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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
HELEN FILARSKI
Women in Baseball
Born: 1924 Detroit, MI
Resides:
Interviewed by: Frank Boring, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 5, 2010, Detroit,
Michigan at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, November 26, 2010
Interviewer: “Helen, if we could begin with your full name and where and when
were you born?”
My whole name is Helen Margaret Filarski and I was born in 1924.
Interviewer: “Where?”
In Detroit, Michigan
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like? Where did you live?”
I lived in Detroit, Michigan and most of the time it was—the war was on and there was
no—it was before the war was on I should say and I was going to school in Detroit, the
Catholic school. 14:17
Interviewer: “Did you wear a uniform?”
No, not at first, it’s when you’re out of the eighth grade that you start with the uniform.
Interviewer: “I had the white sox with the black shoes and the girls had the skirts
with the white sox, yup, yup. Where did you live? I know it was Detroit, but did
you live in an apartment or a house?”
No, we lived in the east side of Detroit and my mother and father and there were seven
children. The war was on and most of them at that time were in war plants because the
war was on and everything, so we just stayed there and I went to Holy Name School for
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�eight years and graduated from there and went to St. Joseph’s because my mother had
gone there, so we all followed up in the Polish atmosphere. 15:46
Interviewer: “So you had neighborhood friends and did you play games?”
Played games—I was one of seven children, so the girls, I didn’t consider myself a girl
because I went with my brother and we played ball all the time. The boys got away with
it you know, so I stuck with him and we played ball and most of my time with them we
played and like everybody else, we had one bat and one ball and I got the job to sew the
ball up every time after we played because we knocked the stuffing out of it, but then we
had to sew it up before we could play a game. 16:41 I would keep that up and I went
through grade school and I played all that way and then I went to high school.
Interviewer: “Now, were there any organized sports at the school?”
No, not at grade school they didn’t have any.
Interviewer: “But you’re playing baseball basically with other neighbor kids?”
We would get out of school and out we would go. We lived right next to a playground
and that was one thing you know, we would go out the door and over the street and we
played until it got dark and that was it every day you know. 17:34 Because I was a girl,
my mother would call me every once in a while, “get in here and do the dishes”, and I
didn’t enjoy that, but what do you do? We did that all my life through eighth grade then
when I graduated out of grade school—oh, in the summer time my mother, since we were
so poor and they didn’t have a job, my father got a job cleaning the streets at that time
because there wasn’t any war plants. My mother would make a big lunch and everything
and my dad would drive out to a plot that the city gave you and make a garden and we
would sit out there all day working on the planting. 18:40 Then my dad would come
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�back after he got through with his job and pick us up. There were about four of us at that
time that went there and they took us home and we got ready for dinner and everything
and that was every day, you know, that we had time to get over there.
Interviewer: “By the time you got into high school, did you have any idea what you
wanted to do through life? Were you going to be a nurse or be a mother, what were
you thinking?”
Well, through those years I played ball at the city park and I played with the girls that
were in the league and mostly I was too young and that and I would pick-up the bats and
chase the ball and stuff like that. 19:43
Interviewer: “So is this the actual professional girls’ baseball league?”
Yes
Interviewer: “How did you hear about them?”
Oh, I learned a lot from them you know.
Interviewer: “But how did you hear about them? How did you know they were
there?”
Here’s the playground, here’s the street, here’s my house, I mean we lived right upon it
and anybody that would get on that field we could see and if there was an open space, a
position open, I ran over there and played in it, the boys or whoever is playing.
Interviewer: “How did you hear about the All American Girls Professional Baseball
League though?”
Alright, when we played, a bunch of girls were in the league and I got good enough to
play with them and on their team, so I played and everybody said, “why don’t you go join
us for this year, you’re good enough to go over there”. 20:52
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�Interviewer: “So they were off season, they were from Detroit and they went to
play wherever they played and when they came back, that’s when you were playing
with them?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Ok, now I get it, so did you go and talk to your mom and dad about
it?’
Oh, I kept talking to her all the time, but it was no use and she would say, “girls don’t
play ball, just come in the house and do some work around the house”, all housework all
the time.
Interviewer: “You had told me a story about how you heard about tryouts in
Chicago, let’s hear that story.”
Through the girls, we kept going to the park and that and I heard the story about it and the
girls kept asking me, “come on, come on with us, don’t stay here”, so I went and asked
my mother and she said, “you’re too young, you can’t leave home alone, you’re too
young to go”, and she said, “Al Capone is in here and he’s trying to get a league together
of women and it’s not for playing ball and you’re not going anywhere near that
playground again”, so it just kept a going and I kept playing there. 22:27 I kept playing
until I got out of high school.
Interviewer: “So you had to have her permission to be able to join the league and
she wouldn’t let you.”
No
Interviewer: “So when you turned was it eighteen? What did you do?”
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�Eighteen, yes and I said, “I’ll run away”, and she didn’t like the idea of me running away,
so she said, “let me talk to some of the girls, Connie Wisnwiewski, and a lot of the girls
that were on the team and they were my friends and I had them over and everything and
she talked to them and they said, “she’ll be all right, we’ll take care of her”, and I was
about the youngest one there then and when I got to spring training they got me in real
good you know. “You Polock, you go and stay in the room and when we call you bring
down the fire escape and bring us in”, so that’s what I was doing for a while. 23:40 I
was the best friend.
Interviewer: “So your mom finally says it’s ok to go. What does your dad think
about all this?”
My dad didn’t care. Hhe didn’t care.
Interviewer: “So, how did you actually go to the spring training? Did you go by
train, did you go by bus?”
We did, we went by train.
Interviewer: “And you were with the other girls that you knew, so you felt kind of
taken care of?”
Yes, placing you where you were going to play, I got on a team, Rockford, with no
friends of mine and I didn’t know anybody.
Interviewer: “Did you have to try out? Did you have to try out for the team?”
Yes
Interviewer: “What was that experience? What was that like, the tryouts?”
You’re scared, you’re scared and there were girls from the league out there and they
would hit the ball to me. Connie Wisnwiewski was the best pitcher there was at the time,
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�so she would do the pitching—running and everything, teaching you, but they made a
fool of me. 25:04 They’ll do that, they will kid around with ya, but I tried to do it my
own same way.
Interviewer: “But you got in.”
Oh yeah, I got in
Interviewer: “That must have been a happy day?”
Oh, it was fine, but it took me and got me into a house. When you get on a team they
check you into a house, so this was mom and dad Gorenson and they had no children and
they had a beautiful home and everything, but they said to them, “keep an eye on her
because she’s underage and we don’t want any problems”, so it was “where you going?”
They kept their eye on me. 25:57
Interviewer: “Did you have a room mate?”
Yes, she was a movie star, Kay Rohrer, and she would go out and she would say, “don’t
forget, I will call you when I want to come back in”, so she would call and if we were on
the road, she would call and I’d let down the fire escape otherwise I would wait and put
the light on so she would see the light and that the road was clear and she would come in
and we did that for two seasons.
Interviewer: “What was your first season like as a rookie?” 26:36
Scared, you’re really scared when you play with these gals who know their position and
what’s going on instead of waiting for someone to say, “now you go there and you go
there”. They put you in your position and they taught you—you learned and you would
stay on that field until you fell down. You learned to not be afraid of the ball and it was
good, it was really great. 27:12
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�Interviewer: “What position did you play the first season?”
Third base
Interviewer: “As a rookie, did you start or did you sit on the bench a lot?”
No, I started I started.
Interviewer: “Even though you were scared, you must have been pretty good?”
I didn’t mind it and I was tough you know, I would run and go after that ball because I
was going to stop it if it killed me. When you were a rookie, you were going to fight
your heart out and that’s what I did and it was a strong team.
Interviewer: “Any particular game that you remember from the first season? Was
there anything that you did that was good or maybe made a mistake?” 28:03
I don’t know, I’m telling you; I ended up in the hospital.
Interviewer: “What happened?”
Well, I got spiked a couple of times down my legs sliding into third base you know and I
think that’s what the worst one was, but that was it.
Interviewer: “How did you like the uniform?”
Oh, it was free you know and they gave you a lot of free time there.
Interviewer: “Did you have to alter it at all for your height or anything?”
The first year no, but the second year we did because it was a little bit long.
Interviewer: “One of the girls said the difficulty was that she played in the outfield
and as you reached down for the ball, you got dress and you didn’t get the ball you
got the skirt.”
Right, it’s just like in the infield, you’re down here and you go down for the ball and
here—the ball is right there. 29:14
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�Interviewer: “Now, once you finished your first season, you came back home to
Detroit?”
Oh yeah
Interviewer: “Then what did you do when you got home? Were you still in school?
You were out of school, right?”
No, no I wasn’t in school, but in-between there I went to the war factory. I was two years
in the war factory and then I was able to—my age could get me out you know, so that’s
where I went.
Interviewer: “You were in Detroit though?”
Yes
Interviewer: “So that was one of the factories that was supporting the war.”
Yes
Interviewer: “So then how did you—your second season, did they send you a letter?
Did they call up your house and say we want a new contract?”
Yeah, they send a letter and tell you it’s—we met in spring training.
Interviewer: “Ok, and once again you took the train?” 30:12
Yes
Interviewer: “Did you still travel with the same girls that you did before?”
Oh yeah, there were about seven or eight of us from Detroit that—and every year they
probably picked up on or two girls, so it got big and it was very nice.
Interviewer: “So the second year you weren’t a rookie any more?”
No, no and boy, you better know your steps. It was great and you just knew what you
were doing.
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�Interviewer: “How were the fans?”
Oh, the fans just loved ya I’m telling ya. They would be in there and we had a lot of
attendance. They were there all the time. It was great.
Interviewer: “Now you played some games at home and then you also had road
trips?”
Yes, four games at home one time and three on the road and then three home and four on
the road.
Interviewer: “What were the road trips like?”
Bumpy, we just had a beat-up bus and oh my god I’m telling you it was really something.
It was worse than these that go down the street. 31:34
Interviewer: “These were fairly long trips by bus?”
A lot of them, like you would go to Chicago, that was a long one from Peoria or
something like that. That was about the longest one I think, from Peoria over into
Chicago there.
Interviewer: “Now, when you stopped along the way were you just able to walk out
with in your blue jeans?”
No, if you stopped there and you intended to get off the bus you gotta put your skirt on.
You couldn’t be seen in public in shorts or anything like that. 32:16
Interviewer: “Right, did you have to go through the charm school, the school?”
Ya, it was the first year the charm school was there.
Interviewer: “I’m sorry, I should have gotten back—how was that?”
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�Oh, everybody laughed about it at first. They made us scared you know, because we
couldn’t get out there and play ball because we were doing this and everything you know,
and what did we want to do that for.
Interviewer: “Did you have to have a book on your head?”
No, but some did
Interviewer: “Well, did they ask you to sit down in a certain way? Did you also
learn how to use the knife and fork and things like that?”
Well, your woman who taught us-Interviewer: “Helena Rubenstein?” 33:27
Yeah, she was one, and they taught us how to get up and how to sit down and some of
them would just mock them and come in and plop down.
Interviewer: “But this was new to you, you were a city girl, right and playing with
the boys and now you got to sit this way?”
Yes, and I was scared and you would get scared at doing these things, but I loved it just
as much.
Interviewer: “Did any of those things carry on for the rest of your life? Do you still
sit that way?”
No, no and if I want to sit down, I sit down. 34:17
Interviewer: “So, your second season, you’re not a rookie anymore and you’re still
playing third base?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Any games that you can think of that were a little bit unusual and did
you have a good year?”
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�Oh, we had a good year, we won the championship the first year that I played and that
was good.
Interviewer: “Because of you?”
No, I helped a little bit and I had a good year there and if I couldn’t do it with my glove, I
would do it with my body.
Interviewer: “You said earlier that your family was not wealthy and you were
making pretty good money weren’t you?”
Yeah, it was more than I did in the factory. I mean we were still at the war a couple more
years I think into it and we were still at war.
Interviewer: “Did you send money home?” 35:20
Yeah, oh yeah I sent it and I didn’t have anyplace to spend it because you can’t do
anything anyway.
Interviewer: “At that time Helen, you’re a professional baseball player and
whether your mother believed it or not, you really were a professional baseball
player. Were you thinking that was something you were going to keep doing every
year?”
Well, I didn’t hear about it at first, but I wanted to get into it and once I got into it I loved
it you know.
Interviewer: “But did you think you were going to be able to play this for a
number of years?”
No, I would just do it day by day and figure it out just as good as you can and you do
what you can.
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�Interviewer: “Did you have any idea what you wanted to do professionally with
your life? Did you want to become a nurse or did you want to become anything?”
No, I just wanted to play ball all day long. 36:31
Interviewer: “So, at the end of the second season you came back to Detroit and you
worked in the same factory?”
No, you couldn’t go back there.
Interviewer: “So, did you get a job?”
No, I don’t think I did.
Interviewer: “You were living at home with mom and dad?”
Yeah, and working around there.
Interviewer: “Now the third season comes along and you’re not playing for the
same team anymore, right?”
Let me see, I went to Peoria and Kenosha for one year after that and then went to South
Bend for three years.
Interviewer: “But the Kenosha experience—how come they transferred you to
Kenosha? Do you remember why?” 37:29
Well, they probably had an opening. Either somebody got hurt or you never know if they
didn’t have a good player there.
Interviewer: “So, you’re playing with one team and the next thing you know you’re
playing with another team.”
That’s right, you can go overnight, a lot of times you play ball that night and then as soon
as you start packing in the dressing room and out you go to another city. That’s how they
went when they were short on players.
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�Interviewer: “Was the experience at Kenosha a good one?”
Oh yeah, it was a good one, getting use to the girl next to you, you know, it takes a little
time, so they make you play a little longer and you get different plays and it works out
good, so I stayed there for that year. 38:37
Interviewer: “Good, then back again to Detroit?”
Yes
Interviewer: “And then you play another year?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “This time you’re with the new team, South Bend and they had a
pretty good team didn’t they?”
Oh yes, they did and three years I played with them and they were very good. They had a
lot of old time ball players. I mean they didn’t get any new ones like the other teams got
and it’s hard to get use to playing next to somebody like that, going after the ball or
playing to the right team. 39:38
Interviewer: “Now, you’re playing for a number of years as a professional baseball
player and even at that point you’re still not thinking that this is going to be your
career?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Did you think that you were just going to keep playing?”
I never thought that it would last that long you know. We played night after night
wondering how long we were going to be together because sometimes they were talking
you know, about breaking up and things like that, but we never did, so we just kept on
playing.
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�Interviewer: “What was your last year? You lasted until?”
1950
Interviewer: “The league went on until 1954, how come you left in 1950?” 40:31
I got married, yes in 1950 I got married
Interviewer: “And you just decided that you weren’t going you play baseball
anymore?”
Yeah, and things were getting different and my boyfriend Donald Steffes said, “it’s either
me or baseball”, so I quit and got married.
Interviewer: “So, after that, after you finished, did you miss playing baseball?”
Oh, yeah you do
Interviewer: “Did you ever play another sport after that?”
No, I was married and lived the married life.
Interviewer: “Did you talk about your baseball experience after you were done?”
41:34
Oh, we always talked about it, anyone we met we talked about it and I use to come to the
reunions too and continue to come.
Interviewer: “Well, how did you hear about—did you come to the first reunion?”
Yeah, I think I’ve been to all of them, oh yeah.
Interviewer: “All of them, now let me ask you a real dumb question, why do you
come to the reunions?”
To see, to meet and talk baseball, that’s all we do you know, we get there and we tell
about all these crazy plays we make or something and they will say, “oh, you were so
14
�dumb, you were supposed to the other base”, and they all laugh about it you know. It
was great and the best part of my life.
Interviewer: “What are some of the stories that you tell at the reunion?” 42:32
Oh, I don’t know
Interviewer: “Well third base gets a lot of action.”
Oh yeah, yeah it does
Interviewer: “Especially when you have bases loaded.”
Right, right
Interviewer: “Well, let me ask you this, you did talk about your experiences with
baseball and a lot of the girls never talked about it, didn’t tell their kids, didn’t tell
anybody.”
Oh yeah, you ought to see my room and what I got, pictures and everything and I’ve
gotta—and after seeing those pictures downstairs I start saying mine aren’t so good
because they’re great.
Interviewer: “Were people interested in talking about baseball?”
Anybody that met me would talk about it and, “are you still playing?”
The first question anybody will ask you, “are you still going back?” 43:31
Interviewer: “Did you get a chance to see the movie “A League of Their Own”?”
Yeah, we were in it, we were in it and we were showing them how not to throw it so hard
and we laughed and had more fun with that.
Interviewer: “What did you think of the movie?”
We thought it was great and I thought it was great. A lot of them that saw it came out
came out of their shell and said, “never knew there was any ball league”, and those
15
�pictures they had over here, they aught to put them in a book. You talk to somebody and
they say, “I didn’t know that”. 44:30
Interviewer: “What do you make of all the—the movie came out and in some ways
you’re treated like movie stars. What do you think about that?”
Well, we were for a while there you know. We did some crazy things with them I’m
telling you. Every time you would hit the ball or something they would say, “don’t throw
it so hard”, or something and we just sat down and laughed because they wanted to make
the picture, but they didn’t want to do the business, but it was great, the whole thing you
know.
Interviewer: “You went to Cooperstown?”
Yes
Interviewer: “How was that experience of getting inducted into the hall of fame?”
That was great, that was the first time I saw the whole thing you know and it is just
beautiful there. 45:30
Interviewer: “the movie, I thought, did a pretty good job out of showing the
reactions of the players in there and were you in that scene in the movie?”
Yes
Interviewer: “I’ll look for you the next time I look at it, Ok?”
Yes
Interviewer: “It’s interesting because I teach at the university level and the kids are
usually anywhere from eighteen to twenty and when I told them I’m doing this
documentary about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, and A
league of their Own, they get all excited over it.”
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�Everybody loves it and they say, “are you—did you see that picture?” I say, “ yeah, I
was in it”, and they say, “you were?” It was really great and we loved it all the time we
were working on it.
Interviewer: “That was just a few years of your life, a small part of your life, but
how do you look back on that period now? How do you look at it? Is it some thing
that’s very special to you or is it something that just happened? Have you had a
chance to think about it?” 46:41
It’s very special to me because I lived for it and a month before I had to leave town, I was
packing, so it meant everything to us and kids would say, “where is everybody?” They
are different people you know and there was something, the love for the game and we
still loved the people around there and talked to them. We didn’t think we were stars or
anything.
Interviewer: “But you played professional baseball.” 47:41
Yeah, that’s right
Interviewer: “One other question for you, did your mom ever get a chance to see
you play baseball?”
Yes, I think she saw one game and she would say, “I’m not going to watch you get hurt, I
can’t watch you get hurt”, and that’s the first thing she always thought of. She would
say, “you’re going to get hurt”, and I said, “well when the ball is hit to me real hard, I’ll
get out of the way ma”, and she would say, “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it”
Interviewer: “You said earlier that your dad didn’t care one way or the other, did
he get a chance to see you play?” 48:28
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�He probably did, but he wasn’t interested in it. Girls should be in the house, you know,
and wash the dishes. I’m so sick of washing dishes.
Interviewer: “When did your parents find out that you played for the league? Did
they know early on?”
Not really, not really it didn’t mean anything to them that I went out of town. They
thought anybody can do that, we all play ball.
Interviewer: “But that all changed.”
Oh yeah and as the years go by it means more to them.
Interviewer: “You have a special family her, this—you have your own family, but
you have another family that’s all these other girls and all their daughters and their
sons and whatnot.”
We have a big family when we all get together and they all feel the same way and the
mothers talk just like they do, you know. 49:47
Interviewer: “What do you think about this All American Girls Professional
Baseball League? It’s part of American history now.”
Yes, yes it is
Interviewer: “Did you ever think it was going to be that big of a deal?”
No, it was getting slowly and they would get it out there once in a while, but they get it
out there now and everybody says, “A League of Their Own is on”, and everybody is
going and I say, “A League of Their Own”.
Interviewer: “If it’s on TV I can’t change the channel, I just—I don’t care where it
starts or where it ends, I just watch it. My favorite scene is the Tom Hanks and
Geena Davis when she’s about to go with her husband and leave and she said it got
18
�too hard and he said, “It’s supposed to be hard, if it wasn’t hard everybody could do
it”. 50:46
Yeah
Interviewer: “That’s an amazing scene and I use that in class, you gotta work at it.”
It makes sense
Interviewer: “did you get a chance to travel to other countries? Some of the girls
went to Cuba.”
Yes, I did
Interviewer: “How was that experience?”
I don’t know really.
Interviewer: “Just another ball game?”
It’s another ball game, it’s another country and they start talking and I say, “ya, ya, sure”,
you don’t know what they’re talking about and they touch you. We were walking in a
parade coming to the stadium one time and they touch you and get on the floor and
holler, they just go out of their minds. They toss somebody and the guys that are keeping
the line straight and they go up to them and are beating them with a Billy club and they
didn’t care how they hit them. 52:05
Interviewer: “The public was just going crazy about it, so the police came?”
Outside yeah, the police would get them if they would stick in their hand to touch you.
Interviewer: “Where else did you travel to besides Cuba? Did you go any other
places?”
Yeah, I went on the train, I’m trying to think where I went in the wintertime. I played
somewhere, I forgot already.
19
�Interviewer: “Was it South America? No”
I was in Puerto Rico
Interviewer: “Once again, just another ball game?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “No Billy clubs this time I hope.”
