ask me more questions. I feel like I did a
decent job for you. 3:42
Interviewer: “This has been a wonderful time.”
Do you tell everyone that?
Interviewer: “No, but each one is that unique.”
We are all different, right. Get Dolly going and you will enjoy her.
Interviewer: “Thank you very much and good-bye”
Thank you Frank, it was nice meeting you. 3:42
17
�18
�
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
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
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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>
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<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
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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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/.
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RHC-58_MJenkins
Title
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Jenkins, Marilyn M. (Interview transcript and video), 2008
Creator
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Jenkins, Marilyn
Description
An account of the resource
Marilyn Jenkins was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1934. She grew up in Grand Rapids and played baseball with family and friends, and played softball with the neighborhood kids. When the Grand Rapids Chicks arrived in 1945, she talked her way into a job with the team and quickly became their batgirl, a job she held through the 1951 season. She played as a batgirl from 1945 thru 1951. Upon graduating high school in 1952, she became eligible to play in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League and went on to play with the Grand Rapids Chicks from 1952 to 1954 as a catcher.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Boring, Frank (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
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
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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
2008-07-01
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
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3b98eed957e78aae23ddbcb86e0946f8.m4v
e3173f2c6d686c9e5a100a7d5a68fc0f
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3e276c6d4e9f7fc07b0ee8c54617d633.pdf
1e09d055abdb248d6048eae7ebcc5049
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Mike Corona
Born: Racine, Wisconsin, November 9, 1928
Interviewed by: Frank Boring, GVSU Library of Congress Veterans History Project
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer
Interviewer: “Mike if we could begin with your name and where and when were
you born?”
My name is Michael D. Corona and I was born in the city of Racine, Wisconsin on
November 9, 1928 and I was born right in my own house at 1300 Lake Avenue in
Racine.
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like?”
My early childhood was fine except that when I was four years old I had scarlet fever and
I was put back a grade in school and that put me graduating a year behind all the friends
that I played ball with, worked out with and went to school with you know, but other than
that my childhood was fine. My mother and father were the greatest. :59
Interviewer: “What did your dad do?”
My dad worked in a foundry. He was a molder and he was a jobbing molder at Belle
City Racine Steel Castings Company, where I, after I graduated from Horlick High
School in 1947, I went to work there myself for thirty-two and a half years.
Interviewer: “Your mother was a housewife?”
My mother was a homemaker, plus she worked at Rainfare, Inc., which made raincoats,
pants, clothing and everything and during the war they made a lot of raincoats for the
army and I eventually worked, when I was a sophomore and Junior in high school, I
worked at Rainfare part time. 1:46
Interviewer: “Did you have brothers and sisters?”
I have three other brothers and three sisters and now I’m the only brother that’s left.
Three of my brothers have passed away.
Interviewer: “Now, you lived in a neighborhood that had a ball park nearby. Tell
us about how close it was and what was that ball park anyway?” 2:07
The ball part was the Horlick Athletic Field, which was three and a half blocks south of
where I lived. It’s where all the big name teams played; all the high schools used it for
football and all of the baseball. In fact they had midget auto racing there, they had
wrestling and they had Joe Darcetti, Joe Darcetti was, I don’t know if you remember, he
1
�was Gorgeous George in the wrestling field. He was there, they had big entertainment
like Al Schacht the clown of baseball came there and I participated in his event when he
was there. It was a good ballpark, but when I—at first when I was a kid it was all wood.
The outside of it was all wood and the CC Camp came into town and put it up in brick
and it’s all brick now. 3:02
Interviewer: “What is the CC Camp?”
From Fort McCoy.
Interviewer: “What id CC stand for?”
Conservation.
Interviewer: “Oh, the Conservation Corps, sure.”
The Conservation Corps. yeah.
Interviewer: “All right now, I want to start and I don’t want to jump too far into
the story because we got some time. Ok? What is your first recollection of going to
the ball park, how old were you and did you go just as a spectator, what was your
first recollection of going to the ball park?”
Well, my first recollection of going to the ballpark is when Horlick High School used to
play over there. Football and they use to have a semi-pro league called Metal Parts and
they played softball there and when they had the games, we use to sneak through the
wooden fence to go into the ballpark. 3:51 When I was about ten years old Elmer
Christiansen, who was the caretaker of the ballpark, and I became very good friends and
so when all of the ball teams would come in he’d let me know. “Mike” he said, “we got
ball teams coming tonight, how about coming and being a batboy”, so when I was ten
years old, I was a batboy already.