No, sometimes they will just run in and do something and run out. Somebody had been
talking and they said it’s like holy people when they run out and throw their arms up and
holler. It’s something sacred and that’s why they come and run out. You got to stop it
because the parade is going on. 53:33
Interviewer: “They thought you were somehow holy people, huh?”
Yeah, little do they know, huh?
Interviewer: “Well Helen it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Is there any story that
you just want to be able to tell because I know you talk to your friends about things.
Are there any stories that you can think of off the top of your head?”
Right now I can’t remember.
Interviewer: “All right.”
20
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports.
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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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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_HFilarski
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Filarski, Helen (Interview transcript and video), 2010
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Filarski, Helen
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Helen Filarski Steffes was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1924. She grew up playing baseball with boys in the neighborhood. She met some of the players from the All American league who encouraged her to try out, and went on to play third base for Rockford, Peoria, Kenosha and South Bend between 1944 and 1950.
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Boring, Frank (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--Illinois
Baseball players--Wisconsin
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
Text
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2010-07-02
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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
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b8fd1bbd0fa463a5aa10108b00ad5c2a.mp4
06d61d88545864e9d65d52d0d53eec8e
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c59b2669d7199bfb9db74883eed6c3bf.pdf
fd9f8b72445acd162eb9b6038fdc7674
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
GINGER GASCON
Women in Baseball
Born: Chicago, Illinois, 1931
Resides: Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Interviewed by: James Smither Ph.D, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 6, 2010,
Detroit, MI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, February 10, 2011
Interviewer: “Ginger, can we start off by you telling us a little bit about your
background. Where and when were you born?”
I was born in Chicago in 1931.
Interviewer: “Did you grow up in Chicago?”
I did, I grew up in Chicago.
Interviewer: “What neighborhood did you live in?”
We lived in a few different neighborhoods, one on the west side of Chicago, but the one I
remember the best is the one near Wrigley field, near Hawthorn school. I think we
moved there when I was about eight or ten and we stayed there until I was eighteen.
Interviewer: “What did your family do for a living?”
My dad was a truck driver and he use to drive paper goods to northern Minnesota and
Michigan and come back and deliver down to the Chicago Tribune building. My mother
was a housewife and she was an Irish immigrant. 42:48
Interviewer: “Was your father able to keep that job through the thirties?”
Whatever he did he was on “Papa Works Again” and he use to bring home Blueberry pie
and whatever his main work was I don’t know, but that’s what it was to keep the fellas
going and that was good
Interviewer: “Jobs were not always easy at that point.”
1
�Not at that point.
Interviewer: “How did you get involved playing sports?”
I happen to be the only girl in the neighborhood of all boys and that was from age ten on,
so if I didn’t play with them, I wouldn’t be playing with anybody. I started out on the
playgrounds and I played ball there and I was pretty good. I was one of the better ones
that always went off to the division meeting and everything.
Interviewer: “Were you playing in organized leagues?”
No, remember I was ten or twelve years old, but I had an uncle who was a cop and he
was a policeman on the gate at Wrigley Field and I only had about a six block walk down
there. 43:46 When he would see me, he would say, “come on, get in”, so I got to watch
Phil Cavarretta, Andy Pafko and those fellas and I just kind of fell in love with it from
playing—we started out with sixteen inch and fourteen inch.
Interviewer: “So, you’re playing softball in the street?”
Playing softball
Interviewer: “You were there in 1945, the last time the cubs were in the World
Series?”
Yes, I think so, but I don’t remember going to that World Series.
Interviewer: “You might have been in school by then?”
Yes, I think I was in school.
Interviewer: “It might have been a little bit harder to get in.”
Yeah, but when I was in school during WWII, they use to let some of us out of school to
go out and collect tine and things during the day and that was kind of fun to go around
the neighborhood and do things like that. When I got one of my first jobs I was the only
2
�girls in that district with all boys that delivered newspapers and that was nice because
some of the boys were a little lazy and they would ask me to take their route for the day
and I would make a few dollars there and I kind of liked that. 44:47
Interviewer: “All right, now at what point did you start to play more organized
ball?”
Fifteen, sixteen and there was a team, they were all farm teams for this all American
league, and I played on the North Town Debs and there was the south group of girls that
played too and when they created the Sallies and the Colleens, I went with the Sallies and
some of my friends went with the Colleens and we toured the United States. I know
you’ve heard that before, all the various cities and states.
Interviewer: “Right, so let’s back up a little bit to that first stage. How did you
wind up joining that first team?”
Joining the first team? They picked you, they looked for the best athletes and they picked
you.
Interviewer: “How did they find you or where did they locate you?”
On the playgrounds, it started on the playgrounds in Chicago.
Interviewer: “So you weren’t playing in an organized softball league or anything
like that?” 45:44
I was on a girl’s team in Chicago, but it was just eighth graders or something like that.
Interviewer: “But they were actually scouting the neighborhoods to go find people.”
Scouting the neighborhoods or they would here about and go and ask the athletic
directors and we did tryout for that, that’s right, we did tryout for those farm teams.
Interviewer: “Once you’re on one of those teams do you just live at home?”
3
�You live at home and go out three or four nights a week and on the week-end and play
each other in various parks in the city.
Interviewer: “What did your family think about that?”
They didn’t mind, they liked it and I was always very active and I had my paper route
and everything. I had two younger sisters, so they kind of looked up to me because I
would take them out to places with me, to different and various places.
Interviewer: “All right, were they paying you at that point?”
Let me see, when is the first time I got paid? On the traveling team in 1949.
Interviewer: “So, the first level of team you’re just playing?”
Yeah, you’re a farm team and you just show up and play. 46:47 No money involved,
just your skill level and all that.
Interviewer: “So, did you do that for one year or two or?”
Probably two years, I played for two years.
Interviewer: “How do you get up to the next level?”
That’s when you tried out, they had tryouts for the All Americans and that’s when they
picked you again from that group, so that’s how some of us got in.
Interviewer: “Where were they doing the tryouts?”
At the various parks around—in Skokie, the tryouts were there and see, Wrigley Field
had already had all the girls back for the first stage and now this comes five years later
and then the coaches came and looked at us and picked and put us, after we traveled and
di that for the year, they picked us to come to whatever teams and you probably heard
that story from other girls. The balanced the teams by skill level and whatever they
needed. 47:48
4
�Interviewer: “So, what was the year then that you started playing with the traveling
teams?”
1949 and in 1950 I came back and played with Chicago for a year, underhand fast pitch
with the Bluebirds and then I went back in 1951 to the Grand Rapids Chicks and finally I
settled in and played another three years with the Bluebirds because I could hold a day
job and play ball and I had two salaries.
Interviewer: “The Bluebirds, was that a semi-pro softball team?”
It was a pro team also, you paid to get in and we got paid. I started out with that team at
about a hundred dollars a week and went up to a hundred and a quarter. See, the all
Americans was fifty five and seventy five, but holding the day job was the bonus because
you had a double salary and that’s when I started saving money for college.
Interviewer: “Let’s go back to the farm team experience. Were there basically just
two teams that played each other or were there more?”
There were four, but I can’t remember the other two. I remember the Debs and the—
you’ll hear it from one of the other ladies, the team she played on. She was a southsider
and I was a northsider. 48:54
Interviewer: “Did fans come to these games?”
Oh yeah, the parks were full every night. Are you familiar with Chicago Thillens
Stadium on Devon and Lincoln Ave? The Thillens check cashing trucks? I don’t know
if you remember seeing them running around? They sponsored us, so they gave us the
money for uniforms and people came into the park at night and I think they were paying a
quarter or something.
Interviewer: “How do things change then when you join the traveling team?”
5
�When you join the traveling team, that’s the fun. You know you’re traveling to different
cities and meeting different people and you’re on the bus singing at night. It’s just the
excitement and the camaraderie of having all these friends around you all the time. You
think about high school and when high school days were over, that’s who your friends
are. Most of them don’t go to college and we had that extended into our twenties and we
still meet. I can’t think of any other group of people who still meet from when they were
in their teens. I just think we have been terribly lucky in that manner. It’s been a
wonderful thing. 49:55
Interviewer: “I think the closest you get, maybe in some cases, is with military
veterans. Men who served in the same unit, they have reunions, but in a way it
parallels a little bit because it’s a distinctive experience more than just going to
school someplace.”
It’s a shared experience.
Interviewer: “Right, and you’re at that point in your life that you’re becoming who
you really are too. That’s a very consistent thing that we’ve had in this. Explain a
little bit for people who don’t know very much about it, how did the traveling team
thing work? Who was on it, what happened?”
There were scouts with the All American, Max Carey and those fellas, they would go out
to the major cities in America or the ones they decided they could get some interest in,
and they would talk to the Chamber of Commerce and their press men and their sports
people and they would arrange for us to come in at certain dates, and they did it very well
because they started out in Chicago and went down to Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
50:56 Crossed over to Virginia and finally got back to New York and over Pennsylvania,
6
�so it was just play a game or two, get on the bus and go to the next town and play a game
or two. On Sunday it was two games, we use to play two games on Sunday, but we
stayed in different hotels and met different people. I remember in Michigan, Battle
Creek, when these fellas would carry our luggage to the hotel, you know from the bus
into and up to our rooms, we played music because we liked the rhythm and blues music
and they use to hangout in the halls with us and that was a lot of fun. It was almost like
you were dating groups, but it wasn’t really.
Interviewer: “Did you go to New York City as part of that?”
Yes, we stayed in Newark, New Jersey and we got on the train. I don’t know if anyone’s
told you this, but we had Mirtha Marrero and Isabel Alvarez and it just so happened I had
Spanish in high school, so I was the only one that could talk to them a little bit, so I took
them on the train from Newark into New York. 51:57 We went to the Palladium
because Mambo was popular at the time and then we went to the Empire State Building
and of course once they saw the guys at the Palladium they were in a different kind of
world than the rest of us, so I left them to go to the john and said, “don’t move, I’ll be
back”, and when I came back they were gone. They were gone for hours and hours and I
had to call back to the chaperone and say, “I lost the girls, they left me”, and so I got back
on the train by myself and they finally showed up, but that was kind of harrowing
because I felt responsible for them, but I couldn’t control them. 52:36
Interviewer: “Where did you play in New York?”
We were playing in Newark, New Jersey and that was in 1949 and they played in New
York in 1950, they played in one of those fields.
Interviewer: “At some point they played in Yankee Stadium.”
7
�We didn’t, the 49ers didn’t, but the 50ers did.
Interviewer: “What other places you stopped at stands out in your memory or have
particular stories connected to them?” 53:03
When I think of Oklahoma, I think of the soil and the weather and how it was different
and some of the other states. Virginia, the natural bridge and the places I saw that I
wouldn’t have seen in my life, stood out to me. Ball playing, it was just exciting to play
at night and to have the fans come. They always hung around and wanted autographs,
but we couldn’t talk too long because we had to get to the bus and take our showers and
get onto the next bus. I can tell you a story about the Cuban girls when we would come
to the showers they wouldn’t shower with the rest of us, so they wanted to shower last
and they did. So, we’re sitting on the bus starving, hungry and we wanted to get moving
and they come lumbering along like this after making us wait forty-five more minutes.
Oh, you would say things to them, but you couldn’t say too much, but that was kind of
funny. Different cultures and different ways of getting things done. 54:09
Interviewer: “Did you always play each other or did you sometimes play local
teams?”
We always played each other when we were on tour because you took the girls that they
were going to use later on to see who worked out after these games and take up to the
other teams, so it was always each other and we never played outside of that.
Interviewer: “Aside from the Cubans, were there particular players in that group
who were particularly distinctive or were troublemakers or leaders or anything like
that?”
8
�Well, not any of that really, but different ones had different personalities. I don’t know if
you’re familiar with Maybelle Blair, there were girls like that, younger, that were very
funny and talked loud and did funny things. 54:57
Interviewer: “Now, was Toni Palermo in that group?”
Yes, she was in that group also, right.
Interviewer: “She would have been one of the youngest ones.”
Yes, she was maybe sixteen when I was seventeen or something.
Interviewer: “What did they do to look after you? You’re taking a group of teen
age, largely teenage, girls, I guess some of them were a little older, how did they look
after them?”
Well, the chaperones were always there. Wherever we stayed they were ever present in
the hotel and they just in general watched out for us because if some of these boys want
to take you out on a date or something, you would have to go through the chaperone.
That lightened up though because when I was in Grand Rapids one of the reporters from
the Grand Rapids Herald and I went out to dinner one night. His name was Scotty
something and I don’t remember the last name, but he was telling me about the morgue.
You know what the morgue is don’t you? Newspapers that they keep, so if somebody
dies they go into that file and pick it out, and that was something I never knew before and
something I learned from Scott. 56:00
Interviewer: “Now, does the traveling team season end before the regular one does?
Was it a shorter season or did you finish at the same time maybe, what do you
think?”
We finished in late August and what did our girls have, a 160 game schedule?
9
�Interviewer: “Something like that.”
It was something like that, but I don’t remember.
Interviewer: “The playoffs for the league were a little bit later than that. Would
any of the girls from the traveling teams be called up to the regular clubs or would
you just stay together the whole year?”
We stayed together the whole year and then they sent you to the club. No, they waited
until the season was over. They didn’t pull anybody out that I recall. We picked some up
on the road though; we picked up Sue Kidd in Choctaw, Arkansas.
Interviewer: “Was that a common thing? Would they try people out as they went
from town to town?” 56:57
I only remember that year picking her up as one particular person, but maybe they did,
maybe any of the girls that played in the fifties, maybe they picked up more than one.
Has anyone told you a story so far that they picked up someone?
Interviewer: “ I think there were some maybe they identified and may have joined
a little later. I think Sue Kidd did kind of get on the bus and go with them.”
She got on the bus and went with them, that’s absolutely right.
Interviewer: “Alright, they did that and once that season comes to an end—had you
finished high school yet or were you still in school?”
No, I hadn’t finished yet, but then you’d go back to school and once you were eighteen
and out, you went back two months to the job, if you had a job. Do you know what the
salaries for factory jobs were at the time?
Interviewer: “Nope”
10
�Forty a week—we got more playing ball, and some ladies will say they made more
money than their fathers. It’s kind of amazing isn’t it when you think of it? 57:56
Interviewer: “Although if you think of modern pro athletes in a lot of sports and so
forth, that seems less surprising, but then, baseball players were not paid as well as
football or anyone else.”
Well, back in the seventies, I knew a Jimmy French who was with the Washington
Senators when Ted Williams was the manager and these guys would get about fifteen a
day for meals when they were out and they all lived on hamburgers so they could save
money and it’s kind of interesting, I was down in Florida one time on vacation, and in a
bar. I came with two friends, and we wanted to go to the games, the spring training
games, and we found out where the fellas hung out, so we went in the bar and I was kind
of looking for Jimmy French because I had met him on the farm in Pennsylvania--Eastern
Ohio, right next to Pennsylvania and I said, “Anybody here know Jimmy French?” And
one of the guys said, “Hell, who doesn’t know Jimmy French? He’s the only one with a
masters degree in finance”. 59:00 He ended up working on the San Francisco stock
market. That was kind of rare I guess for athletes to be going to get a degree and then
playing ball, and they only had to play ten years to be pensioned, so every year—I don’t
know if he still gets ten thousand a year or what, but that was back from the early
seventies.
Interviewer: “Now we’re going to go back to your story. Did they want you to come
back the next year?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “But you decided not to.”
11
�I just decided I could make more money because I wanted to go to college and my family
didn’t have any money to send me, so—and I think because I’d had a paper route and I
was used to picking up spare money, I kind of knew how to do that, so when it was
available to me, it would be foolish not to take it, that’s the way I looked at it.
Interviewer: “So, you got the double salary while playing in Chicago and working,
right?”
Three years, right
Interviewer: “You did that in 1950 and then in 1951 you go back to the all
American?” 60:00
Yeah, I go back for a year because this team was moving on and another team didn’t
want to pick me up until the year after, so that’s what I did. It was because I was rookie
on this team and this team was the Chicago Queens, they won the championship that
year. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. Have you heard of the Weaver sisters?
Interviewer: “Yeah”
They were on that team and I was the youngest one on the team and one was pitching and
one was playing shortstop. They could hit—they came out of New Orleans Jacks teams,
so I had people like that around me with high skill levels, and some of the best pitchers in
that league. Connie Wisnwiewski came to that league, and I know her because she came
to the Grand Rapids Chicks, and she got a higher salary than the rest. It was like three
hundred a week, which was very high and she made her own rules, she had a limousine
drive her around, but then she bounced back after that, so I wasn’t the only one that did
that. 1:01
Interviewer: “Normally what position would you play when you were playing?”
12
�Center field when I played for the Bluebirds, center field for the Grand Rapids Chicks,
and second base when I played for the Sallies.
Interviewer: “Was that just depending who else was on the team, where to put
you?”
Well, the coaches put you, they place you and you could be an infielder or an outfielder.
Interviewer: “Now did you play any positions beside those two?”
No, pretty much those two, and I liked center because I was pretty fast and I could cover
the other people over on those ends, so it worked well for me.
Interviewer: “Did you have a good throwing arm?”
I threw people out at the plate from center field.
Interviewer: “Could you hit?”
Fairly well, not real good, but I was a pretty good base stealer when I got on. I hear Toni
saying she was on base a lot and that’s kind of amazing to me, but you know and he said,
“don’t let the truth get in the way of anything.” 2:00
Interviewer: “She was on base all the time, she said.”
According to her, yeah and you got to love her. “What was your average? Were you
batting three hundred? Because we know that girls that batted three hundred and you
weren’t one of them.” You know who they were don’t you? Doris Sams, the ones they
named, people have already named the better players right? So Doris Sam’s, Connie
Wisnwiewski, and I can’t even think of the others right now, but-Interviewer: “She may have walked a lot.”
That could have been, that might have been.
13
�Interviewer: “Alright, so as someone who ran bases a lot, did you have problems
with strawberries and all of that?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “Did you find ways of dealing with that? Could you slide in a certain
way that was less harmful?”
No, when you hit the ground you’re going to land on the same spot the next time and you
remember that because it’s not comfortable.
Interviewer: “What kind of treatment could they provide for you?”
The chaperone came out right away and rolled you over and first cleaned it off and then
the Mercurichrome and of course, we never complained about anything because they
would take you out of the line-up and I did not want to be taken out of the line-up. 3:08
The ball player today, when they get a hangnail they don’t play and they get all that
money.
Interviewer: “Well, they want to protect their investment, right?”
It cracks me up
Interviewer: “So, basically you’re situation in Chicago changes, but you still want
to keep playing, so did you have to go tryout for the all Americans in 1951?”
No, when I said I wanted to come back they said, “oh good”, and they put me on a team.
Interviewer: “Alright, what do you remember about the season in Grand Rapids?”
I remember getting on base in Grand Rapids and sort of outwitting the Cuban pitchers for
stealing. I knew their little slow moves and whatever and throwing people out, and then
the people I met, so that was the best for me.
14
�Interviewer: “Were their some pitchers that were harder to run on than others?”
3:59
Yes, tough to run on
Interviewer: “Who was tough?”
Well, Jean Faut, of course, and I can’t think of any right now, I’m just not pulling them
up.
Interviewer: “And their pitchers that you really didn’t like to have to bat against?”
Well, you couldn’t control it, you did your best you know, you never gave up, never give
up.
Interviewer: “Where did you live when you were in Grand Rapids?”
In a home with somebody, and I don’t even remember the people's name right now, but I
lived in a sort of a boarding house situation once too.
Interviewer: “Do you remember which field you were playing at? South Field by
the high school or Bigelow Field south of town?”
I think it was Bigelow Field.
Interviewer: “They played there for a couple of years and then it burned down.
Were the crowds good in Grand Rapids at that point?” 4:55
Yes they were, that was five years in and they were still good. It was the last two or three
years that they weren’t so good and I don’t if it was a novelty and it was wearing off with
people, but it was kind of sad to see it go. Some of the girls, what you call the all stars
went on to play in other places around the country with Bill Allington and things like
that, so that was good.
Interviewer: “They did a little more barnstorming for a while anyway.”
15
�Yeah, a little more barnstorming, but that’s all that was left. I remember that wrestling
came into popularity then and girls roller skating came into popularity, so I don’t want to
call the American public fickle, but they tire of things after while and the guys were back,
so that was a big thing.
Interviewer: “That’s right because when the league started the minor leagues were
pretty well shut down, so in these smaller towns and so forth, they didn’t have
anything going on. 5:50
Sometimes—let’s see, it was when you’d go down to Florida and Max Carey was down
there and he’s invite some of us girls to the track to bet on the dogs, he always wanted
fifty cents, he was going to go in on it with two or three of us, kind of interesting huh?
Interviewer: “So you play basically with Grand Rapids for one year and then what
do you do after that?”
After that I go to college.
Interviewer: “Where did you go to college?”
I went to Northeastern Illinois State in Chicago, a city college.
Interviewer: “And what did you study?”
Education and Psychology
Interviewer: “Then what did you do with the degree once you had it?”
I was an elementary teacher for six years and then after that I was a counselor for twentyeight years.
Interviewer: “Where did you work?”
First in Chicago and then after a year the Department of Defense started in New York and
came across the country all the way to California, and they were interviewing for jobs in
16
�Europe at the army schools, so they picked me in Chicago and I went over to Europe for
two years and taught in Germany. 7:00 When I came back form there—you could look
for placements over there is you were deciding to come home and I found one in Parma,
Ohio, so I was there for two years and then I decided I wanted to work on my masters and
then I came back to Chicago. So, my career is in education.
Interviewer: “Aside from getting you some funding to start college with, what kind
of effects, do you think, playing organized ball for the all Americans and the softball
league, what sort of effects did that have on you?”
Well, the camaraderie is just so much you know, I think you’re so lucky to get that in
your life, but also, you’re around all these other women of talent, you supported each
other, you had role models because the girls that came before us were certain role models
you know. That Wagner lady, Audrey Wagner, ended up being a doctor and things like
that. The role models—“there isn’t anything you can’t do, at least give it a try”. 8:07 I
don’t think a lot of kids grow up with that, you have these other things that lead you to it,
these other opportunities and that’s what I think is the important thing, the opportunity
and then to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with the right set of
skills.
Interviewer: “When you were actually playing with the league, did you see yourself
at all as any kind of pioneer and really doing something significant in moving
women’s sports?”
No, just doing what I loved to do, being physical in space and doing it well and all the
other benefits that I’ve suggested.
17
�Interviewer: “Then in the seventies and in the eighties as women’s sports really
start to pick up and title nine comes in and so forth, did you pay much attention to
that?” 8:52
Yeah, I remember people in—all the PE teachers in the school were into this Title IX
thing and all of us ladies were and I was a counselor in school, so we were always
politicking for that to come into being, because it made a difference. Look at our athletes
today—all as a result of Title IX. I know all the little particulars and the politics of it—
not that many girls care and not that many girls want to come out and they’re taking
space from the boys, but I think that gave America a boost now too. Our female athletes
and all the things they’ve won, we beat China in the Olympics, things like that. Look at
the women athletes in anything today, how good they are, and they have the same
training, they do the workouts. What we did was calisthenics and running, we didn’t do
weight work and you know how strong that enables you to be, so that’s why the women
are so good today. The women’s teams are as good as us or better, but the interest is not
there because you see, it’s society, it’s always the men with the bib basketball and the big
baseball and it’s understandable, that’s where the money goes, that’s where everything is.
10:03 I always thought sports in America was a great outlet for men in a progressive
nature. Let’s use their testosterone and I always thought, this is good because people
aren’t fighting in society themselves or fighting on the streets, they’re getting rid of it in
some other way and they’re getting rich too
Interviewer: “That’s true and we’re not like the European soccer fans where all the
violence is in the stands.”
We have our heroes, we sure do.
18
�Interviewer: “Were you involved in any of the stuff leading into the creation of “A
League of Their Own” and all that?”
Yes, right from the beginning. People that remember people, remember where they live,
“oh, she’s here”, and I got a call from Shirley Jamison, one of the first, and she was a tiny
little lady the first three, four or five years and in fact that was the first pictorial section
that came out in the newspaper, she was in that picture and of course years later, Isabel
came out in one while she was a pitcher. 10:58 Shirley called me up and said, “I know
where she’s living”, and then they told me . I went to Cooperstown in 1988 and it all
kicked off from there.
Interviewer: “The people you worked with and your friends, did they know you
played ball?”
I never told them, never talked about it.
Interviewer: “Even while you’re kind of lobbying for women in sports?”
Yeah, isn’t that interesting, it was just that part of my life is the way I looked at it you
know. Parts of it were wonderful for me and gave me an impetus to do things. I can tell
you a story—kind of an impetus to do things—I saw a movie when I was younger Roz
Russell played Amelia Earhart in the movie and what was I, in my teens when I saw that
or ten years old? Anyway, when I was forty years old, some kids in school came and
asked me if I would sponsor a flying club, just asked me. I said, “Oh sure”, so that
summer I said, “Oh my god, I better get a pilot's license, so that’s when I went to get a
pilots license because I wanted their respect, I wanted to know more than them, so they
would—just didn’t have someone who was just kind of a face to their thing, I wanted to
know the stuff. 12:06 Then I flew for five years on a regular basis and the guys that
19
�trained me said, “Ilene, you keep coming out, why?” I said, “I love being in the air, it’s
marvelous”, because he said that most women get their ticket and you never see them
again, they just want to say they have a pilots license. I didn’t know that until the
instructor told me that’s what most of the guys do it, but I guess we ladies are a little
more serious about it, we’re just glad to be there in the first place. 12:34
Interviewer: “And do you think that having gone and just done the stuff you had
done by taking on new challenges, it was no big deal to go fly?”
Yes, exactly, plus I had that interest since I was maybe fifteen or sixteen. If Amelia
Earhart can do it, I can do it. That’s so funny isn’t it? People need role models, boys and
girls both need role models and I had my role models in the girls that played ball and that
movie. In fact, that was the first role model to me, before I went with the girls to play
ball, you know, for something to do or that looks interesting, that I want to try.
Interviewer: “Well it makes for a good story and I’ll point out to you, you took
longer than fifteen minutes to tell it.”
I did? How long did I talk?
Interviewer: “I don’t know.”
A half hour, my times up—I’m usually worth a half hour. 13.23
Interviewer: “You’ve done really well, so thank you for coming and talking to us.”
Thank you.
20
�21
�22
�
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/.
Identifier
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RHC-58_EGascon1135BB
Title
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Gascon, Eileen "Ginger" (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gascon, Eileen "Ginger"
Description
An account of the resource
Ginger Gascon was born in Chicago in 1931 and grew up playing softball. She played on softball teams used by the AAGPL as farm clubs while she was in highschool, then joined the Springfield Sallies for the league's barnstorming tour in 1949. She played professional softball in Chicago in 1950, then played for the Grand Rapids Chicks in 1951. She played both center field and second base. She later became an educator and was actively involved in promoting women's sports.
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--Personal narratives, American
Baseball players--Michigan
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
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
2010-08-06
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/87d150df23d71e970e32f6030510fc96.m4v
802089bdaa466bc342b6de51a77b992d
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a99fe20f27f3ae797fc06c1ea9a723c5.pdf
e6a8ae81ecf1ed27f463e1803d7458bc
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans’ History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Dolly Nemic Konwinski
Length of Interview: (01:23:44)
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like? Where did you grow up?
What was your neighborhood like and your family?”
It was a typical, typical working class neighborhood. The neighborhood consisted of
Bohemians and Polish and Jewish and it was the most wonderful—growing up in this
neighborhood was exceptionally fun as I can remember and to go to school with this
group and to grow up with, I should say, the boys because that was my main team mates.
We went to grammar school together, to kindergarten and elementary and high school.
Interviewer: “What did your father do for a living?”
Well, in the depression he was with the WPA, I forget what that stands for.
Interviewer: “It was Roosevelt’s way of getting people to work.”
Right, my mother was a stay at home mother of course—back then all moms stayed home
and cooked, washed, etc. My dad played softball with a neighborhood group and in
Chicago, I guess you get the picture—in the neighborhood where there’s a tavern on
every other corner. Well, my dad would stop and have a little refreshment on his way
home and that’s the group he played horseshoes with and played softball with and not
having a boy, I was the tag along. (02:20) I wouldn’t let my dad out of the house, even
if he was going to the corner store for some “Halva”, which is a Jewish candy by the way.
I would sit by the door so, he had to take me to the softball games, which I was a “gofer”
and some of the men, if they were true ball players, they chased their own shag balls, but
since I was there, I was the “gofer”, to go for the ball. They would say, “Dolly get this”
and of course they couldn’t have picked a better person than me because I wanted this
badly. I wanted to be on the ball field since I can remember.
Interviewer: “Why? What was your motivation? I know your back to your early
childhood, but what was it about baseball that appealed to you as a young kid?”
(03:15) You know, that’s really a hard question, but my love for my father, I wanted to
be just like him and I would do things just like my dad and I just took to the sport. I
didn’t like dolls—I have a sister and she had the most beautiful dolls in the neighborhood
and I don’t know where they got the money to buy these, maybe they went down to the
relief station and picked them up, but she had these beautiful dolls and I had the best bat
and ball in the neighborhood. (03:56) Of course doing that, the boys all loved me too,
but I was good—I was good when I was a kid.
Interviewer: “How old were you when you actually started playing baseball?”
1
�I was probably seven or eight.
Interviewer: “Whom did you play with?”
I played with the boys in the neighborhood.
Interviewer: “Where?”
Well, if you can close your eyes and picture a neighborhood in Chicago and you will find
that the streets were narrow and they held a car, if you were lucky enough to have one
parked there. We use to play softball there and we used the manhole cover and the drains
as first and the manhole cover as second and so on, and then we took chalk and drew
home plate in the street. (04:53) When we started, we wanted to play baseball and
Kuppenheimer Clothes had a factory just a half a block away and in back of the factory
was a field, a large field and that’s where me and the boys went to play ball.
Interviewer: “Were you the only girl?”
I was the only girl.
Interviewer: “Did other kids come out to watch you play?” (05:22)
No, they played. I remember that movie “Sand lot” and I loved that movie because it’s
what I did when I was a kid. We went out there and we played “round robin”, you hit,
you fielded, you pitched, you were a Cub fan or a Sox fan and you took their names, you
took Stan Hack, you took Andy Pafko, but I was a Sox fan and I was in love with Luke
Appling so, I played short stop and I always told—you call me Luke—I wanta be Luke
Appling, I want to play professional baseball just like Luke Appling and not realizing
what was going to happen in the distant future. (06:13)
Interviewer: “That was fantasy because you couldn’t play even if you—we know
what actually happened later, but as a child at that time playing--fantasizing about
playing professional baseball, there were no women in baseball at that time”.
You know the old saying “Girls can’t play baseball”, well I did and I was a good player.
I wasn’t the best, I wasn’t a home run hitter, but I always was picked first if I wasn’t the
captain. Maybe it was because of that bat and ball I had and the boys liked it. I
remember the bat. We played with cracked, cracked at the handle and couldn’t afford to
go out and get a new bat—didn’t have aluminum bats way back then so, my dad took his
manual screw driver and he put a hole through there and put in a screw and then he taped
it up. (07:19)
He didn’t use the shiny black tape we have today, he used the tape that would get your
hands black, but he taped that bat up and it was as good as new and back to the ball
fields. (07:34)
2
�Of course, we only played now in the summer—wintertime, there was time for skating
and tobogganing and sledding. I think every kid in Chicago had a sled—so our summers
were—and then I had a paper route. I had a Sun Times paper route. The first girl to have
a paper route—a large one too. My sister would help me—please El, please El, I got a
ball game, can you help me deliver these papers? I have to do homework and then I
would have to run out—“They need me, they need me, my sister would say “Ok, ok”, she
is two years younger so—you know when you’re eight and nine and eight and seven. I
would say “Please El?”(08:25)
It was the same with doing dishes when we were young. That was out job—we had to
do the dishes, “Oh mama do I have to do the dishes?” “You have to do the dishes”.
Well, I finally caught on and I would say to my sister, “Will you wipe tonight?” One
night we would wash and one night we would do the wiping, but the dishwasher always
got finished first so, I would say, “El, El, let me wash dishes tonight”, and she would say,
“Well, you washed last night”, and I would say, “I want to get out of here, please, please,
I got a ball game”, because the boys would be sitting on the fence waiting for me. 9:01
“Oh Dolly, oh Dolly, when you were a kid back then that’s what they would yell. Then
when it would come to the pots and pans, I would say, “Oh mama, oh mama, can you do
this pot? It’s really hard and the boys are waiting”. I had a wonderful childhood. I had a
wonderful—when my dad got home from work—we played with a sixteen inch softball
in Chicago and if you hit it enough times it gets like mooch. We were—you know, a
small hand could squeeze it and the ball, when it was hit it would just kind of tumble
around. (09:46)
“Daddy, daddy, I need a new ball”. We had enough money for food, we were never
without food on our table and there he would come home under his arm, with his lunch
basket, would be a ball. Now, I don’t know where he got that ball—we’ll just leave it at
that. (10:12)
Interviewer: “You got through high school and graduated from high school?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Ok, when did you first hear about the opportunity to play baseball?”
One morning after church, my dad stopped at the bakery and we always had bagels and
Kaiser rolls, he stopped at the Jewish market and they were the best in the whole world. I
wish I could go back there today and pick up a dozen. He came home and after coffee he
was reading the paper and he said to me, “Dolly”, he said, “did you know that girls play
baseball?” I said, “Girls don’t play baseball”, he said, “There’s an All American girls
baseball league that’s having tryouts and it’s going to be right in the neighborhood at one
our park districts”. (11:18)
That’s where I played a lot of my sports, at the park—volleyball and whatever girls
played over there, whatever they would let us play. He said, “It’s going to be right down
the street and I want you to go”, and I said, “Oh dad, I’m not”—he said, “You’re a good
ball player Dolly, I want you to go.” Well, the glove I had was—if you go down to the
hall of fame one day, you’ll see the kind of gloves we had. It was probably from the five
3
�and ten cent store, but I had this glove and he said, “I want you to go down there”. “Ok,
I’ll go down”. (12:03)
I never saw so many girls with baseball gloves in my life.
Interviewer: “Now this is a field you had already played in so, you knew where it
was?”
Right down the street.
Interviewer: “Right down the street”.
In the park district.
Interviewer: “What I’m really impressed with is your father really encouraged you
to do this”. (12:22)
He did, and of course my mother, you know, my mother didn’t really know first from
short, but let me tell you one story. One day I said to my mother, “Mom, does it take
longer to get from first to second or second to third?” and she said to me, “Now Dolly,
that was just the most stupid thing you could ask me”, I was laid back and I said, “Well,
what do you mean?” and she said, “Well, it takes longer to get from second to third”, and
I laughed, “What do you mean mom?” She said, “Well, there’s a short stop in-between”.
13:10 I love to tell this story and I love to tell it in front of her because I don’t know
where she got that information, maybe my father whispered it in her ear, but mama didn’t
know too much about sports.
Interviewer: “What did she think about this idea of you going to try out for this
baseball thing?”
Like I say, she didn’t—she knew I went out to play ball so, it was just another going out
in the afternoon and having fun with the boys, but my father had told me “it’s girls
baseball”. When I got there--Interviewer: “Tell me a little bit about the trip over, what were you thinking about
while you were walking over?” (13:56)
Walking is right, I was fifteen—walking over there and thinking to myself, “You know,
will I be able to catch the ball? Are they going to throw really hard to me? Are there
going to be ladies there throwing? What is this all about?” (14:21)
It was about—I would say about three blocks from the house, maybe four and you know
you skip down there and you think and you smile—baseball, baseball, organized. Well,
when I got there to that gym, I had to sign in and there were a lot of men and there were a
lot of women, young girls, in fact, we weren’t women yet, we were fifteen and sixteen
years old. (14:52)
I walked in there and my eyes must have been almost popping out of my head. I could
not believe what I was seeing. Well, you know, grab a friend and here’s a ball and start
4
�throwing and the ball was—I believe the ball was eleven inches. It had come down from
the twelve inch that the league started with and so, we started playing catch and my name
is Dolly—well’ my name is Mary Lou and my name is Ginger and where do you live?
(15:29)
Well, I live way on the south side and what school do you go to? I go to Tillman, and I
went to Farragut, the conversation was just fun and women throwing hard to me, I did not
have to look for a boy to throw the ball to me like I’m use to catching. It went on, we
played catch and of course it was in a gym and so the men, who were coaches, started
hitting ground balls to us, we were in line and we each took our turn fielding the ball and
throwing the ball and we couldn’t hit, but we could slide—slide on a gym floor? Ouch.
(16:18)
It wasn’t strawberries, it was floor burns.
Interviewer: “What were you wearing?”
I was probably wearing a pair of pants and to this day, and I just bought them last year, I
never owned a pair of jeans. It was always a pair of girl’s slacks, some kind of a shirt, I
don’t remember.
Interviewer: “I was just trying to think. It wasn’t a uniform or anything?”
No, I was what everybody had. They had their jeans on and tennis shoes. I don’t know if
I had tennis shoes or if we could afford tennis shoes.
Interviewer: “What year was this?” (17:01)
This was in 1947.
Interviewer: “Ok, so the war was already over with?”
Right, what they were trying to do is get four teams in Chicago, like a farm system,
which the All Americans never had. They were trying to form the farm system with the
local gals and then we lined up and they told us a little bit about the league and what they
were trying to do—get four teams—there would be two south side teams, two north end
teams, and we would play each other. (17:41)
I must have impressed the coaches because they called my name and they came up to me
and they said, “Does your parents know about this?” I said, “Yes, my dad sent me down
here”, and they said, “Dolly, you’re a good ball player”, no Joe DiMaggio, no Luke
Appling, and I said, “Thank you”, and he said, “Would you be interested in playing on
one of the Chicago teams?” I said, “Oh, yes”. Well, they had some literature, some notes
that I had to take home and show my mom and dad. (18:31)
Interviewer: “Did you have a job at this time?”
5
�Just my paper route, just my paper route, and boy when I would get those penny and
nickel tips—you know when you’re nine years old or ten years old, and I had that job
right into high school.
Interviewer: “What were your options? You had a fairly decent relationship with
your father and with your mother, what did you talk about? Obviously professional
baseball was not in the discussions about what you were going to do with your life
before this happened”. (19:03)
Right, right, it—well, I ran home, I mean I ran, I sprinted, I could have beat Owens that
day. I ran upstairs and I said, “Oh daddy, daddy, daddy”, and he said, “What happened,
what happened?” I said, “Daddy, they want me to play, they want me to play”, and he
said, “I knew, I knew it” so, I said, “Mama, can I play ball? Can I play ball?” “Ask your
father, ask your father”, and I said, “Daddy said yes, daddy said yes” so, I brought the
details home and made these friends, Mary Lou Studnicka you know, Ann O’Dowd, we
were picked for the Southside team (19:56) and my other friends, Ginger and Champ
and some of the gals on the North side, Joan Sindelar, they made the North side team and
so, we were going to be playing against each other. (20:11)
Interviewer: “Now, you were getting paid, right?”
Well, no pay, we got our streetcar fare and I think we got fifty cents and that would have
been a lot of money because streetcar fare was a nickel and that would have been ten
cents round trip and that would leave us fifteen cents for a hamburger and a malt. (20:40)
That was the extent of it, just get on—maybe it was a little less, but fifty cents sticks in—
and that was so much money when I think of those nickel tips. We were paid that and I
was still active in the park districts and we were playing volleyball and we had a good
volleyball team. I love that sport to this day. As a kid I loved to go out there and watch
and my grand kids play, but we were playing in the park district tournament and we were
playing for the championship and we won, we won. (21:35)
We were just so happy, so happy and before they gave the medals out, that’s what you
could win, a nice medal, I was called in the office and the lady who was in charge, the
director of this, she said to me, “Dolly, do you play baseball?” And I said, “Oh ya, I do
play”, and she said, “Do you get paid?” I said, “No, I get money for the streetcar to go
there”< and she said, “Well, we heard you got paid and we have to disqualify your team”,
and I said, “You mean we don’t win? Does that mean we don’t win?” She said, “That
means you don’t win”. (22:27)
Well, our coach, I’ll tell ya, I can feel the pain right now—how could they do this to me
for streetcar fare? So, that’s another thing you know, when you’re fourteen or fifteen and
that—it just—so, I quit playing volleyball and I just played in adult leagues when I got
older. I said, “I’ll show them, just don’t call me grandma” but, I played since and then I
stuck to my baseball—still going to school—still in high school now, not being able to
play sports—the only thing girls could do in high school—we had a swimming team, but
they couldn’t be on the swimming team, but they could be divers. (23:28)
We played, of course we played basketball and taking you back a long time ago, we
played half court and six on a team and of course we played volleyball so, I got my thrill
6
�of playing volleyball in high school, loved it, had more fun and played ball with the boys,
I could practice, they wanted me out there to practice so bad, but when they had a game it
was “See you tomorrow Dolly”. (24:04)
Interviewer: “So, what were your options when you got out of high school? What
were you going work as? Were you going to try to get a job as a nurse or what?”
No, this is the most fun, playing with the boys in the field. I played with a young boy, his
name is Joe Schoenberg, how that stick out in my mind I don’t know, but we had a
Mages Sporting Goods store, Morey Mages and his brothers, I don’t remember his
brothers, names, but Joe lived in the apartment building on the first level and Morey
Mages lived above him. (24:48)
We would talk and he said, “Oh Morey, he owns the sporting goods store” and I don’t
know what made me do this, one day after we played ball he said, “Oh, Morey always
gets home about five thirty from the store” so, the wheels are turning in Dolly’s head so, I
went to the corner where Joe and Mr. Mages lived, and he came by one day and I said,
“Mr. Mages?” and he said, “Hello, how are ya?” I said, “Fine, I play ball with Joe
Schoenberg”, and he said, “Well, that’s nice”, and I said, “We play at Kuppenheimer
Field” and he said, “Oh, that’s nice” and I said, “You know I’m playing ball, baseball
with a girls organized team” , and he said, “Well, isn’t that nice?” (25:47)
I said, “Mr. Mages, I need a job, can I get a job (very blunt—no tact) at your store?” and
I think he was taken back and he said, “We don’t have any ladies in sales, we just have
them in the office part”, and I said, “That would be ok, that would be ok, can you use
me?” And he said, “I’ll tell ya, come by after school tomorrow or Monday (this was on a
Friday) and come see me”, “Wow”, I ran home and told my mom that I talked to Mr.