Interviewer: “Wow, now, your parents didn’t mind that you were going out there at
night?”
No. At that time, it was a lot different than it is now. You didn’t even have to lock your
doors at that time. This was in the forties right after the war you know. 4:36
Interviewer: “So, can you remember your first experience as a batboy?”
My first experience, as a batboy is when the Kansas City Monarchs came into town and
guess who was the pitcher? Satchel Paige. Satchel Paige came in there and I was the
batboy for the Kansas City Monarchs and they played the Racine Blues.
Interviewer: “Can you remember anything about the game?”
Not very much, but it was a good game.
Interviewer: “What were your duties as a batboy?”
2
�My duties as a batboy was to make sure that all the bats were in place. When the batter
got done hitting, I made sure I got the bat out of the way in case there was a play at home
plate and then I shagged balls for the guys and get their gloves, give them a towel, give
them a glass of water, the major things of being a batboy. 5:29
Interviewer: “Any other team before the women came to town, let’s put it that way,
what other teams were you the batboy for? What kinds of events were you the
batboy for?”
Just the semi-pro baseball teams that use to play there and then Metal Parts once and a
while. I would go over there and watch them play because that was my game, fast pitch,
and I only played a little baseball, but I played a lot of fast pitch. 6:00
Interviewer: “Did you have any advance notice about these women playing
baseball? How did that all come about for you?”
Well, only through the sports pages and Jim O’Brian, who was a good editor. Keith
Briim, who was the sports—him and Don Black, who was the personnel director at
Western Publishing Company, had the biggest involvement in getting the Racine Belles
there. They had to go to Chicago to meet with Wrigley to get them to come to Racine.
6:34
Interviewer: “So, when they first came to town, were you automatically the batboy?
How did that all come about?”
I asked Johnny Gottselig, who was the manager, if I could be the batboy because when
they came into town they stayed and they had usual practice before the season started and
I went over and talked to Johnny Gottselig, who was the manager, and asked him if I
could be the batboy because I had an assistant whose sister was on the ball team, Mary
Nesbitt, my assistant, Buddy who helped me when I was playing. 7:09
Interviewer: “How old were you when they came to town?”
Fourteen.
Interviewer: “So you were only fourteen years old?”
Yes, fourteen.
Interviewer: “Since you already knew the lay of the land, you had already been a
batboy there for a while, so it wasn’t that unusual for you to just walk up to the
manager and say, “I got experience here”, how did you sell him on the idea?”
Elmer helped a lot too and Leo Murphy who eventually became one of the managers of
the Belles was a catcher in one of the minor league teams I played in Racine and he was a
good friend of mine because I use to get his glove for him and all that and he helped me
out with Mr. Gottselig. 7:54
3
�Interviewer: “You came with a resume.”
I came with a resume.
Interviewer: “What I want to try to get here is, and maybe it didn’t exist, but
you’re doing the batboy for the men’s teams ok. Women didn’t ordinarily play
baseball like that. These were good players, you’re fourteen years old and you’ve
seen some good players, you saw Satchel Paige, can you remember your first game
with the women?”
Oh ya, oh ya, because Sophie, I think she stole four bases that day and Joanne Winter
pitched a one hitter and Mary Nesbitt came in the next day and pitched a no hitter. You
don’t forget things like that, you don’t. Too bad Joanne isn’t around any more, but Mary
Nesbitt is still alive and she lives in Florida and we keep in contact with her when we go
down to Florida. You take some of these girls like Maddy English, Edy Perlick, Claira
Schillace; they could have played in any men’s league. 8:55 Then we had a girl from
Racine who was a first baseman, Margie Danhauser, and I knew her very well.
Interviewer: “Were there any big differences between being a batboy for the men’s
team as opposed to the women’s team?”
The duties were practically the same. I made sure that everything was clear, bats were all
put in order and everything. The only thing different between the men and the women is
when the women had to slide they got burned and man they had to lift up that skirt and it
was different than the men, the men wore long pants and the outfits the girls wore were
delicate you know. 9:38
Interviewer: “Your job didn’t have anything to do with taking care of the
strawberries or any of that?”
No, no, that was Mrs. Anderson’s job, Mary Anderson.