Mages. (26:45)
A long time ago we called our mother and father—we either called her mother or him
father or mama and daddy, because when dad would go out he would say, “You stay
home with mama”, or vice versa. I said, “Mama, mama, Mr. Mages said I could come
talk to him about a job”. She said, “Doing what?” I said, “I don’t know, just working”
and she said, “Well how much?” and I said, “I don’t know, just working” so, I couldn’t
wait until I got home from school, got my paper route done and hopped the streetcar
because Mages was on North Avenue and Crawford, it was just off Crawford, west of
Crawford and I got dressed up as nice as I could look and I took the streetcar out there.
(27:41)
I was so excited my heart was just beating and I got to the store and asked one of the
sales people and they said he was in his office and to go to his office. So, he said, “Well,
hi Dolly” and I said, “Hi Mr. Mages”, and he said, “Well, have you ever sold anything,
do you have any experience?” I said, “No, just playing ball” and he said, “Well, how
would you like to try to be in the shoe department and sell bowling shoes, ice skates and
ski boots?” I thought and said, “Sure, I would like to try, I’d love to”, and I was the first
saleswoman for Mages Sporting Goods. (28:38)
I loved my job, I loved my job and so, after I graduated and was playing ball, playing
ball in the summer and he knew that. I started going to college and I would go right to
work after that and then of course the All Americans came to be where—we graduated in
7
�1949 and we went on a barnstorming tour and I worked when I could and I thought,
(29:14)
“This isn’t fair, maybe there’s somebody who wants the job at Mages” so, I stuck to
baseball where I made some money and graduated high school, left my paper route, my
customers were very sad too because they got their tips worth when they gave me that
five cents and ten cents, their paper was at their door every night and early on Sunday
morning. I did that before church. (29:51)
Interviewer: “Let’s go back now to—you’ve kind of wrapped up your job and your
paper route and all, but how did you find out about the professional All American
Women’s League? How did you find out about that?”
Well, because of that tryout, which was held by the All American, and I was picked for
one of the four teams, which made me a part of the All American.
Interviewer: “You’re not being paid though, you said”.
We weren’t, but then at the end of 1948, after our season, the four teams were brought
together in a meeting and Len Zintack, who was from Chicago and the director of the
four teams, (30:38) asked who would be interested in going on a barn storming tour of
the United States to introduce the game to the south and the east coast so, Chicago had
two teams, they had the Springfield Sallies and the Chicago Colleens, which in 1948 did
not make it. Chicago had the Cubs and the Sox and the Bloomer Girls and some very
good softball teams and our team just couldn’t bring the crowds in. (31:14)
Springfield had the same problem. They had a good minor league team and they had
some good softball teams. So, they took the Colleens and the Sallies and they distributed
those women to the Peaches and Chicks and the teams in the All Americans, and we
became the women and girls who said “yes” they would go on a tour and we became the
Sallies and the Colleens and we traveled together on one bus touring. We started in
Oklahoma City, toured the south, New Orleans, Pensacola—(31:59)
Interviewer: “Playing against each other?”
Yes, against each other. Maybe on day I was a Colleen and one day I was a Sally, but it
didn’t make any difference, people were out to see the two teams play. We were heavily
advertised and we had wonderful crowds, we had wonderful crowds and they accepted
us. There was no one saying that girls can’t play baseball because we showed them a
very good brand of baseball. (32:29)
Interviewer: “What were you wearing?”
We were wearing the uniforms of the All Americans, the ones the Colleens and Sally’s
had.
Interviewer: “What did it look like?”
8
�It was like the pictures you see today, the uniform of the All American Girls Professional
Baseball League.
Interviewer: “You had a baseball cap and a top, but then there was a skirt.”
The—Mrs. Wrigley designed those uniforms. She wanted every one of the women to
look like ladies and the men, the manager, play like men, and that’s what we wore. It
was a skirted uniform with shorts underneath and the stockings up to our calf. 33:14
Interviewer: “How did you feel about this? This is a different time, now you can
walk around in a skirt and you can have it as short or as long as you want, there is
no difference, but in those days women didn’t wear skirts like that.”
No we didn’t and if you find a picture of the first four women who played ball, you will
notice their skirts are almost to their knees, which was still—you know, if you’re sliding
and your skirts coming up and you’re going see the shorts, but that’s all you’re going to
see. Well, each year the gals took a hem up, which was ok, the chaperones never said
anything and I don’t think anyone was reprimanded for taking a hem up and making the
skirt a little shorter. (34:08)
Interviewer: “The reason is because of the running and the—?”
Probably the running, and people say, “Well how did you ever slide or play in those
skirts?” And this was the easiest thing to do because we had shorts on and like so many
high school and college teams have today, we had a little skirt that covered that, which
made it a little more feminine looking. The charm school of course-Interviewer: “You had to go through the charm school?”
That was in the beginning of the league and I didn’t join the league until, you know, 1949
or 1948 so, I was not into make-up, but the chaperones made sure that when you were out
in public, you looked like a lady in al phases at all times. (35:08)
Interviewer: “You did this barnstorming tour, which was playing basically against
the same teams that you were playing with. When did that shift into being part of
the league that played other cities and other towns?”
After the 1949 barnstorming tour, which ended in—I believe it ended in August,
sometime in August, we were all allocated to teams in the All American League. So, my
friend Delores Muir, who just passed away two weeks ago, we were sent to the South
Bend Blue Sox. Dave Bancroft accepted us and I don’t think I played a game because it
was about two weeks. I think I was there long enough for a 1949 team picture and Grand
Rapids needed an infielder and South Bend needed a pitcher so, I was traded. (36:13)
I joined the Grand Rapids Chicks in 1949. Most of the gals did the exact—they were
sent to South Band and Fort Wayne and Peoria.
9
�Interviewer: “What was your first impression of Grand Rapids when you came
here?”
This is kind of a small city compared to Chicago. I said to somebody, “I would like to go
downtown, how long is it going to take me?” And they said, “Oh, five or ten minutes”. I
lived in Madison Square and I said, “Five or ten minutes, what?” And they said, “The
bus will get you down there”, and that reminds me—my mother came to visit and she
said she wanted to go downtown. Well, I had a game to get ready for so I said, “Ok
mama, you’re going to go to Hall St. and the fire department is on the corner of Madison
and the bus will stop and he’ll take you downtown. (37:16)
Now, notice the number of the bus and where you got off and that’s where you’ll get on”
and she said, “Ok, no problem”. Well, I get a phone call and the first thing she asked the
bus driver was she wants to go down to the loop and he said, “You must be from
Chicago?” Well, she wanted to go downtown and she got off at the wrong stop and she
went into the fire department, which was just down the street, but she didn’t recognize
anything and they told her where she wanted to go. (37:52)
That’s just kind of a side story, but I love Grand Rapids, I love Grand Rapids and it was
so fun to play here and the people I stayed with, they treated us like their daughters. I
stayed on Horton Street, right off Cottage Grove and these people, like I say, we paid
them our rent, I don’t remember what it was a month, not much, but they always told us
the refrigerator is always open. On our day off they would say, “Dolly, would you like to
have dinner with us tonight?” (38:38)
We were so a part of their family and so welcomed here that I’m sure the minor league
baseball teams that we have today stay with these families and are treated like their sons
and you don’t forget.
Interviewer: “Lets go back to—you signed up originally with this one team and you
were traded to the Grand Rapids Chicks. You’re getting paid now and there’s a
contract, give us some idea what that was about. You had to sign a contract for
what. What period of time and how much were you paid?” (39:17)
Well, first of all when I agreed to go on that barnstorming tour, my mother and dad had to
go downtown to the Wrigley Building and sign a contract because I was just sixteen. So,
off on the El we went to the Wrigley Building. They gave their permission and when I
got to South Bend or Grand Rapids, I had signed a contract on my own, I was eighteen
and I made sixty-five dollars a week and that was really big money. (40:00)
I didn’t even make that at Mages Sporting Goods. When I was on the tour, going back
to the tour in 1949, I want to say we made twenty-five dollars a week, but of course
everything was paid for, our hotel, of course the bus, we didn’t have to worry about—we
did have to buy our own meals, but I had enough money that when I left I said to my
mother, “I’m going to send you some money home and I want you to go buy yourself
some stockings or a slip, I want you to treat yourself to something, treat yourself and do
not put this money away, treat yourself, I’m ok”. (40:45)
When I got home, going back now to 1949, when I got home I said, “What did you buy
mama? What did you buy? Did you buy yourself some new shoes or stocking or a slip
or a dress?” She said, “No, I saved the money for you”, and I said, “Mother, why did you
10
�do this? I sent the money for you to treat yourself”, and she said, “I knew you would
need it for school” and so, “Ok, I got money”. I don’t remember what I had, two hundred
dollars or something like that in savings so, I went to my dad and I said, “Daddy can I
buy a car?” He said, “What are you going to use a car for?” I said, “I don’t know, can I
buy a car?” (41:51)
He said, “We’ll see”. Well, he and my uncle, my uncle Rudy, go out looking for a
car—now, I haven’t graduated yet from high school in 1949 so, one day I come home
from school—take the streetcar—came home from school and he said, “I got a surprise
for you”, and I said, “We’re going to get a car, we’re going to get a car?” and he said,
“Come on outside”. I almost cried, I mean I almost cried because here was this 1936
Plymouth four door—here’s your car, and I don’t know if people go back and log into old
cars, but they have the back door—the front door opened this way and the back door
opened this way. Well, I really didn’t want a four door gray car, but what could I say—
he would probably say, “Well, I’ll take it back”. Well Ok, I have a car and the next day I
said, “Daddy can I take my car to school?” (43:08)
Well, he jumped out of his chair and he said, “Are you crazy? Are you crazy? Nobody
drives a car to school, you take the streetcar”. So, there I am ten cents on the streetcar
and I have this 1936 Plymouth sitting in front of my house, but that’s the way it was back
then. If you see the schoolyards today, there are not many that don’t drive. It was fun to
do this, it was fun to do this and in high school I was about to graduate and my class
honored me with the most likely to succeed and in my log, Frigate, you know, the ship—
we had the log and in there it said that I wanted to be a professional baseball player, long
before the dream came true, and being outstanding athlete in my class, which made me
proud. (44:25)
I also was in the concert band and concert orchestra—I played the trombone. I had
wonderful, wonderful years in high school and all through school. Now I’m a
professional baseball player and when we have our reunions, I take the log with me and I
say, “Ok you guys, how many else lived up to what they put in the log?”
Interviewer: “Tell us about your experience with the Grand Rapids Chicks. Do you
remember your first game with them?”
Oh yes, the first game was Racine, Wisconsin and I was put right into the lineup and the
first two times at bat, I got hits and I will never forget that. (45:09)
Since that first game it became a little bit more difficult to get a hit because they knew I
couldn’t hit a curve ball and all those wonderful pitchers we had who threw fast ball with
a hop on it, they had equally wonderful curveballs. All they had to do was throw that to
me, but we played at South Field, the Grand Rapids Chicks played, and of course South
Field was a football field before they made it a baseball field. Of course we had a short
right field and with the fast balls, I could make line drives to right field—I was a good
hitter to right—but of course they knew I wasn’t that speed demon that a long time ago I
was and they would throw me out at first. (46:12)
Well, there went my batting average so, I was good field no hit, but I remember those
first two hits in Racine , Wisconsin.
Interviewer: “What was your position with the Grand Rapids Chicks?”
11
�I played third base, but at times I played second base, when our pitcher Zig would be on
the mound. I think because I was a good infielder and I had played second at one time, I
could make the double play very easy—it wasn’t difficult for me to do that—I started out
as a shortstop back in the schoolyard days, you know, Luke Appling.
Interviewer: “Professionally though, you were a third baseman?”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Who were some of the teams you were playing at that time?”
We played of course, the “Rockford Peaches”, “South Bend Blue Sox”, “Peoria Red
Wings”, “Fort Wayne Daisies”, “Racine Belles”, “Kenosha Comets”, “Muskegon
Lassies”, when the league started to slow down and attendance—Battle Creek bought the
“Belles” so, we had the “Battle Creek Belles”, Muskegon slowed down so, Kalamazoo,
Michigan bought the “Lassies” and we had the “Kalamazoo Lassies”. 47:37
Interviewer: “What was a season like? The first season you played with them?
Was it a lot of traveling; was it a lot of home games? What was the actual season
like?”
I think we were split—home and away games. We played seven days a week, double
headers on holidays and Sundays and there were a lot of rain dances. We looked forward
to rain when we didn’t have a day off for a long time, but occasionally we had a day off.
Usually if we were traveling we’d have a night game and travel in the morning either to
South Bend—wouldn’t make the long trip to Peoria, we would stop at South Bend or Fort
Wayne or Rockford before going on to the longer miles. (48:35)
Interviewer: “What were these road trips like? I that when you’re traveling a lot
and then you have to play a game and then you’re traveling some more, but you’re
young of course, you’re very young, but what were these road trips like for you?
Did you like them? Were they tiring? Were they fun?”
You learn to sleep on the bus. We traveled on the Division Avenue bus line, which was a
step above a school bus, the seats were more comfortable, and so, you could take a nap.
They were fun, you would sit with a friend and chat and sometimes we would sing.
Sunday morning Alma Ziegler give her sermons so, we had a touch of religion in there
one way or another. (49:37)
Interviewer: “This is the baseball playing nun you were talking about?”
No, this was Alma Ziegler, Gabby Ziegler who played for the Grand Rapids Chicks. I
never played with our former nun. I did play with Tony Palermo, his sister Toni Marie
Palermo, she’s still in the convent, and when we have reunions today, Saturday night she
gets on the podium and reminds everybody that Sunday is tomorrow morning and “Do
you have your wakeup call in there? (50:15)
If you don’t go to church you know we’ll pray hard for you.” So, we do have a nun
still in the convent. Alice Harnet was a nun—we had three nuns—we have three
12
�physicians—three doctor. Mary Roundtree, who was a catcher for the Grand Rapids
Chicks sometime ago, just passed away in Miami and she was a surgeon, a very, very
outstanding doctor and Audrey Wagner played for, oh gosh, I don’t want to get this
wrong, I believe the Kenosha Comets and she was a doctoring California and she flew
her own plane and she was going to a medical convention and crashed. So, we lost not
only lost one of the outstanding outfielders and hitters and outstanding physicians, but we
lost Audrey too. (51:26)
Interviewer: “These road trips to other towns, had you traveled—I know you were
from Chicago and Chicago of course is a big city with a lot of different types of
people and different things around you—groups and what not. How different was it
when you went to all these other towns? Was there a sense of I’m in a new town
here, I’m from a big city and this is a small town, what were your reactions to these
other areas and places?”
Of course the towns were all the size of Grand Rapids so we enjoyed it. We stayed in
very nice hotels, we were given three dollars a day meal money so, we always had that
fifty-nine cent breakfast. If there was a good movie and we didn’t have to play until
evening, we took in the first feature. We saved our two and a half dollars for an evening
meal and sometimes that would only cost us a dollar and a half so we saved a dollar.
(52:31)
The towns were lovely, the fans of course were anti-Chicks, but they only treated us that
way when we were at the ball field, you know boo, boo, boo and what have you.
Cheered hard for their teams, Fort Wayne was noted—they had a tailor in Fort Wayne
and of course we had to wear skirts, and it seemed like every team visited this tailor to
have their skirts made. (53:03)
We would pick the material up and he would measure us up and then on our next trip
back, we would pick-up our skirts and you could tell everyone who had their skirts made
by him, they were very tailored. I think I wore them when I was married. I mean the
herringbones and the wool skirts so; I remember that about Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne also
had a sporting goods store that would carry spikes our sizes. Rawlings made the spikes
and they would carry a size four or a size five, specially made for the women. Another
city that’s well known is, I believe, Racine that had the Jockey--Jockey Cooper and they
made the men’s underwear. Well, at one time they would turn their factory over for a
short period and they would make Jockey underwear for the women, of course a whole
different pattern in the front, but we would always order out undies from Jockey so, those
are two towns. (54:34)
Interviewer: “What ever happened to your—the place you worked for, the sports
place you worked for in Chicago?”
Mages? You know, I believe Mages sold his stores when he retired.
Interviewer: “I mean when you became a baseball player and they were actually
paying you to be a professional baseball player did you ever go back there?”
13
�I did, I did and I talked to all my friends there and they kept saying, “You’re playing
baseball now and I’d have some pictures to show them and they were quite proud and I
said, “Now you catch our games if you go to Kenosha, which is a short drive”, That’s
where my mom and dad would catch our games, up in Kenosha. “It’s a short drive—
come see us and call me and let me know if you’re coming and I’ll get you tickets”, so,
they were quite proud that I made a stepping stone to something I loved. (55:37)
Interviewer: “How did your dad react to that?”
Oh, my dad was so proud. He would tell everybody, my Dolly is playing baseball,
softball, my Dolly is playing baseball and we’re going to see her next weekend. They
had a car—I don’t know what happened to my 1936 Plymouth, I guess when I left for
Grand Rapids, I didn’t take that car. He probably sold it, which was good and I don’t
remember back then, but I know I didn’t have my gray Plymouth anymore. (56:17)
People at Mages were quite proud of me and I’d always ask them, “Do you miss me in
the shoe department?” When I’d talk to people, especially when I’d sell them a pair of
ski boots I’d say, “Well, where do you ski?” They would say, “Well, in northern
Michigan”, and I’d say “Northern Michigan, past Grand Rapids?” “Oh, Boyne City and
Traverse City”, and not being familiar with northern Michigan, I said, “Oh, I think that’s
quite a bit North of Grand Rapids, I play ball there”, and they would say, “Oh, you do?”
Of course they wouldn’t see me in the summertime so, I’d sell ski boots and of course
bowling shoes and going back to 19—in the early forties, when the war started, in 1943
my uncle enlisted, that was my fathers very best friend. (57:19)
Now, my dad bowled too and again, “tag along Dolly”, I can remember the Windy City
Bowling—they were bowling alleys back then, not bowling lanes, and he would take me
and they would have the best orange soda in the whole world so, “Daddy, daddy can I go
with you tonight? Can I go with you?” and he would take me with him and the first thing
we would get in there, he would go to the bar and I’d have my orange soda and he would
say, “Now, sit and be quiet”, and I would say, “Oh, I’ll be very quiet”. I would watch his
team bowl and I said to him one time, “Can I try this game? Can I try bowling?” and he
said, “Ok” so, one Sunday morning after church we went to the bowling part and he got
me a ball with small finger holes and my father always bent over, it was very unique, he
always bent over and the ball hung down and he would push away. (58:19)
That’s the way I bowl, I followed his form, and there was sometimes the pin boys, you
know, they were off to war and they wouldn’t have one and he would go back to the pits
and he would set pins for me and then I would go back to the pits and I would set a game
for him. That way it only cost us a nickel instead of a dime to bowl a game.
Interviewer: “Let’s get back to baseball.”
I was just going to say that I became a professional bowler too.
Interviewer: “I didn’t know that. The first game you said you played with the
Grand Rapids, Chicks and you had two hits and after that it was a lot more difficult
to get hits because the pitchers were on to you. Is that because you played you
played these teams so often, they were able to—there weren’t that many teams for
one thing—“
14
�There were eight teams at that time.
Interviewer: “Eight teams.”
They each had—I would say, they each had four pitchers so, I didn’t face everybody in
the same series or time after time, but I’m sure I faced all of the pitchers at one time or
another. (59:40)
Interviewer: “How was your first season?”
It was good, it was good, my batting average wasn’t that bad, of course it wasn’t 300, but
I had a good season on the field, I enjoyed playing along side of my team mates, who
were very helpful, John Rawlings was our manager and he was a member of the
Pittsburgh Pirates and very knowledgeable Hall of Fame player, and because my hitting
wasn’t the best, I would have to go out there every day we were home and he would pitch
to me. Today I realize what I was doing wrong. (01:00:31) I was not throwing my arms
out at the ball, I was kind of crimping in on them and I think back, “No wonder I wasn’t a
good hitter, now I have to tell the kids how to throw the bat at the ball” .
Interviewer: “What were some of your memorable games? Which ones really stick
out in your mind?”
I find that question, not impossible, but difficult, because every game out there was a joy
for me. I looked forward to every game we played, there was never a game where I was
bored, there was never a time in my life I was bored, Always something to do,
(01:01:23)
I guess the one game—it was in Kalamazoo and probably the shocker of my life because
I hit one off the fence in center field and it was right off the top of the fence and it came
back into the field and I only got a triple, I don’t know if I scored or not or what
happened because I was in seventh heaven—to see me hit that ball that far—I think John
Rawlings fainted in the dugout. I don’t even know if my team cheered for me because
they must have all been in shock. (01:02:03)
That’s one game that stands out ant that was extremely fun.
Interviewer: “I have seen film footage of professionals like you sliding into a base
and it doesn’t look comfortable. Could you explain what it was like to actually slide
into a base?” (01:02:29)
One experience that I had—now we’ll be shocked again because I got a hit, and I’m
standing on first and not taking a big lead off and John Rawlings gives me the steal sign
and I’m thinking, “Does he know who he’s giving a steal sign to?” Old turtle Dolly?
Well, he thought I could get a—the pitcher had a high kick and “ok, he’s giving me the
steal sign”, I’ll show him I can do it. So, off I take and I slid and I was safe, but I had the
biggest, hurtingest strawberry in the whole world. (01:03:24) Well, everybody is saying,
“Just shake it off, shake it off”, well I’m not going to cry out there—I’d like to—
eventually a hit was made and I scored. I got to the dugout, Dotty Hunter waiting for me
15
�because she knew. Out came the methialate, we had the fan going, which is all your
teammates blowing and I’m thinking, “This is going to burn, this is going to burn like the
fires of hell”. On goes the methialate, on goes the bandage, a big bandage—get out there
and play. (01:04:09)
Well, I did my job, “It doesn’t hurt until the next day I’m thinking, it doesn’t hurt more
until the next day”. The next time I get up—this should be my most memorable game—
Dolly gets a hit—“I got another hit, this pitcher must like me, she’s grooving it”. I’m
standing at first and I look over across the playing field and John Rawlings gives me the
steal sign again and I’m thinking, “If I have to slide, they’re taking me to Butterworth
Hospital or some hospital that’s nearby, I know it for sure”. He gives me the steal sign—
well, up it goes, a high kick again and I ran in there. The catcher threw it to center
field—I didn’t have to slide and I’m thinking, everybody in the dugout is clapping too,
“Hey she made it to second”. Well, I don’t know if I scored on that one or not, but John,
as I came in, he was smiling at me and I said, “Did you think I was going slide again?”
He just smiled and walked away. (01:05:33)
I guess maybe we’ll chuck that hitting the top of the fence and use this as my most
memorable game. Two hits and a strawberry and the “ouchie”. It takes a while for that
to go away and it starts peeling and you want another hit, but if John gives me the steal
sign again I’ll really cry.
Interviewer: “Did anybody ever get hurt that you remember, beaned on the head
with a ball or anything like that?”
I don’t remember, I remember not getting beaned, but going back to the barnstorming
tour, one of our Cuban gals had a fastball, but she also had a very fast curve ball and I
was batting against her and she had thrown me a fastball and it was high, and I knew she
was going to throw me another fastball—I knew it, I knew it—I stood in that box and
here comes that fastball right at my arm, but I thought it was going to curve because she
was kind of smiling—that she would throw me the curve and get me to go for it—so, I’m
waiting for the fast curve and that ball is coming so fast and it didn’t curve and I didn’t
get out of the way and it hit my arm. (01:07:18) I couldn’t lift my arm for two or three
days and it was black and blue and of course we were on the barnstorming tour and we
were all living together and I said, “I thought you were going to throw me a curve”, and
she said, “I a fool a you, right Dolly?” I said, “You didn’t fool me, you hurt me”, but to
this day we’re still friends.
Interviewer: “The crowds initially were big, but you said there was a period of time
where it started to get less, the crowds were less and less. Did you actually notice
that?”
Of course I was through playing in 1952, but I had still gone to some of the games in
1953. I was in an automobile accident and hurt my leg so, that kind of finished my
playing career, but so many people ask, “Why did the league fold? Why did the people?”
This my own theory, now high schools were-this was really a family gathering, families
came to our games and now high schools were beginning to blossom out and have
activities in the evening. Cars now had gas so, dad could go here and mother could go to
the movies and get her dish. Back then if you went to the movies on Wednesday night,
16
�you could make a dish collection. Of course television was in the ballgame now and who
wanted to go out when Uncle Miltie was on? No body, your Show of Shows, they kept
the family around this new invention, television. (01:09:28) So, we saw the crowds drop
and like I say, it was a family and the family went from a closeness to everybody is out
doing their own thing so, the money wasn’t there to pay us and it wasn’t coming from
anywhere but the fans, and I always like to add this today, “We see the family now today,
coming back together. Who’s at the football games together? Who’s at the soccer games
together? Who takes the kids out to the golf course together? It’s mom and dad and the
kids and this is so wonderful because our children need this today. They need to know
that the family once again cares”. (01:10:27)
Interviewer. “I know you have been asked a variation on this question before, but
we know for a fact, the fact that you played baseball, that women played
professional baseball, did have an impact on the changing attitudes that schools had
toward girls playing sports and whatnot and now, as you well know, there’s soccer
teams, girls baseball team, there’s all kinds of things. What is your personal
opinion? What do you think was the effect, not just you, but your fellow players
had on the attitudes that people had towards girls and women?”
I am so proud to have been a part of the All Americans and to show people that women
had skills and if title nine was passed not only because of us, now young ladies can see
their dreams come true, like we saw our dreams, we are so proud to have been a part of
this and I went to a couple of the U.S. Olympic Softball Team games and these women,
these young women come up and to us and hug us and say “Thank you, because of you,
we can do this”, and not only myself, but you can talk to the oldest player in our league
or the youngest and they have the same pride that I do, and young girls, no matter what
they play, the Olympians, to be so proud of that team and to have them say, “Because of
you, we’re here”, makes us so proud. (01:12:38)
Interviewer: “Baseball Hall of Fame, tell us about—how did you find out? What
happened?”
The Baseball Hall of Fame, you know, we didn’t put on any marches, we didn’t put on
any protests, but we had a group of women in Fort Wayne, Dottie Collins—it was our
first board of directors that slowly went there and show them. Ted Spencer—let me tell
you something about Ted Spencer, the Curator. (01:13:27) He was schooled in Boston
and it just so happens that one of the players we had in 1943 named Mary Pratt, happened
to be a gym teacher, not PE, gym teacher in the one of the Boston schools. One of her
students was this young boy named Ted Spencer. Well, when we started, I want to say
we, but I talk about this board slowly infiltrating—no protests, just presenting the facts.
Going there, she found out that Ted Spencer happens to be the curator of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame. (01:14:27)
Well, what an in. so, she goes there, the Hall has a lot of her memorabilia, she contacts
our board and now they start having meetings with him and this has gone on since we
became an organization, a players organization in 1982, and we now get the word that
there’s a possibility that the hall of fame would recognize the All American Girls
17
�professional baseball league. How excited, how excited—I know a lot of the women
today say that we’ve been inducted and it’s because their proud, but in 1988, November
5th, 1988, the National Baseball Hall of Fame recognized all of the All American Girls.
(01:15:33)
They wanted to induct—there were some names thrown at them for induction, but our
board said, “No, we want to go in as a group. If we’re not inducted, we would be
honored to be recognized”, and Jane Forbes Clark, who is the CEO of—and has been one
of our biggest supporters, they have had us there on Mothers Day, and we have signed
autographs, they have—the tenth anniversary of the movie, they had Penny Marshall and
the movie stars, and we were invited to go along and she signed a book and we had
dinner with them, they have promoted us, they have things in their gift shop that are
related to us, they show the movie, Abbott and Costello, A League of Their Own and in
the bleachers, which is a section of the hall of fame, we had our sixtieth reunion and
Cooperstown wasn’t big enough to hold all the women who were going to be there so, we
stayed in Syracuse, but we had buses take us there. (01:17:03)
We had a breakfast in honor of us, we had, right in the hall where the pictures of the hall
of famers are, they had tables set with white table clothes and they had waiters in
tuxedos and white gloves, and they just honored us in the highest praise they could give
us and they do this, they do this. Now when they remodeled, we have a display on the
second floor which has pictures and memorabilia and the honor they have given us, we
are so proud of. (01:17:55)
Interviewer: “That’s wonderful, that’s wonderful. What’s your relationship with
the Whitecaps here locally?”
Before they became the Whitecaps I knew Lew Chamberlin and I talked to him because
he would have lunch at Crystal Springs Country Club. We belong there and we knew
they were working on bringing a baseball team and so many times I would sit down at the
table and say, “Lew, Grand Rapids, Michigan needs baseball back here again, don’t give
up your dream, don’t give up the pushing, don’t give up the hope, of bringing someone
here”, and Mr. VanderWitte is a friend of Lew’s and a friend of mine so, when I would
see him I’d say,” Please, keep prodding him, keep prodding him, people may give him
negative this and that, look what happened here, look what happened there, we need
baseball here”. (01:19:13)
So, I have been, not the last couple of years—summers have been really—I’ve been out
on speaking engagements and doing a lot of traveling, but we were the first ones to have
box seats out there the first season and I can go up and into the office and knock on the
door and say, “How ya going? How’s everything?” “Good, good”, and Jim Jarecki and
their all very close to my heart. Don’t worry, they’ll bring the—they’ve had so many
championships; you have to be proud of this team.
Interviewer: “They are very supportive of this project by the way. I have met with
Dan McCrath and with Jim and they are very much supporting the idea of doing
this documentary film. In fact they even helped—next summer they are going to
have some announcements and we are going to be helping to be part of this Library
of Congress Veterans History Project, to get the veterans who are in that crowd to
18
�come forward and be interviewed. I was very, very pleased with their respect for
not only the project it’s self, but for the “Chicks”. (01:20:22) It’s interesting,
somebody told me that one of the Grand Rapids Chicks threw a ball out this last
season, was that you or do you know who it was?”
I didn’t throw out this season, but we’ve thrown them out several times and Jim has said,
“You know we’ve got to get you girls back there again this year”. I’ve been kind of
proud because I’ve thrown the first ball out for the Braves and the Yankees. The Braves
in Cleveland, the Braves in St. Louis, down at spring training, and two summers ago,
maybe three, time flies when you have fun, I was invited out to Washington D.C. to the
Nationals game, to throw out the first pitch there, and they were playing the Cubs.
(01:21:11) We had a rain delay for a while, but eventually they called me to the mound.
I threw a perfect strike at the catcher, he never moved his glove, and forty seven thousand
people gave me a standing ovation, but now I don’t know why. Is it because I threw the
strike? Is it because an eighty-six year old lady could run? Or eighty—eighty, what am I
talking about? I’m only seventy-six, or I’ll just call it an old lady, could throw the ball?
(01:21:52) When I finished throwing that pitch, I got off the field and was going back to
the seats, of course everybody was standing and clapping and high fives and there were
two ladies that yelled and came running out there and had to have pictures so, were
standing in the aisle and we even held up the beer man for pictures. That was one of my
extremely fun outings.
Interviewer: “As we close, is there anything that you want to say? Something that
you think is important to get on the record about your experience with playing
baseball?” (01:22:37)
The girls and myself had this extra ordinary experience playing baseball in the All
American Girls Professional Baseball League. It was a time that we don’t know if ever
will happen again. We were born at the right time, we were in the right place and our
experience that we had then and that we have now, speaking and making this type of
documentary, the honor it has given us, and we will keep doing it until the grass is above
us. We love what we do—the grandmas out there now do not baby sit anymore, we’ve
told our children to go get a baby sitter because we’re busy doing and telling our story to
people who want to hear it. (01:23:44)
Interviewer: “Thank you so much, it was a real pleasure”
You’re welcome, you’re welcome.
19
�20
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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
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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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RHC-58_DKonwinski
Title
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Konwinski, Dolores L. (Interview transcript and video), 2008
Creator
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Konwinski, Dolores L.
Description
An account of the resource
Dolly Konwinski was born on May 27, 1931 in Chicago Illinois. Starting at the age of seven, she played baseball with a neighborhood team and her father who encouraged her to pursue it. In 1947, Konwinski got her big break and tried out for one of the four teams the All American Girls Professional Baseball League was trying to form in Chicago. She began her professional career playing for the Chicago Colleens. In 1949, after the barnstorming tour she was allocated to play for the Springfield Sallies. In 1950, she was traded to the Grand Rapids Chicks and played mainly for them until 1952 but played for a brief time with the Battle Creek Belles in 1951. During her professional career she mainly played second and third base.
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
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
2008-10-06
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/81a0480cc77717a3359e57c2844ecb8e.mp4
12b61f99188ef3d9178abfc7e4efcd9e
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b3144a3e39a6acecd54dbe35543fff1e.pdf
f58fcb3f0fc5c27fe3e58abd78f3e892
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
NOELLA LeDUC
Women in Baseball
Born: December 23, 1933
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, May 19, 2011
Interviewer: “If we could begin with your full name and where and when you were
born?”
Noella LeDuc, Graniteville, Massachusetts, date of birth, 12-23-1933.
Interviewer: “What was your early childhood like? Where did you grow-up and
your family?”
Well, it was a small town and I played baseball all of the time, most of the time. I had a
ballpark across the street from my house and if I wasn‟t there the boys came over and got
me. We would pick sides and play all morning and in the afternoon we would go
swimming, come home and after supper, go play ball again and then go home and go to
bed. 33:35 My mother and father always knew where to find me—at the ball field.
Interviewer: “What was your early schooling like? How was school?”
School was good and I went as far as the freshman year in high school because I heard
about the girl‟s baseball. My freshman year I had come home from school and I had seen
the boys playing across the street from my house and I wondered why they were playing
there because they had their own field, our field was better though, so I went in the house
and changed my clothes and ran over there again, to the field, and the boys came up and
asked if I would hit some fly balls to them to get ready for the game. I said, “sure”, and I
did that for about ten minutes and went back and sat on the bench. This man came up to
1
�me and asked me if I would like to play professional baseball and I said, “yeah, I‟m
trying to because I saw it in a magazine”, and he said, “well, there‟s a girl eight miles
from here that plays”, and he gave me her name and address and everything, which is
Rita Briggs. 34:37 He said, “she‟s gone right now, she left for spring training and she‟ll
be home in October. I‟ll give you her address and you can go up and see her in October”.
I did that and the first time I went up there she wasn‟t home yet, she was a little bit late
coming home. I went up the following week and she was there, and when I got there they
were giving her a party, so she said, “I‟ll come and see you tomorrow, give me your
address”, and she did, she came to see me the next day, which was a Sunday. She tried
me out, throwing the ball, hitting and all that stuff and she said, “you‟ll make it”, so that‟s
how I did.
Interviewer: “How old were you?”
I was seventeen when I started, yeah.
Interviewer: “I‟m kind of curious because the man that told you to go and talk to
her, was he a scout?”
No, he worked with my mother in the mill. My mother worked in a mill and he worked
with my mother. He introduced himself because I didn‟t know him. He said, “I know
your mother because I work with her”, and all that stuff and then he told me about Rita
and gave me her address and everything. 35:38 He had seen her play at the high school
where she lived. She was on the boy‟s team at the school.
Interviewer: “You said you saw the notice in a magazine?”
Yeah, it was in the newspaper, newspaper magazine. Yeah, Dottie Schroeder was right
on the cover and I said to my dad, “I‟m going to beat her dad”, and I did at times.
2
�Interviewer: “Oh my gosh, but we‟ll check with her on that one right?”
Well, she is dead she‟s dead. She was a good ball player, very good.
Interviewer: “So you met the woman who was already playing and she told you
how to contact the league? Is that right?”
No, she gave me a tryout when she came home and she said, “you won‟t have any trouble
making it, and come spring training you‟ll go out with me and this other girl from Rhode
Island”, and I went out with them and they tried me out again over there and they said,
“you got it”. 36:37
Interviewer: “Well, how did you get there?”
We drove out.
Interviewer: “So somebody had a car?”
Yeah, Rita Briggs, she had a car.
Interviewer: “Your parents were ok with this?”
Yeah, well, my grandfather was a priest, so when he heard I was going to play ball he
went and checked it out and he said, “It‟s ok, she‟ll be all right”, because of the rules we
had and everything you know. He said, “she‟ll be ok”.
Interviewer: “I want you to go back to that first day of tryouts. You said you drove
out there in a car, were you excited about this?”
Oh yeah, I was a little nervous too because it was my first time being away from home
without my parents, so I was a little nervous, but they encouraged me a bit, and Marilyn
Jones, they said, “don‟t worry you‟ll make it”.
Interviewer: “Take us back, what was it like to show up there? Were there a lot of
girls out there playing?” 37:32
3
�No, first of all we went to the office and signed up and all this and that. They told me
how much money I would make and all that baloney you know, and the next day we had
to go to the clubhouse at the ballpark and get our uniforms and start practicing and all
that, and Johnny Rawlings was my manager, and a good man, good man.
Interviewer: “So, this was 1951?”
1951, yes
Interviewer: “Now, by that time, was the league throwing overhand?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Did you have any experience playing overhand baseball?”
Yeah, because I was with the boys all the time, I didn‟t have a problem with that, and the
ball was a little bit bigger when I went in, just a little bit bigger than a regular baseball.
In 1954 they went back to the size of a regular baseball and that was nice because I could
get my hand on it good you know, but I didn‟t have any trouble with the ball they had, it
was only slightly bigger you know.” 38:32
Interviewer: “So, what was the first season like? You‟re a rookie, right?”
Yes I was a rookie, yeah, yeah, and another girl was young too just like me, seventeen
and we got going in spring training and all that and then we got into the season, I was
playing, I got a base hit and I got down to second base on this gals base hit and then
another one came up and I had to—excuse me, that was wrong—they tried to pick me off
at second base, they figured she‟s a rookie and she isn‟t going to—I was ready, so she
made a bad throw and I made a beeline for third base and as I was running I dislocated
my elbow and Johnny gives me the sign to slide, so I slide, I‟m a little bit too close to the
4
�bag, but I said, “I got to do what he says”, so I injured the ligaments in my ankle, so I was
out for a little while on that, and I had to go to the doctors. 39:32
Interviewer: “The first season, you didn‟t sit on the bench? You were actually
playing?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “Wow, and what position?”
I was playing in the outfield, left field or right field.
Interviewer: “That first season, you of course played for what team?”
The Peoria Red Wings
Interviewer: “What did the uniform look like?”
It was white with a little red on it, the home uniform and the road uniform, I believe, was
red, and we had a red hat.
Interviewer: “How did you like the uniform?”
Well, I would rather of had pants because when you scratch up your legs and I tore my
knees open twice you know you—especially in South Bend, that was terrible. I had to
slide home and I scraped this whole knee out and blood was pouring out, so they cleared
the bench so I could sit and the chaperone would clean it up. Then they poured the
methiolate on it and you know how that feels, whewee and a couple of the girls were
blowing on it so it wouldn‟t sting so much. 40:36 They taped me up and I went out in
the field again. I got that all healed up and the first thing you know I got this leg.
Interviewer: “What was it like playing—now you played with the boys when you
were very young, you played through most of your younger years and now you‟re
5
�playing in professional baseball. How was that? Did you feel like you were good
enough? Did you feel like you were still a rookie? How did you feel?”
Well, I felt—I was pretty proud to get there and I felt good about it. I was nervous at
times because when you‟re young, seventeen, you‟re going to be nervous, but eventually
that went away and I just settled right down and went with it. Johnny, he was an
excellent, excellent man to work for, he was very good.
Interviewer: “One of the things I‟ve asked everybody about is their manager. Did
he treat you like a woman or did he treat you like a ball player?” 41:39
Like a ball player, and if we had to make a double play on anybody and someone‟s on
first base and want to get on second they want to get out of the way. He said, “aim for
the horn”. He called the nose the horn and he said, “If they don‟t dive they‟re going to
have a black eye”, but they are going to move if a balls coming at their head you know.
Interviewer: “The other question about managers is, several women have said that
even though they knew how to play baseball, the managers taught them little
professional tricks that they didn‟t even know about. Did you learn certain things
from them like how to slide or run or throw the ball that was different than what
you did?”
Well, I really didn‟t do any sliding when I was young you know and they told you how to
do that and we never went in with our bellies like that, never that way. It was feet first
and they told you how to do it and sometimes you‟re going to get hurt you know like I
did. 42:38
Interviewer: “How were the fans your first season?”
6
�They were nice they were nice, yeah. I remember one night I was playing right field and
also, the manager‟s always teach you—you always know how many outs there are, where
you‟re going to throw the ball if you get it, where the base runners are and all this and
that. So, this particular night I was playing right field, so I said to myself, “well, I got a
runner on third and if that balls hit to me, I got to get it in quick because she‟s fast”, so
the ball was hit to me and my momentum carried me over the foul line a little bit, so I had
to make a quick turn and make a quick throw home and I made a bullet throw and nailed
her. You should have heard the crowd, “wow, what an arm, what an arm”, and that made
me feel good, that was good. We had a pretty big crowd that night too. 43:35
Interviewer: “The first season, did a lot of people show up at these games?”
Yeah, yeah
Interviewer: “It wasn‟t until later that things changed?”
Yeah, they got down
Interviewer: “We‟ll get to that later, but I just wanted to make sure—the first
season you had a lot of people show up?”
Yeah, we had good crowds, yes.
Interviewer: “Now, you had chaperones, but you were too late for the charm school
right? You didn‟t have to go through all that?”
No, they told us what we had to do.
Interviewer: “What did you have to do?”
Well, you have to be dressed properly at all times, you have to speak good to all people
and not be nasty to them, and if anybody gets nasty with you, you just turn around and
walk away, you don‟t get nasty. That‟s what they told us to do and that‟s what we did.
7
�Interviewer: “But you were wearing blue jeans all the time, right?”
Well, when we could, we could you know. When you were living in your home you
could, but if you went out, you had to put on a skirt, but one time we snuck out. My
landlady had to go to the drugstore down the street, I had to get something, my
medication and I said, “Oh, I‟ll just run down in my shorts”, and I ran down there and I
ran back quick and Hazel said, “you better get out of here”, and I said, “yeah, I will”.
44:53 She was my landlady you know.
Interviewer: “Let‟s talk about that, when you started with this league you had to
have living arrangements, so what were your living arrangements the first season?”
Joyce Westerman, who you are going to be interviewing tomorrow, I lived with her and
Maggie Russo at Hazel‟s house. Maggie played a year before me and Joyce played quite
a few years, she was a veteran. They took care of me too. They helped me a lot and I
call Joyce my boss. She is a good girl, very good lady. 45:35
Interviewer: “So, you were staying in somebody‟s house, you had your own room or
did you share a room?”