Interviewer: “How about the behavior of the men compared to the behavior of the
women? Any differences there, when they come off, maybe they didn’t like the way
they hit the ball or they got struck out, let’s get an inside look here.”
The men were a little different; they throw the bats you know. If they miss the ball, if
they strike out they say damn it or they swear a little bit you know, but the women, they
took it in stride and it was a different ball game. We had pitchers in the men’s that really
threw BB’s, they were fast and they were good ball players and the women were good
too, but don’t forget your mound was only thirty-eight feet from home plate and when
they pitched they threw BB’s too and it was a different game, a different game between
the men and the women. 10:45
Interviewer: “How were the fans?”
The fans were great you know, but at first they didn’t come, who would want to come?
First we had Metal Parts, which was a good semi-pro men’s team and they took a lot of
4
�the fans away from the—but when the Belles started winning and then the fans came and
the fans would really pack that place on a Sunday afternoon double header was kind of
different because it was chilly sometimes and sometimes you couldn’t even see the game
because the foundry was right there and if we would get a southwest wind and they were
smelting iron, you could hardly see the ball players on the field, but it was a good thing.
11:32
Interviewer: “Now, you got a perspective of the game that even the players didn’t
get and the fans didn’t get. Were there any particular plays that you saw that—you
were experienced, you knew baseball already, you’d see how the pros—were there
any particular plays that you saw that you just went “WOW, that’s amazing, how’d
she do that?” Any particular—either throwing the ball or catching somebody out,
any of those kind of remarkable things?”
Well, you never had two better—ended appealing on a double play—English to Sophie,
to Margy Danhauser you know. The double play was the best play that the women made
and Edy Perlick had a wonderful arm in left field and Clara had a good arm in center
because she covered a lot of center field because Horlick field wasn’t small, it was a big
ball park because they used that for baseball and it was a long way out to that fence.
12:35 some of those girls could hit that ball, but one thing about the Racine Belles, they
had three good outfielders in Perlick, Clara Schillace and Eleanor Dapkus, they had three
good outfielders.
Interviewer: “What other teams did you see playing the Belles? They would have
other ones coming in?”
You would have the South Bend Blue Sox, you had the Kenosha Comets and you had the
Rockford Peaches and Reno Giocenti, who was an Umpire from Racine, when he would
work a game in Rockford, he would ask me if I would like to go along, so I would go to
Rockford and be the batboy for the Racine Belles in Rockford and also, the Kenosha
Comets you know. Sometimes I had to take the interurban to go to Kenosha because they
played their games at Lakefront Stadium, which is no longer there, but it was so close,
everything was so close. The only team I didn’t get to go to their ballpark was the South
Bend Blue Sox, but the Comets, the Rockford Peaches and the Belles were the three
parks I participated in. 13:40
Interviewer: “Now, you’re a young little fourteen year old with a bunch of cute girls
running around, did any of them think you were their favorite or something? Did
you have somebody that you thought maybe was your sweetheart even though she
was not your sweetheart?”
Not in that way, but we liked, you know Clara, she was a nice Italian girl you know and
Horlick field was in “little Italy” and when the Belles would play there, Racine Steel or
Belle city would have their freight cars—they would part them right over center field and
all the guys from the block would go sit on top of the boxcar and watch the game you
know and after the game they would all go see Clara. She was probably the most favored
5
�one of all the Racine Belles that played, but all of the girls were wonderful. Joanne
Winters, Sophie and then you had Choo Choo Hickson who was funny as hell. 14:43
Interviewer: “Why was she funny as hell?”
She was always clowning around a little bit. When they were all in Racine, they lived in
Racine, they all came to Ace Grille, which was a restaurant downtown and that where
you would always find all the girls and they had a pool room downstairs and a couple of
them would go down and shoot pool, but it was wonderful. They were all good girls.
Interviewer: “Now, every group has a clown and somebody who’s—tell us about a
few of the personalities if you will. From your perspective tell us about some
personalities.” 15:17
There wasn’t that much to tell about it frankly. They were all ladies and actually like in
the movie—in the movie that was Hollywood. You didn’t see occasions like Spaghetti
and them going out and dancing. These girls were well respected and they were invited
to the country clubs and they did a lot of community work and Johnson’s Wax took care
of them—made sure that they were well represented. Like I say, the movie was all
Hollywood and I wasn’t the batboy then. 16:01
Interviewer: “Any particular game or games that really stands out for you?
Something that you just went WOW.”