No, I had a room upstairs because my landlady‟s mother use to live up there and she had
passed away, so Hazel put me up there because they had this nice big room up there, and
Joyce and Maggie lived downstairs.
Interviewer: “How was your social life during this period of time?”
Well, do you mean with men?”
Interviewer: “Just anything, going out to movies or anything.”
8
�Oh yeah, after ball games or rained out games, we would go to movies and stuff like that,
or go shopping you know, but I didn‟t have time for men. My mind was on baseball and
that was it.
Interviewer: “The money was pretty good though?”
Yeah, it was not bad, I didn‟t think it was too bad because I use to send some of it home
to my mom. I kept just enough, what I needed, and I would send the rest to her. I wanted
her to have it and what did she do? She put it in a bank account, a good mama. She
knew it was hers and she could get it anytime she wanted, if she needed it you know.
46:38
Interviewer: “So then you play your first season, do you come back home?”
Yup
Interviewer: “Were you finishing school?”
I didn‟t go back, I had to go to work and everything because I had to help out at home a
little bit, and if February my father died, so—no, no, that‟s a little bit too soon it was
1954 that my father died.
Interviewer: “So, you had to work, and did anybody at work know that you had
played professional baseball?”
Yeah, because all I had to do is walk in the building and, “you got a job”, really.
Interviewer: “So, how did you find out—did you already know you were going to
play a second season or did you find out some other way?”
They told us we were going to move to Battle Creek, Michigan the following year and
that year we had spring training down in North Carolina, was it North Carolina or South
Carolina? I don‟t remember exactly, but we had spring training down there with Fort
9
�Wayne, Indiana and Jimmy Fox was managing then. He was a good man, that man was a
good man. 47:47 We had Guy Bush for a manager, he was with Chicago, he was a
Chicago player, a pitcher. We‟re working our way back after spring training and we stop
at Washington D.C to play a game and I‟m out in the field and looking around in the
stands for my parents because they were going to come and see me. He comes up and
pats me on the back and he said, “I‟m going to make a pitcher out of you Pink”, and I
didn‟t want to do that, but I said, “I‟ll do it”. so a couple of the girls took me to the
mound and they started showing me what to do and all that, and all of a sudden the
clouds came and it was black and it was going to rain and I‟m looking for my folks. He
said, “We‟re going to go because it‟s going to rain”, and they threw us on the bus and
took us to Alexandria Virginia where we were staying and my parents couldn‟t find me,
but they knew where to find me at the hotel, they knew where I was going to be staying.
48:45 They found me over there and I got a phone call, “we‟re here”, and they took me
and Rita Briggs out to eat and everything and the next day they went back home.
Interviewer: “They never got a chance to see you play?”
No, my dad never got to see me play because when I got hurt in Peoria Johnny wouldn‟t
let me play. He said, “you still have that cracking noise in that elbow and I don‟t like
that”, and one of the girls said, “let her play, let her play, her mother and father are here”,
and he said, “No, I don‟t like that cracking noise”. He used to work my arm and
everything and he didn‟t like that cracking noise. I said, “Johnny, it don‟t hurt and the
doctor said I‟m fine”, but he said, “No, you‟re going to have to wait a little while”.
That‟s the way he was and he wanted to be sure you were healthy. 49:34
Interviewer: “Where did you get the name “Pinky”?”
10
�Rita Briggs gave me that. We were in Lowell Massachusetts, the season was over and we
went to a movie and we were walking down the street looking in the windows. There
were some things in there and she said, “I know what I‟m going to call you, I‟m going to
call you Pinky”, and I don‟t know where she got it. I said, “Where you getting that
Rita?” And she said, “oh, it just came into my head and that‟s the way it was with her.
She was a good catcher, oh boy, could that girl catch. She was smart, yeah.
Interviewer: “So, you‟re in the second season now, Battle Creek, you signed a
contract and you went to Battle Creek and you lived there?”
Battle Creek, yes I lived there.
Interviewer: “Where were you staying that time?”
I was staying with Maggie Russo and Josephine Hasham and we lived in a house with the
landlady and we had the upstairs to ourselves. That‟s where we lived and we didn‟t have
a car. I didn‟t have a car and neither did Maggie or Josephine. Rita Briggs use to pick us
up when it was time to go to the ballpark and that‟s how we went. 50:42
Interviewer: “What was a typical day like? You get up and get dressed, what was
the day like?”
Mostly every morning we had to practice and in the afternoon we would go home and
take it easy and about three o‟clock we had to eat before we went to the ballpark and we
had to be there at four o‟clock, get into our uniforms and start working out again to get
ready for the game. After the game was over you take a shower and go home, but first
you get something to eat. You get something to eat and you go home.
Interviewer: “Did you always know which team you were going to be playing?”
Yeah, we had a schedule.
11
�Interviewer: “Were there some teams that were a little more difficult to deal with
than others?”
Yeah, Fort Wayne was always a good team and Kalamazoo always had a good team too.
Interviewer: “Your second season you‟re no longer a rookie?”
Nope
Interviewer: “What position are you playing this time?”
Well, I was playing the pitching and I was playing the outfield. I did two positions.
Interviewer: “You did both.”
Either left field or right field when I wasn‟t pitching and sometimes I did the bull pen and
had to come in and relieve sometime. 51:53
Interviewer: “Any particular events happen in the second season that you want to
talk about?”
Let me see, no not too much.
Interviewer: “Just a regular season?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “So, now it‟s the third season, 1953 right?”
They moved us to Muskegon, Michigan and I lived with Maggie and Josephine again in a
nice house and we were within walking distance to the ballpark there, so that was nice
and we had a little restaurant to stop at to eat at after the game and before going home
and that was good too you know. We had it easy there, but Muskegon wasn‟t too good
for crowds you know. It was kind of down, so when that season was over me and
Marilyn Jones went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, which I was happy about because they were
the first place team. My roommate and Josephine went to Rockford. 52:57
12
�Interviewer: “You mentioned, just now, that the crowds in Muskegon were a lot
smaller.”
Yeah, they were a lot smaller.
Interviewer: “Did you have any idea, at that time, what your future as a baseball
player was going to be? Did you think you were going to keep playing—you‟re only
eighteen or nineteen years old by this time, and did you think you were going to be
playing into your twenties or did you already know that something was going wrong
that it wasn‟t going to last?”
Well, I was hoping it would last a long time, but I wasn‟t quite sure about it and when I
went to Fort Wayne, For Wayne always drew good because we had a good ball club
there, and I hit two home runs there. The first night I hit one and the next night a “grand
slammer”, and that was beautiful, and I had a big grin on my face there. 53:46
Interviewer: “But the last year though, the forth season, were there any indications
that things were going wrong?”
Well, they were talking about it, yeah, they were talking about it and they said that we
may not make it another year, so after our season was over, Bill Allington, he was my
manager then and he was a tough man to work for and I‟ll give you an example. I was
playing left field and someone yelled my name from out in the stands and I never
bothered looking before, but this time for some reason I did and I just turned my head and
all of a sudden I said ooh and I heard that bat you know and I said, “I better get this thing
or I‟m dead”. I had to make a shoestring catch out of it, came up with it, threw it in and
guess who‟s waiting for me when we got the third man out? He was waiting for me and
13
�he gave me hell you know and he said, “don‟t you do that again”. I didn‟t boy, I‟ll tall
you I didn‟t. 54:44
Interviewer: “The final season is the fourth season and you said there was talk
amongst the players that something might be going on?”
There were rumors that it was going to come to an end and Bill when it came to the
end—well, we were in the playoffs and we were in first place and we played against
Kalamazoo in the playoffs, but Kalamazoo beat us out. They kind of whipped me
because I use to beat Kalamazoo all the time, but this night they whipped me. I finally
got them out in this particular inning and Bill comes waiting for me and said, “What‟s the
matter with you? Didn‟t you get your rest today?” I said, “yes sir, I did”, and he said,
“What‟s the matter with you?” I said, “they‟re hitting bullets off of me. I don‟t know,
they just got me today”, and he said, “Can you catch?” I said, “no sir and I‟m not going
behind there”, and he said, “you‟re all done for the night, you go sit on the bench”. He
was a good manager though, he was tough, but he was good. 55:49
Interviewer: “That final season, you said you hit two home runs right?”
Yeah, yeah
Interviewer: “How did that happen and what was the first one?”
The first one? I don‟t know, the ball was right down the gut and I just grabbed it and I hit
it, but it was a line shot and I didn‟t think it made it over the fence and I stopped at
second and the Umpire motioned for me to keep on going and a big smile came on me
again and I want all the way around. The next night was a sweet one and I knew that
baby was gone because they were high and long and I ran those bases so nice and that
was a beauty.
14
�Interviewer: “Anybody on base?”
Yeah, the bases were loaded, yeah; the second one had the bases loaded. Bill said, “gee,
you got a little power”. When I was home and played with the boys, I use to hit a lot of
home runs, but this was a different story, there was more pressure you know. 56:47
Interviewer: “You‟re playing on several different teams, and how difficult was it to
transfer? You go from one team and now did you have a whole bunch of new girls
or did they come with you? Was it more difficult working in a new team?”
No, not really because you kind of get acquainted with everybody playing the teams
anyway. Whenever we had to change teams Maggie and Josephine were always with me
and we were roommates, so we just went along with it you know and a lot of the other
players we already knew too, so it was not difficult.
Interviewer: “During that period of time, you said that you wanted to continue
playing baseball, but did you actually think that this was what you were going to do
for most of your career or did you think you had to go to school or get a job? Were
you thinking about your future?” 57:48
Well, Fort Wayne, when we got done with the season, Bill decided that for one month we
go around and play against the men‟s teams, so we did and he picked a bunch of us
players to go around, and we did it for a month, and we did good, we beat a lot of the
guys, we beat them out. The last game we played it was my turn to pitch and what we
would do—me and my catcher would go sit with the guys and their catcher and pitcher
would go sit with the girls, and that „s how we did it. We were playing good and I was
beating my own girls and the seventh inning I started getting tired after playing the whole
season and this tour. I was getting tired, so he comes running out to me and he said,
15
�“What‟s the matter?” I said, “I‟m just getting a little bit tired, we played a whole season
you know. These two gals are pretty hard to get, but give me a chance and I‟ll try to get
them”, and I did, I got them.
58:53 I got them in a fly out you know and the next one I
had no problem with, and we get to the ninth inning and the girls had us by one run, I
think. We got some hits and we won the ball game and a guy came running to me and he
said it was the first game he won all season and he said, “Will you play for me next
year?” I said, “no I‟m going to play with the girls, I‟m sorry, but I would rather play with
my girls”, but of course we didn‟t have any more team. After the winter was over,
February my father died, this is when he died and in April I got a phone cal from Jeanne
Geissinger and she said, “Bill wants to know if you‟ll go around and play the girls against
the guys?” 59:52 They did that, I think, for four years, and I said, “I don‟t know if I
can, I just lost my father and I have to take care of my mom”, and I said, “let me think
about this and I‟ll call you tomorrow”, and she said, “ok”, and she was staying at Ma
Kelly‟s, everybody calls this lady Ma Kelly, and I said, I‟ll call you tomorrow afternoon”,
so I sat down that day thinking and thinking what I could do and I said, “no, I can‟t, I
can‟t do this, I have to say home”, so I called her up and I said, “I can‟t go, as much as I
want to, I cant‟ I got to take care of my mom”, so that was the end. 00:32
Interviewer: “Did you get a chance to play ball again after that?”
Yes, I coached CYL softball. The priest called me up and he said, “We‟re
going to start a CYL softball team and would you please coach?” I said, “I didn‟t think I
would be a very good coach, I don‟t like to lose”, and he said, “Well, give it a try, will
you please?” I said, “ok, I‟ll give it a try”, so I had these little kids you know and I had to
make up to them and I had to control myself to help them and everything else. We did
16
�pretty good except I was the only girl coach and there were all men coaches on these
other teams and they didn‟t want sliding in CYL you know, they didn‟t want the sliding.
The girls learned it in school, so we were playing this game and one of my girls slid into
third base and the coach on the other team, he started raving, “there‟s no sliding in CYL”.
1:40 I said, “I don‟t teach her to slide. I know we can‟t do it, but they learn it from high
school and it just came automatically”, so he started saying—I said, “you‟re being nasty
because I‟m a woman”, and he turned around and walked away. The Umpire said, “It‟s
ok, the girl learned it from school, from high school and she didn‟t do it on purpose”, so
anyway, we won the ball game and the guy apologized to me later.
Interviewer: “Good, good, now the priest you said, asked you and did he know you
played professional baseball?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Ok, sure, sure. What was the reaction when you got back from a
season? What was the reaction of your friends and neighbors?”
Well, I get off the bus from getting the train and then getting the bus to get home and I
got my bags and everybody‟s saying, “up, she‟s home, Pinky‟s home”. 2:42
Interviewer: „So, everyone else picked up on Pinky too? So, what was just amongst
the girls—?”
Yeah, once it started it caught on.
Interviewer: “My gosh, oh my gosh. The end of the league and you said you
became a coach afterwards; did you talk about your experiences? Did people know
that you were a baseball player ten years later, twenty years later? Did you spend a
lot of time talking about the fact that you played baseball?”
17
�The people at home knew because every spring I was gone to play ball and they would
ask me questions and this and that, and I would give them the answers you know.
Interviewer: “Some of the girls we talked to literally said after they stopped playing
they never talked about it and their kids didn‟t even know that they played
baseball.”
My father would talk and he would say that his daughter was a professional ball player
and this and that. He was proud, but I‟m so sorry he didn‟t get to see me play. 3:42
Interviewer: “When did you, let me put it this way, did you ever think at the time
that you were doing something extraordinary? People are telling you now that you
guys did this amazing thing, did you think of it way back then?”
No I didn‟t, I just went out because I loved the damn game you know. We played with
our hearts, we played hard and we were tired sometime, but we played with our hearts
and we went to win. Sometimes you lose naturally, you aren‟t always going to win, but
we had fun, we didn‟t make much money, but we had fun. It was not like these big
leaguers you know. I think that money is killing the game I think so. I think they love
the money more than the game. 4:36.
Interviewer: “When did you first hear about the movie, A League of Their Own?”
Oh, they let us know about it. They let us know about it, yeah.
Interviewer: “What was your reaction?”
I was happy, yes, I was happy and everybody gets to see it you know.
Interviewer: “So, you went to a premiere of it? Did you see it in a movie or you just
went to a movie theater and saw it?”
It was on television and everything you know.
18
�Interviewer: “You never saw it in a theater?”
No, no
Interviewer: “Oh my gosh.”
No, when it came on television I saw it you know.
Interviewer: “What was your reaction to the movie?”
Well, I didn‟t like the clubhouse thing you know because that wasn‟t true. The men
weren‟t in the clubhouse and Jimmy Foxx was never like that. He was a great man and a
gentleman all the way and that‟s the only thing I didn‟t like. Everything else was good
you know. 5:33
Interviewer: “What I heard from everyone else, and I felt this myself, it kind of
captured the spirit. It had some things they call Hollywood and what not, but
overall it was pretty accurate in terms of the spirit of it.”
Yeah, there‟s some of this make believe stuff, but when I heard that Madonna was going
to be in it I was she was going to kill it on us you know because you know how she is.
She‟s going to kill it, but Rosie O‟Donnell kept her in check and she‟s the only one who
knew how to play ball, Rosie, did you know that? Yeah, I got to know Rosie a little bit
when she wasn‟t too wild after while before she---you know a little bit.
Interviewer: “Did things change for you personally after the movie came out? I
mean, would people react to you different?”
Yeah, they want to touch you and everything. They like to touch you and they want to
talk to you and all that. 6:30 I like to talk to little kids and I like to help them.
Interviewer: “What—some of the girls I talked to said that in many ways the movie
kind of brought back the glamour and the fun of the game and a lot of them and not
19
�really forgotten that period, but they had not talked about it. Did the move have
that effect on you too, that other people somehow treated you differently?”
Yes they did, we were professionals, and they want to talk to you and ask you questions
and everything, oh yeah, and it was nice. It was nice to have people talk to you like that
you know. It made you feel good.
Interviewer: “Looking back on it now, what do you think that period of your life
was like for you. I know you did other thing and a lot of you have gone on to do
amazing things, so this was just one small part; it was four years of your life. Where
does that fit in terms of your life as you look back on it?” 7:35
I think it was the best years of my life; I really do, outside of having my daughter and
everything you know. Those were my best years; I loved it so much, and we had so
much fun. It was great and we made a lot of nice friends too. The fans were wonderful
and in Fort Wayne I use to have kids come to me all the time and it I had bullpen work
for relief, they would come down and sit on the bench with me, these little kids. If I had
a chance to give them a ball I would give them a ball or maybe if we would crack a bat
and the bat isn‟t too bad, I would say, “put a little screw in here and it will be good and
you can still use it you know. They would say, “oh boy Pinky that‟s good”, and I like to
make kids happy. 8:28
Interviewer: “I know at the time you are playing you‟re not thinking about these
sorts of things, but now, where do you think the league, in terms of the big picture of
baseball and America, where do you guys fit into all of this?”
Well, I wish we were up there a little bit more. I think the men took everything away
from us a little bit. It‟s only fight that the fans went back because those guys went to
20
�fight for our country. That‟s only right and that‟s how come we went down, but I wish
we could have stayed up, but it just didn‟t go that way and that‟s the way it went you
know. Ted Williams was my favorite player and I use to go watch him play all the time.
I wish I could have been like him though. 9:23
Interviewer: “You‟ve had a chance now, especially at reunions and you go to events
and what not, what kind of a message do you want for the young people that come
to you, what do you want to tell them about your experience as a ball player?”
Well, I tell them that I had a good life and I loved it very much, played my heart out, and
met a lot of beautiful, wonderful people and what more can you want you know, that‟s it.
These lovely little kids come up to you loving you, that makes me feel good.
Interviewer: “When did you first start coming to the reunions?”
This was my first one.
Interviewer: “After all you just said about how wonderful this is and this is your
first reunion?” 10:21
You know, I had a few injuries. I injured my legs a few times and sometimes I had
money problems and I couldn‟t afford it, so my daughter, she paid for all this.
Interviewer: “So this had got to be one of the great moments, huh? There are a lot
of amazing women out there.”
Joyce Westerman, you are going to have her tomorrow, and of course me and her were
buddies and I roomed with her. We lived the first year, with me and Maggie, and we
haven‟t seen each other in a long time and boy, we were hugging like crazy the first night
and we were crying and hugging and everything else and the girls said, “they‟re crying”,
and were taking pictures like crazy of us.
21
�Interviewer: “Well, let‟s hope you get a chance to come to other ones.”
“We‟ll be going to San Diego
Interviewer: Oh good, my mom lives in San Diego, so maybe I‟ll bring her to the
next reunion.”
Yeah, good, that‟s good
Interviewer: “That would be good. That would be really good and I want to thank
you very much. This had been a wonderful experience to sit down and talk to you.
This was delightful. 11:39
22
�23
�
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
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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_NLeDuc
Title
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LeDuc, Noella (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
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LeDuc, Noella
Description
An account of the resource
Noella Le Duc was born in Graniteville, Massachusetts in 1933. She grew up playing baseball with the boys, and when she was sixteen, a friend of her mother's introduced her to one of the AAGPBL players, Rita Briggs, who arranged a tryout for her in 1951. She played in the AAGPBL from 1951 through 1954, first with Peoria and later with Muskegon and Fort Wayne. She was primarily an outfielder, but also tried her hand at pitching and catching.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
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--Personal narratives, American
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Indiana
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
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
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>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6390b6ed5e3a255bb26e5a513cbd21ac.mp4
5dd06c9db3f1a577407316e5feb4a10f
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3b9207659543fdf5e5b7c0c57be308a3.pdf
21b331ebd729a85848593beffd549975
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Mary Moore
Length of Interview: (36:56)
Date of Interview: August 7, 2010 at the Reunion of the Professional Girls Baseball League
Interviewed by: James Smither
Transcribed by: Lindsey Thatcher, November 18, 2010
Interviewer: “Alright, today is August 7, 2010 we are at Detroit Michigan at the reunion of
the All American Professional Girls Baseball League and talking this morning with Mary
Moore of White Lake Michigan. The interviewer is John Smither of the Grand Valley State
University Veterans History Project. Now Mary what we are going to do here is basically
just follow your story. And we are going to begin at the beginning. So why don’t you tell us
where and when you were born?”
I was born in Detroit Michigan.
Interviewer: “In what year?”
1932. During tough times, the depression era.
Interviewer: “And what did your family do for a living in those days?”
Well my dad was a jewel die maker and well after when we moved out to Lincoln Park Michigan
when I was about 5 or 6 years old, that’s where I actually grew up and graduated, Lincoln Park
High and that was our main resident area. He worked for General Motors, Cadillac division, Ford
Street in Detroit.
(01:10)
Interviewer: “Now how did you get involved in sports initially?”
Well probably like most of the women, I mean well you know, I played out in the fields with the
boys Lincoln park you know, well it wasn’t very populated. There were a lot of fields out there
where we lived at that time. We were like the only house in fact; there was one other house on
the lot on one side of the street and maybe one or two on the other side. So there were a lot of
fields out there and we would take them and cut the weeds down and make our own ball field.
And of course if you get it to the white field we were out and we didn’t have enough players but
it was always something to go out to the field with the boys. I had an older brother that had a
paper route. Detroit News and it was a weekly paper. And so I would help him on his paper route
to earn money. So I was the one who always would come up with bats and balls and the
equipment. So if the boys wanted to play ball or any sport be it football, basketball, they had to
come get me first. So, so I was never left out.