The championship game, the championship game between Rockford and the Belles. It
was like it was in the movie, but it didn’t happen that way you know.
Interviewer: “Tell us how it happened, start us off from the beginning and kind of
work us through the game.”
The game was well played and it ended up four to three and there was no home run like
they had in the movie with Geena Davis dropping the ball. It was a game and the score
was four to three. It was just a regular championship game played like champions and
like I say, any of them—any of those girls could have made any men’s team in the
country. They had arms and they were good arms too and I’ll tell you. 16:56
Interviewer: “Now you spent how long being the batboy for Racine?”
Just the Belles, just the one year 1943 because then I went—I became a freshman and I
started playing basketball, softball and all that. In fact, in 1944 I tried out –they had the
St. Louis Cardinals had a clinic at Horlick Field and I tried out and I went two weeks, I
was there for two weeks, but I just didn’t have it to make—to be a major leaguer you
know, but I loved the game and you can ask my wife—I played a lot of ball. Sometimes
I played—because I played a lot of fast pitch and we were the state champions for five
years in a row and we use to play sixty-five games a year and a lot of traveling. 17:51
Sometimes I would go away on the weekend and come home and go right to work, but I
love my wife, she really watched me.
6
�Interviewer: “this is going back a little way and maybe at the time you didn’t think
of it as much, but when did you find out that the league was actually ending? Do
you remember that at all?”
That was 1954 and just through the sports writing because I was already working and we
already had a couple of children and it was just too bad that they had to—but you could
see it dying a slow death because baseball was coming back now and guys like DiMaggio
and all them were all trying to hit the ball and you could see it was dying, but I was glad
it was Kalamazoo because we were there just a couple of years ago when they showed
the last game in 1954 when they ended the season. 18:56
Interviewer: “So, when you stopped being a batboy like you say, you were in school
and eventually to work, were you still a fan? Did you still go to the games?”
Oh yes, I would go to the women’s games.
Interviewer: “Let’s talk about that then. You were mentioning that things had
kind of died out, but let’s go back—now you’re in the stands and you’re watching as
a fan or did they still let you down there?”
No, I went as a fan. Elmer was still there and I would see him when I would go there and
his sister Edna was the general manager and she would let me in. I watched a lot of the
Belles play until I graduated from high school and then I kind of fell off a little bit, but I
ran into Irene Hickson and she was telling me, “how come you don’t join the
association?” I didn’t even know I could join because now I’m classified as league
personnel, so I signed a card and my wife and I have been going now since 1991 to the
reunion and it’s a great thing. 20:09 Recall the girls and see them all you know.
Interviewer: “They remember you?”
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: “I want to get back to when you started to see that things were
winding down. Was it that the crowds weren’t there or what was it?”
They only played in Racine until 1950. 1950 was the last year they played in Racine and
then, I think, the belles became the Grand Rapids Belles or or something, but they only
played until 1950 and you could see in 1948 and 1947 that they were dying down because
the crowds—metal Parts was in a pretty good league and they were there you know.
21:00
Interviewer: “Did you have any, I know this isn’t fair because it was a long, long
time ago, when you saw in the paper that the league was ending, did you have any
reactions or any thought that it was too bad or anything at all that you can
remember?”
It was a sad thing for the league to disband, but you have to remember that these girls did
something that nobody ever did. They brought back—you know guys were all over there
7
�in the army over in the war and when they came home they had something to go to. I
never had a chance to be in the army because I was too young and all that, but when these
girls would be there, these guys were really happy you know. “ Hey, that’s somewhere to
go, let’s go over to Horlick Field, a double header today”, but it was just too bad that the
league didn’t go over. Then the—then Milwaukee got a ball team, the Braves and they
had other things to occupy their time. Like I say, the league ended—the Racine Belles
disbanded in 1950. 22:05
Interviewer: “Now I’ve asked this question and we’ve all asked this question to
each one of the women, they played ball, they enjoyed ball and then afterwards
when it ended there was this sadness, but they kind of went on with their lives, but
at some point they kind of recognized that they did something special. Did that ever
happen to you? Was there a point in your life where you realized, not necessarily
you, but they had done something pretty amazing besides just playing good
baseball? Was there any point where you just kind of thought back that that was
kind of an amazing period of time? 22:38
Amazing because I was the first batboy for the Racine Belles and that’s what I tell people
that I was probably the only boy that was a batboy for the women’s teams when they
originated in 1943, but after I got out of high school, I did a lot. I was active in the
Democratic party, I was active in the unions, retirees groups and on Labor Day, bowling.