(02:23)
�Interviewer: “Alright were there other girls that would play too, or was it just you?”
No there was hardly, I can’t even remember any girls in the neighborhood basically so, and if
there were they were down the street or quite a ways away, or they just weren’t interested. Most
of them weren’t anyway so.
Interviewer: “Now at your high school were there girls teams and girls sports?”
No, not heavily in high school back then. I graduated in January 1950 and in our senior year
(03:00) we were allowed to take one hour of gym. And then we had to share the basketball court
with the boys and we’d take half the court and they would take the other. But we had no
organized sports at all for the girls.
Interviewer: “So how did you wind up hooking up with the All Americans?”
Well like I said I had been playing ball with the boys there was that and always we had a Detroit
Tigers in Lake who played short stop for the Tigers oh back when he lived about 3 miles from us
and he would come out and play ball with us and he would pick the ball up and I would learn
how to judge fly balls and things like that. And basically teaching the guys but you know I was
watching and doing it too and he would take the students to the Tiger’s stadium to the ball park
and at that point I got a baseball and autographed a little autographed book like Hank Greenburg
(04:00), Dick Wakefield, George Kell, and all those guys back in the late 40’s. So I still have the
autograph book but I did have a fire in my place and I did lose the baseball. And so I mean, you
know I was a great sports fan and but it started in when I graduated from high school oh my high
school English teacher, Mrs. Nelson, put me in touch with another lady who had graduated. I
hadn’t heard anything about it, I mean it wasn’t widely known around you know, especially in
big cities. So she put me in touch with Doris Kneel who was already trying out. So we went
down to Crown Recreation in Detroit. There were a lot of girls from the Detroit Michigan area.
In fact Michigan has more (05:00) girls in the League than any other state. And so that’s where
they would go to practice in the winter time. So I went down there because I needed the practice.
From there one of the girl’s fathers was a scout. And Helen Filarski then took me in down to
South Bend with her for the tryout of the spring of 1950. Jobs were hard to find back then. You
know you graduate from high school and then there was really nothing. I mean I was willing to
sweep floors or do anything but there weren’t jobs out there, kind of like today. And so anyway
Helen took me to South Bend for tryouts. We were there for 2 weeks. And of course I hadn’t
really played anywhere for ball or anything (06:00) but I was you know, quite athletic. And so
after two weeks of spring training, of course they had a second baseman there, I can’t even
remember who it was now. But they sent me down to Chicago for 2 more weeks of training. And
there we had a lot of girls trying out. They picked 15 girls for the Springfield Sallies team and 15
girls for the Chicago Colleens team and…
Interviewer: “We’ll get back to that in just a moment I want to go a little bit back and talk
about the try outs and training. Were you, you went to South Bend. What was the set up
there? What were they trying to do to South Bend when you went there initially?”
�Just I guess, see if I they make the team or how good you were. I guess you know, they invite
people you know that maybe that [?] father might have saw playing ball and they said you know
we need a good player and they say go ahead go and try out you know.
(07:08)
Interviewer: “And what would they have you do when you were trying out?”
Well it’s kind of funny because all these Veterans down in Detroit in Rockville asked, what
position do you play? I said well any place, you know, you know they got, anyplace you want
me to I could play you know out in the scrub games you know I could be taught infield outfield
whatever, well you can’t tell them I can just play anywhere, so they wouldn’t think you were any
good. You got to tell them you play someplace. So they go over to all these Veterans, my friends
and so they say well third base that’s a really hot corner, I said well I don’t know about that.
Shortstop then you would really have to arm and move around; well I don’t know about that.
First base, well you really have to stretch and dig them out of the dirt, better not tell them there.
Outfield you really need a strong arm, and really you know move, well I don’t know about that.
Why don’t you tell them you play second base…so I did. I told them I played second base but I
hadn’t. So I get there and I watch you know, and I thought how hard can this be? Well it was a
lot harder I guess than I thought it was. But anyway I was out there and the manager says (08:30)
“How old are you?” and I said seventeen, “Well then act like it, don’t act like an old lady.
Move!” I thought ok. So but I must have done something fairly decent because like I said they
sent me on to Chicago for two more weeks to make me hit on a different team they didn’t need
me there in South Bend so.
Interviewer: “Now when you went to Chicago how many other women were trying out at
the same time as you were?”
Oh, probably about a hundred.
(09:00)
Interviewer: “And out of that hundred they were going to take…?”
Thirty, two teams. They were going to be a traveling team kind of like the farm hunt system team
and so we had fifteen each team. And we had to make our way on a bus and sat by the
chaperones and managers and so we toured all over the country you know, playing games. We
went to twenty one states and Canada in three months. And we played seventy seven games of
the ninety game schedule we got rained out the rest. And we played Yankee Stadium before a
Yankee game, we met Joe DiMaggio, Casey Stengel, Phil Rizzuto, Whitey Ford, and all those
guys were playing and of course if we had known that now, I mean we’re there to play, we’re in
our uniform. We had nothing to do to get autographs or having no idea how big (10:00) this
thing really was you know. So I mean, we just played our game and then you think about it now
and you think wow, you know. We played on Yankee Stadium. It was quite a thrill. We were
also playing in Washington D.C. Griffins Stadium and all along the way places. We would tour
so after the 1950 season and I got drafted by Battle Creek.
�Interviewer: “Let’s go back again into a little bit and let’s talk a bit more about that barn
storming season there. First of all explain again, you have there are two teams, and the two
teams, tell us who the two teams were?”
Springfield Sallies and Battlecreek Belles.
Interviewer: “Ok.”
Oh no, I’m sorry. Springfield Sallies and Chicago Colleens.
Interviewer: “Right, ok and you were with…?”
I was with Springfield.
(11:01)
Interviewer: “You were with the Sallies, ok.”
In fact my baseball card says Springfield Illinois, instead of Lincoln Park Michigan.
Interviewer: “Well, alright. How did they manage this physically, with moving you around
the country like this? So you’re riding around on a bus, you’ve got your chaperones your
manager with you and so forth, and then what do you do when you go from town to town?
What’s the routine?”
Well most of our games were at night, and so we would play a night game for two hours and
shower and get back on the bus and basically travel to the next town, maybe try to sleep on the
bus. And the day was ours if we didn’t want to try to sleep or catch up on your laundry, and do
something like that. But you know, you would have a lot of time. So when we were in New York
though we were right in the city (12:00) and we were able to go at night, and you know a couple
things like that basically traveling at night, and they were small towns so they didn’t have many
entertainments or anything like that. But most of us were quite young so we really weren’t into
going out or anything like that. We had a, we had to be at the ball park for two or three hours
before the game for the warm-up. You play a 9 inning game and you get done and you are a little
tired. So then we get back on the bus and travel to the next town.
Interviewer: “And did they have any particular rules or regulations regarding your
conduct or your dress or anything else like that?”
Well that was strictly enforced. We could not wear blue jeans, shorts, slacks, or anything out in
public. You had to be in a skirt (13:00) and a dress. If we were on the bus in the middle of the
night and we stopped at a rest area, we could get off, nobody there, but you aren’t allowed off the
bus unless you got a skirt on or a dress so we used wrap around skirts so you just had to hurry up
and put that on then you could get off the bus. They had strictly enforced, well all the rules were
enforced. Like we had bed check every night, if you were caught out after bed check well you
would be fined or sent home. This one girl she didn’t go out after bed check, she went to the
vending machine, and she got caught and she got fined and it was paid. All of that was pretty big
money back then. Well they could’ve sent her home, and if she disobeyed really bad they could
�be sent you home because along the way on this tour (14:00) we were kind of on a farm system
there were try outs at these towns. Now if they found someone that they was doing better than
you, who you got to go home and pick up this other player. So we didn’t want to do anything to
be sent home so we obeyed them. And you know things were different back then anyway. I mean
discipline was pretty much normal for most families. You know, times have changed a lot now
and things have got a lot more lax and federal government won’t let teachers discipline the
students and just all kinds of things that have changed so I mean you know it wasn’t even hard
for us because we were brought up that way.
Interviewer: “Ok, now at this point did they make any effort to teach people how to dress
or do things with their hair and make-up and stuff or was that long gone by then?”
That was gone by the time we started, but we did know the rules and stuff (15:00). You didn’t
disobey that, if you did it would be bye.
Interviewer: “Ok, what as you were touring around these different places, what kind of
response did you get from fans? Did you draw big crowds?”
Oh yeah, we kept up a good attendance. We had a PR man and I’ll give his first name Murray.
He would go he had he would go to these towns and he had newspaper articles and every time
we would get into, we would take turns of being on the radio broadcasts because there was no
TV wasn’t anywheres around yet or it was just starting. So they had good press, and also during
this firestorm tour half the proceeds would go to a local charity at that time. So you know, people
were very supportive, it was something new and different. So they were coming out, because like
I said with gas rationing you can’t go too far (16:02). And so depending on what town it was,
how many people, sometimes two, three thousand sometimes maybe less. But we had fans and
they were very appreciative of grand ball we played.
Interviewer: “And what about when you played in Washington or New York Stadiums?
Was it, before a game; was there a crowd there already?
Yeah there was quite a few yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah that was before the Yankee games
there was a lot of people coming in. I don’t know if it was if they knew about the game. I’m sure
they must have but it was a lot of people.
Interviewer: “Alright, so you kind of go and you do that for three months. With fifteen
players on the team you are playing most of the games right?”
Oh yeah, about every game.
Interviewer: “Alright, how did you turn out as a second baseman?”
(16:59)
I guess very decent. I was involved in a lot of double plays and the first year I led my team in
almost every category, hits, runs, RBIs [?], home bases. I was involved in a triple play and I got
it unusually, there was no force outs, they were all tag players. And there was two girls on, the
�first and second a girl would bat hit the ball out to the outfield, a base hit, the girl on second
tried to score, well they threw the ball on then and run her down and tag her out. Well meanwhile
the girl on first rounded second going on towards third. Well when they got the other girl tagged
out they started to run her back and the girl that hit the ball she was heading towards second so I
was standing on second as they both came to second I just pop pop and one side and the other
and they were all out. So…
(18:01)
Interviewer: “Alright, well that’s pretty good. Ok, so if you were leading your team and
hitting double bases, were you stealing bases yourself?”
Oh yeah, yeah I had quite a few stolen bases.
Interviewer: “Ok, had you known anything about base stealing before you had joined the
league?”
No, not really. Just watching the major leagues and stuff like that so…
Interviewer: “Ok, were there particular tricks to it that you could use or could you read
certain pitchers or…?”
Well yeah. It depended on who was pitching, how slow they were, or what their rules were you
know…
Interviewer: “How many pitchers would a barnstorming team have?”
Let’s see, maybe about six I guess. I don’t know.
Interviewer: “Ok, so if you are always playing the same team than you probably learned
those pitchers pretty well?”
(18:56)
Well yeah, we had bets back and forth. If I get ahead of you tonight, you owe me a milkshake.
You strike me out, ok I’ll owe you one.
Interviewer: “Alright, of the people you were traveling around with are there some they
you became particularly good friends with, or just stand out in your mind as being really
distinctive characters or really good players?”
Yeah there was, there was several. There was a lot of them that were international, we had
Cubans, we had a few from Canada, and all over the states so. But we had a lot of good players,
too many to mention.
Interviewer: “Ok. Alright, so you get through that first season. What happens when that
season comes to an end?”
�Well you go home and you look for a job for the season, which again wasn’t really easy to find
but I had a high school girlfriend that was working in a small (20:00) automobile shop so they
happened to need some work so I got a job there, I sort of wish I hadn’t but it was work you
know. And, but towards the 1951 season started, January 30, 1951 I had a puncture accident. I
kind of messed my hand up a little bit, making Packard rings. You dart on and I kind of just
jerked it back at me and I got in the way and it got all my fingers. I didn’t get them all but it
messed up the others too. So that was in January and I did go to spring training in ’51. Which
they ended up not taking me, they didn’t want to be responsible. You can’t reach the ball with
your glove you kind of automatically reach with your bare hand (21:00) and they were afraid that
if I line drived or something like that that I would get my hand torn open again, it was still pretty
tender. I went to therapy like 3, 4 times a week just to be able to go to spring training. The doctor
said that most people would still be kind of carrying their hand in a sling, and I said, well I have
to play ball. But any way they did call me up towards the end of the season. They had other
injuries and of course my hand was a little better. So I went back and played a few games in ’51.
Interviewer: “And who did you play for?”
Battle Creek. Battle Creek drafted me after the 1950 season. I played second base there also. So
anyway that as in ’52, after leaving my team in 1950 it’s a little bit more difficult now and the
ball, to throw the ball and to grip a bat when some of the muscles don’t work. So I wasn’t feeling
as well, but I did go back in ’52. I played. Two weeks before the end of the season I was sliding
into second, Fort Wayne, twisted my ankle and Joe Fox [?] my manager carried me off the field.
So I was done for the ’52 season. So in ’53 when I got the call back I just didn’t go back. I got
another job. So then I was disappointed in myself because I knew how well I played the first year
and now I’m not batting any good, I guess fielding was ok but bat hand was suffering, and I
figured that really I was just keeping somebody else from playing and they should have a chance
(23:00) and of course not knowing it was the end of 1954 anyway it was the end of the season.
So after that you’re supposed to sit out five years before you go back to amateur softball after
playing in the professionals. But because of my injury one of the softball teams got my reinstated
after two years so I was able to go back and play fast pitch in softball.
Interviewer: “Did you go back to Lincoln Park for that or did you go somewhere else?”
Well Lincoln Park for, well you know I went back home and lived for a while, but I played all
over Michigan practically. Over eight or ten different teams throughout the year so we won a
state class A championship one year, and class B one year, class C. So then I played softball,
now softball I played whatever position, whatever they wanted, catching or outfield or infield.
Wherever they gave me I would play so.
(24:09)
Interviewer: “Now when you were playing softball on these teams, did people know that
you had played professional baseball?”
Probably not. I mean you know it wasn’t a well known thing. Even at work I didn’t really tell
them that I had played ball, that’s not true everybody played ball. So when the movie came out
�they asked why didn’t you tell us? I says because I did tell you, you just weren’t listening. But
that was my quite experience.
Interviewer: “Now after you left the league, did you stay in touch with any of the players or
any of the friends you had made?”
Oh yeah, yeah, I had a real good friend Jo (Joanne) McComb from Pennsylvania. And we visited
back in forth (25:00) for oh years. You know I would go there and she would come to my house
and meet my folks and meet her folks, stay in touch, and stay in touch with a lot of the others.
But not quite as close as that.
Interviewer: “Now as the League’s, the former players began to get there together and
create a players association, this kind of stuff before the Penny Marshall movie came out,
were you connected with that? Were you involved in any reunions or anything like that?”
Oh yeah, there was you know the first one. There was probably maybe two that I’ve might’ve
missed all through the years and that was probably because I was taking care of my father, so but
like I said all but probably two.
Interviewer: “And did you, were you involved with any of the things that are around,
connected with the movie?”
(25:57)
Yeah we went to Smokey Illinois for 1991 for try outs about sixty some were there and it was
about forty three, forty five went out of Cooperstown for the filming of the movie and so I was
there. We had a fan for the other movie, we’d stop and take a picture and walk in the hall of
fame. To give credit when we were at our reunion game I was the one that slid it home. Shirley
Burkovich was trying to tag me out but I was safe and she was a little mad but then I was playing
left field at one point and I had to help out on a rundown play between second and third, they
didn’t throw me the ball but I was running back and forth and when they zoomed on the bench I
was the first one that they zoomed in on and hand out players. We were there in Cooperstown for
eleven days for that five minutes at the end. So we know and appreciate why movies cost so
much putting us all up and everything like that, for that five minutes.
(27:10)
Interviewer: “Ok, you mentioned going to Smokey for try outs. Now you were already a
player, who was trying out there?”
Well, they wanted someone that was active enough and in good enough health to be able to do
some of these things and we were kind of like helping the actresses you know showing them
trying to show them how to throw the ball, how to catch the ball, throw it and things like that. So
when they said they didn’t want somebody they couldn’t move them around.
Interviewer: “And how did that go? How well did the actresses learn the job?”
�Well some of them, pretty well. I mean a couple of them were already pretty athletic. Betty and
Rosy O’Donnell (28:01). Madonna, she needed a little more work and some of the others. She
had her little dance steps kind of tone and all but they said she was one of the hardest working
ones and she got banged up and got hit the head with the ball, she was batting and different
things like that. And so she, I think, personal opinion as long as she wasn’t the star in the movie
she was ok. And we were a little apprehensive when we found out she was going to be in the
movie and Penny Marshall assured us that she would do good and it would be ok. Debra Winger
was actually supposed to play the part of Geena Davis and we don’t know why Debra Winger
backed out. We heard rumors that it was because Madonna was going to be in it. But you know
that was just a rumor, who knows? Could have been just a conflict with her schedule, it was a
great movie (29:04).
Interviewer: “Were you happy how the movie came out?”
Yeah I figured it was probably about 85% accurate. There was you know some Hollywood in
there you know, we certainly didn’t treat the chaperones like that poor lady and managers didn’t
come drunk or you know into the dressing room unless everyone was fully dressed and there
were allowed to come in or we would go out there so, but that was they had to make it funny and
that it was. But Penny Marshall, she was great and so were the actresses. Some of them actually
come to our reunions out there in California. There were about five of them last night we were
out in California so it’s really, it’s really nice.
Interviewer: “Kind of an unusual thing for a movie. Most movies don’t have that, quite
that amount of standing power or effect on things.”
(30:03)
Yeah.
Interviewer: “Now also, as you started to go into the reunions you got involved in actually
recording short interviews with the other players. Tell me a little bit about that.”
Well I always had my camera with me and I snapped pictures so the association asked if I would
be willing to I guess the board had talked about you know to start to preserve history. And they
asked me if I could do a few interviews and I was like “Yeah I always have my camera with
me”. So I started doing about 5 to 8 interview of all the ladies, and I’ve got about 184 of them
done now. They are about 5 to 8 minutes kind of, you know not as lengthy as we are doing here
but about how we got started, who they played for, their managers, the chaperones, and kind of
what they’ve done since and things like that. The short version maybe of the what’s going on
now.
(31:07)
Interviewer: “Sure. But it’s also very valuable because you got started a lot earlier before
we or other people did, so you’ve got stories of people that aren’t recorded anywhere else.”
Yeah because a lot of them are gone now. I do have short interviews and sorts. 31:22
�Interviewer: “And as we move forward with this project we will track down physically
where they are located and that information will go up on our website and so our project
here, but basically so we’ll make sure that people if they find us can also locate where those
are because they are going want to see as much as they can certainly. So alright…
Well if they can’t, I mean I’ve got copies of them. Of course they are on VHS and I’m not sure,
the longer I’m there they will deteriorate but…
Interviewer: “We’ll make sure that all that is digitized by somebody so we’ll still have it
certainly. Now as you look over your time while you were actually playing what do you
think the effect of that experience was on you? What did you take out of it or learn from it
they stayed with you?”
(32:07)
Well a lot of it would be like friendships I made. And you know it taught you to not be not be
afraid to be out in public, playing in front of 2,000 people who aren’t bashful and people. Of
course the discipline was always there but that always helps too. And just…almost everything
you know. Without that I don’t know where half of us would have been. It gave us the
opportunity to be able to go on to school, a lot of them did. I never did, my parents couldn’t
afford it so I wasn’t able to attend or continue but there are others that really had beautiful
opportunities to be doctors and teachers. It was a wonderful experience and you can’t even put
into words.
(33:09)
Interviewer: “What did you end up doing? Did you have a particular career? Or did you
just do different jobs?”
Well I worked at the Michigan Bell for 35 years. I was central office supervisor. And that was
inside the central office where the wiring and everything, way back before all this technology.
Ladders about two stories high and we would be running wires about a block long and dragging
them inside, there was a guy connecting them outside people’s houses soldering and having a
tool pouch on I was the supervisor of the ladies who did that so…
Interviewer: “Did it help you just to go out there and be a supervisor having worked with a
lot of people?”
Yeah I think so yeah. Just being out there I mean being on a ball field on a base is kind of like
directing traffic half the time you know and you just kind of take charge a little bit you know, I
mean play towards the outfield, you call a play and tell them where to throw the ball and this and
that, you are just kind of out there taking charge. Yeah so I believed that helped a lot.
(34:22)
Interviewer: “Alright, now you played a lot of softball. Did you do any coaching at any
time?”
�Yeah I did I coached a couple times the Wyandottes, some younger girls. And I coached one of
our teams that had a well class C I think championship and after that I kind just played so…
Interviewer: “Alright, and did you kind of follow the growth of women’s sports? Title IX?
Just adding more teams and things in the ’70’s and ‘80’s?”
(34:58)
Yeah I did quite a bit. In fact I played been playing slow pitch up until this year up in Warfield. I
was their pitcher and I kept telling my young kids as long as I can catch it or dodge it, I’ll play it.
But this year I was so busy with our reunion and fundraising and going to meetings and this and
that of course I still bowl and golf, I just really didn’t have time to play ball this year so. The
first year I haven’t played.
Interviewer: “Alright, now back to when you were actually playing. Did you think of the
league being this pioneering or significant or was it just playing ball?”