I had a—in fact now I even got a bowling league named after me, I’m in the Racine
Bowling Hall of Fame, and I was occupied as my wife will tell you. I was never home.
23:28
Interviewer: “At what point did you actually—either it was called to your attention
or you just thought about it, that you were part of something that was something
pretty amazing?”
Well, the only thing I can say is that I never got any pictures of me when I was the
batboy. Somebody’s got pictures of me in California, but we’ve never made contact with
the person, but other than that it was wonderful to be with the girls and they were great.
Interviewer: “Now, what was your reaction to hearing that they were going to be
put into the Baseball Hall of Fame?”
I was just wondering why they didn’t put the batboys in. You know, they put the girls in
because we were out there, but they were out there all the time you know. They played
all them games you know and they worked hard and they deserved to have some
recognition in the Hall of Fame. 24:28 We enjoyed it when we went to Cooperstown
when they had the reunion in Syracuse and we all went to Cooperstown. It was just too
bad that—they tried to get me into the Hall of Fame because I was a league personnel and
I was involved for sixty games that they played at home and I never missed a game. For
the championship game, when I was a batboy, I usde to wear a pair of jeans and a nice
white tee shirt, but for the championship game Don Black said, “Mike, you got to have a
uniform”, so they sent me to one of the men’s stores and I bought a nice pair of brown
8
�pants and a yellow shirt so I would look just like the Racine Belles on the day of the
championship game. 25:22 That was one of the biggest—because at that time you know
things were tough.
Interviewer: “I’ve asked the women, and I’m sure you have heard this one before,
what did you think of the movie?”
It was Hollywood. It was Hollywood the movie was Hollywood. It was nice to see
something done and they got some recognition from it and Penny Marshall did a very
good job on it, but some of the stuff they had in there the girls never did because like I
said, they were ladies. They never had drinking parties riding on a bus. Tom Hanks—
you wouldn’t see Johnny Gottselig come into the locker room and go to the bathroom.
That was just Hollywood. 26:16
Interviewer: “There were some scenes, for example when Davis walks into the
ballpark and then playing and all that, some of the girls have said that that was kind
of—at least it showed the overall story.”
The overall picture, but on the end there with the presentation at the Hall of Fame, when
Gina Davis walks in and sees her sister and some of the girls that are here now
participated in the movie and it was a good movie and we watch it every chance we can
and sometimes—we got a tape of it, and like I say, it was mostly all Hollywood. 27:00
The batboy and no crying in baseball.
Interviewer: “Now I’ll ask you a question I ask everyone of them as well, and as you
said, you did a lot after that. You can look back and certainly even now you got
bowling and you have a successful family and all that, but I want you to go inside
right now and being a batboy at that time, did that have any effect on the person
that you became, the person that you are now? 27:33 That experience of going to
the ballpark, seeing Satchel Paige, seeing these women do these things did that have
an effect on who you are today?”
No, no, no, because when I got involved at work my possibilities of being a president
were nothing at all, I had a family to support, I did my work, I worked every day, I never
missed a day of work, I loved my family, I loved my wife and I did a lot. I did a lot for
the city of Racine, I was a commissioner on a parks and recreation for twenty-four years,
I was labor person of the year, I was a delegate for the Democratic national convention in
1976 and 1980, I got into the oval office with Jimmy Carter, so what more can you
accomplish other than being a good husband, a good father and a great grandfather.
28:43
Interviewer: “thank you very much, that was a great interview.
9
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Oral history
Baseball players--Minnesota
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Illinois
Baseball for women--United States
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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RHC-58_MCorona
Title
A name given to the resource
Corona, Mike (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Corona, Mike
Description
An account of the resource
Mike Corona was born in Racine, Wisconsin on November 9, 1928. He grew up in the Racine area playing baseball with his friends. At the age of ten, because of his friendship with the caretaker of the Horlick Athletic Field, he started playing as a batboy for men's semi-pro teams. When the All American Girls League came to Racine, he became a batboy working under Racine manager, Johnny Gottselig and his team. Corona worked as batboy only in 1943 and then went off to college and pursued other career endeavors.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Olson, Gordon (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Video recordings
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Baseball for women--United States
Baseball
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Women
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-09-26
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4