You know, it was just playing ball at first but I mean when everything else comes out the movie
and everything people keep telling you, you know thank you for this and that you know, then it
kind of registers. But originally I was doing what I loved to do (36:00) and you were getting
paid for it like a job so that didn’t really register until things just kept getting bigger and bigger
and getting fan mail from all over the country, kids and not just kids adults you know. Veterans
and stuff like that write wanting autographs, it’s just…it’s just awesome, it’s amazing. It just
blows my mind that people are still so interested in wanting all this stuff, our autographs and
pictures I just think it’s great. I just hope it never dies.
Interviewer: “Well we are doing our best to make sure that it doesn’t. Alright, you actually
got a good story and have done a good job telling it to us. Thanks for coming in and talking
to us today.”
Thank you. 36:47
�
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
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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
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_MMoore0575BB
Title
A name given to the resource
Moore, Mary (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moore, Mary
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Moore was born in 1932 and grew up outside of Detroit, Michigan. She played ball with the boys in vacant lots in her neighborhood growing up, and met some of the Detroit Tiger players who lived in the area. She was recruited into the AAGPBL in 1950, and played second base that season for the Springfield Sallies barnstorming team. Their season included games played at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., and at Yankee Stadium. She was drafted by the Battle Creek Belles for the 1951 season, but an offseason injury kept her from playing that year. She returned to the league in 1952, only to have another injury cut short her playing career. After baseball, she worked for Michigan Bell for 35 years and continued to play and coach softball. When the league began holding reunions, she recorded short video interviews with 184 former players, coaches and chaperones, which are now archived with the league's collection in South Bend, Indiana.
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--Personal narratives, American
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Illinois
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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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2010-08-07
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
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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
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�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
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Oral history
Baseball players--Minnesota
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Illinois
Baseball for women--United States
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58_TPalermo
Title
A name given to the resource
Palermo, Toni (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Palermo, Toni
Description
An account of the resource
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.
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--Illinois
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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Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2009-09-26
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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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516fe0549183d38c91a9a8edb4954cfb
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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?”
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�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
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�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
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
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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
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
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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.
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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_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
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--Illinois
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
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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/d7c8e56a947cf14c227df7c95a40a7c7.mp4
f2007af960eb8ef03eb27a4ca67fb2b5
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cfb2f77e51df20e40bcaebd46ab1d604.pdf
f4eb4baaa39ebb63af181aa15cc23b2e
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
KATE VONDERAU
Women in Baseball
Born: Fort Wayne, Indiana September 26, 1927
Resides: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, August 5, 2010,
Detroit, MI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League reunion.
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, March 6, 2011
Interviewer: “Kate, can you begin with a little bit of personal background to start
with? Where and when were you born?”
I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on September 26, 1927
Interviewer: “What did your family do for a living at that time?”
My dad was a maintenance man for the Fort Wayne public schools and my mother was a
bookkeeper, so they both worked.
Interviewer: “Were they able to keep those jobs through the thirties?”
Yes
Interviewer: “So you had enough to eat, at least, growing up. How many kids were
in the family?”
There were three of us, I had two brothers, two older brothers, so I was the youngest and
the only girl, which is an advantage you know.
Interviewer: “How did you windup getting into sports?” 14:34
My dad was always interested in sports and I started with him and we would go out and
play catch and I got interested in playing softball. I started playing softball with a sand
lot team in Fort Wayne and I started that when I was about twelve years old. I played all
through my teens with that team until the All American Girls came to town and they had
tryouts, so I tried out with them and I was able to make the team and I started playing
1
�with them in 1946. I had to wait until I graduated from high school and I started playing
with them. 15:20
Interviewer: “So did you first learn about the league in 1946 or had you heard
about it before that?”
I heard about it before that because Fort Wayne had a team and they started playing, I
think it was, about 1943, so I had known about it before 1946.
Interviewer: “Was that the team that moved from Minnesota?”
They came from Milwaukee.
Interviewer: “Milwaukee, I knew one of them did and Grand Rapids came form
someplace, so 1944 or 45 in there someplace, not 43 right away.”
Yes
Interviewer: “You’re aware of the league, you were playing organized ball, was
that a popular thing for girls to do?”
Yes it was, there were a lot of softball teams in Fort Wayne, a lot of leagues and most
girls of teenage were playing on some kind of organized softball team.
Interviewer: “What position did you normally play?” 16:17
Fist of all first baseman and then we ran out of catchers, so I started catching and that
became my position.
Interviewer: “All right, now when you were catching in softball, did you do the
things that baseball catchers will do? Do you try to call pitches or any of that kind
of thing?”
We didn’t do that too much in softball because our softball pitchers back in those days
only had one pitch—to get it over the plate, so I didn’t have to call too many pitches. I
2
�just had to catch whatever they threw at me, so I didn’t have to do that too much in that
day and age.
Interviewer: “Now, tell me about the tryout then for the league. How did that take
place?”
I don’t remember too much about that really. They had a day when they had people
come to a certain place in Fort Wayne and I don’t even remember what that place was. It
was someplace in Fort Wayne, so I didn’t have to leave the city and we had, of course,
throwing and hitting and that sort of thing and played practice games and they evaluated
us form all of that and they decided whether or not they thought we would be successful
in the league. 17:35
Interviewer: “Do you have a sense of how many girls were trying out then?”
I don’t recall—I don’t recall at all.
Interviewer: “Do you figure a few dozen or a few hundred or two?”
Oh no, not a hundred, maybe a couple dozen at the most.
Interviewer: “Were you trying out simply to get into the league or were you
actually trying out for the Fort Wayne team?”
Just to get into the league at that time, but I was then taken by the Fort Wayne team and I
played with them and I played with Fort Wayne, which is my hometown. 18:28
Interviewer: “Was that the first place you played for?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Who were some of the veteran players on that team when you joined
it?”
3
�Let’s see, Dotty Collins was on that team and Dolly Schroeder, I can’t remember too
many of the others at that time, those are the two that come to my mind immediately. I
guess they were the most prominent two.
Interviewer: “When you joined, you mentioned that you had to wait until your high
school graduation before you started to play, so you missed whatever kind of spring
training they had that year?”
No, I did go to spring training. I went to Cuba and I don’t remember what year that was
that I went to spring training in Cuba.
Interviewer: “Cuba was 1948 maybe?” 19:16
I went to Pascagoula one year and then I went to Cuba another year for spring training,
but the dates escape me, I can’t relate the dates to the places.
Interviewer: “Those we can track down, but do you remember what year was your
first season then? When did you start playing?”
1946
Interviewer: “I think Cuba was a couple years later than that, 1948 or something
like that. So, you joined the Fort Wayne team, do you remember your first game?”
No, I really don’t—I remember one of the games—I caught Dolly Collins and she had a
tremendous curve ball and I would start in one position and catch the ball and by the time
I caught it I was two feet to the right of where I started in order to catch it, so she had a
really tremendous curve ball. 20:16
Interviewer: “Now, did some of those go as passed balls or wild pitches? Would
you lose some of her pitches? As a catcher would you miss some of them?”
4
�Oh no, not too many, not too many, I could usually catch up with it somewhere along the
line.
Interviewer: “There were a number of players in the league who were sort of
notorious as base stealers. You get someone like Sophie Kurys stealing two hundred
in one season and that kind of thing.”
There was only one like that, and it was Sophie Kurys.
Interviewer: “Right, now did you get much of a chance to throw batters out?”
Oh yeah, a lot
Interviewer: “Were you good at it?”
Yeah, I was fairly good at it, and I had a pretty good arm and threw to second base on the
line pretty well. If the pitcher game me time, I could usually get it there on time. A lot of
times the pitcher didn’t give you time to do that. 21:10
Interviewer: “Were you a good hitter?”
No-- in softball I was a really good hitter. I usually got two or three hits every game, but
in baseball the ball was smaller and the pitchers had more control of the different pitcher,
so I was not a very good hitter in baseball, which was too bad, but that’s the way it goes.
Interviewer: “Were you a good defensive catcher though?”
Yes, I was that
Interviewer: “Even in this day, you can have a low batting average if you can do the
rest of the job. How long did you stay in the league?”
I was in the league about eight years, until 1953.
5
�Interviewer: “That’s a pretty good stretch there. Now at the time you joined the
league, how much of the rules and regulations was on dress and behavior? How
much of that was still in place?”
It was the dress code, having to dress in dresses each time you left the bus, that was still
in place, but the charm school was gone, I never had to do that, but we did have to follow
the dress code pretty closely and we had to know fraternization rules, we were not to
fraternize with the other teams and that sort of thing, so those types of things were still in
effect. 22:34
Interviewer: “Did they regulate things like who people could go out on dates with
or that sort of thing?”
Yeah, the chaperones watched that pretty closely.
Interviewer: “What did you think of the chaperones?”
They were very good. The chaperones we had on the teams I played for were all very
good, and I liked them a lot. We couldn’t have done without them.
Interviewer: “What about the managers?”
The managers were also ok. I played for Jimmy Foxx and he was about like he was in
the movie, but was certainly a gentleman, but he wasn’t always as sober as he could have
been, but he was always a gentleman. I played for Max Carey, I played for Bill
Wambsganns, and they were both major league ball players and they were both very
good, so I played for some good manager. I played for Leo Schrall in Peoria and he was
a teacher at one of the colleges in Peoria, I don’t remember what the name of it was.
23:46 He was a very good manager, he was interested in teaching us actually—how to
6
�do things. The others assumed that we knew everything, so he was more a teacher than
he was a coach, so it was very good to play for him.
Interviewer: “What kind of living accommodations did you have?”
When I played for Fort Wayne I lived at home, but when we were on the road, of course,
we lived in hotels and when I played with, like Muskegon, the chaperones found us
private homes to live in and the living accommodations were good. We were always
very comfortable and the chaperones made sure of that, so we were very well supervised.
They took good care of us because we were just youngsters and they watched us pretty
carefully. 24:34
Interviewer: “How much did they pay you to start?”
I would just guess, off the top of my head, sixty five dollars a week or something like
that, which was a lot of money back in those days and especially if you’re living at home
because you didn’t have any expenses. On the road, all your expenses were paid, so I
didn’t have to spend a lot of my money, but when I lived in Muskegon I had to live in
somebody else’s home and then I had some expenses. I always had plenty of money.
Interviewer: “Did you save some of that money?”
Oh yeah. And I went to school later and I went to school, and I went to school, and I went
to school.
Interviewer: “We’ll get into that a little later on here. Now, tell me about some of
the spring training experiences. You said you made the trip down to Cuba, what do
you remember about that?” 25:29
I remember that—that was at the time when Castro was up in the hills and people down
in Havana were shaking that he was going to come down there and capture the city,
7
�which I guess he did eventually. The food was not edible as far as I was concerned and I
lived on the pineapples they sold on the street corner. We were very popular with—the
games were very popular and well attended and people really appreciated the way we
played the game, so it was interesting, very interesting.
Interviewer: “Did you also recruit players in Cuba?”
Yes, we still have a few of them; well we still have one of them that’s here. Have you
interviewed her? She’s-Interviewer: “Lefty Alvarez”
Ah huh, Isabel ah huh, she’s interesting. I played with another one; her name was
Marrero, Mirtha Marrero, I think, who was a pitcher, so when they announced, before the
game they announced the battery, so when they announced the battery she was pitching,
and they and they announced Marrero and Vonderau. 26:53
Interviewer: “Where else did you go for spring training?”
Ah, Pascagoula, which was not too bad, but it was a little buggy and we lived in barracks
and the weather was very hot, I remember that. We had trouble staying out in the sun all
day long and we would get so sunburned we could hardly stand it, but otherwise it was
ok.
Interviewer: “In addition to sort of doing your training down there, did you do any
barnstorming or traveling around playing?”
Yes we did, we played there in Pascagoula and that area, and then we played games all
over, way back up to our hometowns. If it was in Muskegon, we would play games all
the way back up until we got there. 27:54 We did a lot of playing in states along the
way.
8
�Interviewer: “How long did you play in Fort Wayne?”
How long? I played with Fort Wayne several times. I would play with fort Wayne and
get traded away and get traded back, so I’d say maybe four or five years with Fort
Wayne.
Interviewer: “What was the first team you got traded to?”
Muskegon, Muskegon Lassies
Interviewer: “Did they trade you before the season or in the middle of the season?”
That, I don’t remember, I would have to look at my baseball card.
Interviewer: “Were you sorry to leave home or were you looking forward to the
adventure when you left?” 28:46
I was looking forward to being on another team. It was always an adventure. I
remember getting traded to Chicago, the Chicago Colleens, and when I got to Chicago I
had about five dollars in my pocket and I had to borrow money from one of my friends to
get where I was going and where I was supposed to be. I was a little bit short.
Interviewer: “Was it different playing in these different towns? Was Muskegon
different from Fort Wayne or Chicago, either of them?”
The game was pretty much the same. It was always different playing for a different
manager, but the game itself was not that much different.
Interviewer: “What about the surroundings and the people who came to the
games?”
That might have been a bit more different. Playing in my hometown, I think the people
were a little more hostile than they were in other towns where I wasn’t that well known.
It’s always hard to play in your own hometown. 29:48
9
�Interviewer: “They were hostile when you were playing for Fort Wayne?”
Yes, because I was from Fort Wayne and if I made a mistake, that was pretty bad news
because I was a Fort Wayne native.
Interviewer: “Did you have a lot of steady fans there?”
Oh yes, a lot of fans that came every day for every game we played and every night, so
they were the same fans day and night after night, and they heckled you night after night.
They paid to do that, so that was their privilege.
Interviewer: “What kind of people went to the games?”
Just ordinary, average, run of the mill people.
Interviewer: “Were they all ages?”
Yes, all ages
Interviewer: “Men and women?”
Yeah, yeah, and I think they were probably more—probably a little bit older because the
younger people were gone to war, so these were all people who were a little bit older than
they would have been had they been able to go to was, so they were a little bit older.
31:04
Interviewer: “In the late forties we didn’t have a was going on. You got Korea, but
that started up in 1950 though, so you got a certain amount of that there too. Are
there particular moments in your playing career that stand out? When you think
back to playing ball, what do you think of?”
Well, I think of the game itself I guess because I loved playing so much. You can stand
any kind of conditions if you like to play, so—people talk about playing in those skirts,
10
�well, we didn’t care what we played in as long as we got to play so, it was the game itself
and getting to play the game and the competition. It was just fun. 31:51
Interviewer: “What separated that game from the softball you had been playing
before?”
Well, the competition was better and a little more intense, and the game itself was a little
more difficult. The hitting was more difficult and the bases were longer and the pitching
was overhand, so the game was a little bit harder to play, but it was still just as much fun.
Interviewer: “Where else did you play? You mentioned you were in Muskegon,
you were in Chicago, and you were in Fort Wayne and Peoria. What was the team
there?”
The Peoria Red Wings
Interviewer: “Did they last only a short time?”
Oh no, they were in the—Chicago is the one that lasted only a short time, but Peoria was
–they were in the league quite a while. 32:47 They weren’t one of the original teams,
but they were one of the teams that lasted about eight years or something like that.
Interviewer: “Now when you were playing for these different teams, did any of
them make it to a championship series?”
Yeah, we did with Muskegon we went to the championship.
Interviewer: “Now, did you win?”
Ah, I think we won once with Fort Wayne and we got to the championship series in
Muskegon, but we lost the last game, but we did win once in Fort Wayne and I remember
getting a watch or something for having won the championship.
Interviewer: “Were you the regular catcher for the teams that you played for?”
11
�Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depended on who happened to be on the team at the
same time I was, so I wasn’t always the first sting catcher, sometimes I was second.
Interviewer: “As second string catcher, did you still get to play fairly regularly?”
Oh yes 33:49
Interviewer: “You played so many games you probably had to.”
Yes
Interviewer: “How did the game change over the course of time that you were
playing? Did they do different things with the rules and the size of the ball and
things like that? How was it different at the time you ended your career than at the
time you started?”
I can’t remember that the game itself was all that much different. It was just the ball, the
size of the ball that made it a little bit faster, but the other rules of the game didn’t really
change all that much that I can recall. I just recall the smaller ball, but it was still the
same game, just a little bit faster game.
Interviewer: “Was it harder to catch in baseball than it was in softball? Was your
job harder?”
Yes, because the pitchers threw more different types of pitches and I had to call the types
of pitches that they were throwing, so it became more complicated. 34:50
Interviewer: “Did you learn the batters and that kind of thing the same way they do
these days, so you could now who hit what?”
Yeah, yeah we did that
Interviewer: “Did you have pitchers that didn’t like having you tell them what to
pitch?”
12
�No, not really, they didn’t check me off all that much, but there were some who probably
did. I had a couple pitchers that were maybe a little bit hostile, so if they threw me a low
pitch I threw the ball back to them and if they threw me a high pitch I threw the ball back
to her high, so I had to get even with her somehow.
Interviewer: “Now, as these games were going on, was there—did the managers
make much of an effort to signal to you, while you were catching, to tell you what
pitches to call?”
No, they didn’t do that too much, not unless we got into serious trouble. They didn’t do
that a whole lot. 35:53
Interviewer: ―Did they do the thing where they come out to the mound and talk to
the pitchers?”
Oh yes, they did that occasionally, just like they do in the major leagues.
Interviewer: “Why did you wind up leaving the league, why did you stop playing?”
Well, I was getting injured quite often, more often than I thought I should. I figured that
I had a few more years of my life to go and maybe I better preserve my body a little bit,
so I could live the rest of my life, and the league was about ready to fold too at that time,
so I just decided to stop. 36:34
Interviewer: “What was your last season?”
1953
Interviewer: “How could you tell the league was in trouble by then?”
Well, the attendance had dripped an awful lot and they had started the traveling leagues,
so the handwriting was on the wall and there wasn’t too much doubt that it was going to
fold pretty soon.
13
�Interviewer: “Once you made the decision then to quit, what did you do next?”
Then I went back to college and studied to be a teacher and I taught for about thirty years
after that.
Interviewer: “What level did you teach at?”
All levels, I started in elementary and I taught at junior high, high school, and then to the
university.‖
Interviewer: “What University did you teach at?”
The University of Wisconsin at Whitewater.
Interviewer: ―What were you teaching?”
Physical education, along the way and when I got to the University I was teaching—we
were training physical educators to go teach. That was basically what I was doing. 37:46
Interviewer: “As you were doing these things, teaching at these different levels, did
people know that you had played professional baseball?”
No, not really, no, not really, not until I got to the college level I guess, it never came up.
Interviewer: “When did you start teaching at the college level?”
About 1966 or something like that.
Interviewer: “But there were people who remembered something about the league
or knew that it existed?”
No, because I was teaching in the Midwest. Well, I taught in Wisconsin, but people were
not really aware of the league by that time. Of course it had died about ten years before
that and they had forgotten all about it I guess. It didn’t really come up all that much
until I guess, it was about the time of retirement was when it came up and they started
talking about it, or when the movie came out, maybe that’s when it was. 38:46
14
We
�didn’t really discuss it that much before that. It just never occurred to me, I guess, to
discuss it and I never had the opportunity to discuss it.
Interviewer: “Did you get actively involved in building up girls or women’s sports
programs?”
Yes
Interviewer: “What kinds of things did you do at these different places you
taught?”
I was coach for softball in college, we didn’t do too much at the other levels, at the high
school level, they didn’t really have competitive programs at that time, but at the college
level I coached softball, I coached volleyball I guess that’s all. Those are about the only
two things I coached.
Interviewer: “And were you still doing that when the Title IX legislation went
through and they began to expand things?”
Yeah 39:45
Interviewer: “What was your response to that when it happened? What did you
think of that?”
Well, it was fine, I—one thing I didn’t like about it was—when I coached, all the people
who came out for the sport, I taught them as much as I could as far as softball was
concerned. I let them play, so they could learn how to play, but when the title nine
started it was a different situation. You had to let the most talented people play, so you
had to be focused more on winning and that wasn’t my type of thing. I wanted to be a
teacher and teach them how to play and make sure they knew about the softball game
rather than just work with the skilled people. 40:37
15
�Interviewer: “Now, while you were actually playing in the league yourself, did you
think about how unusual this was that you were doing this, or of you yourself as
being a pioneer by going out and doing something new?”
No, I never thought about it, no, not until years and years later. When somebody told us
we were pioneers, then we thought about it, but it never occurred to us.
Interviewer: “You were doing it because they were paying you to play ball.”
Yes, and we loved playing ball. I would have played without the pay, so it didn’t make
any difference. They could have paid me half the salary and I still would have played, so
we just loved playing and it was an opportunity to play, so played and that’s all.
Interviewer: “When you look back at your career, what effect do you think it had
on you? How did it affect you, just being able to go and play for those years and
have that experience?” 41:36
I don’t really know how to answer that. I was a little bit more shy, I think, when I first
started and it got you out among people and made it easier to meet people and talk to
people and just that sort of thing. Otherwise, I don’t know what else to say about that.
Interviewer: “do you think it gave you a certain level of confidence and the ability
to go out and do things?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “When you were, say eighteen or nineteen, did you think you would
end up teaching college somewhere?”
No, it never occurred to me then, nope.
16
�Interviewer: “If you were asked to, and you probably have been asked to, to review
the movie “A League of their Own”, what would you say about it? 42:40 What
worked well? What did they get wrong?”
Well, I think it was about eighty-five percent true, what they’ve done, and I was very
pleased with it. They did a good job, but some of the scenes that they put in, I know,
were for entertainment only, and just to attract people, so they would like the film a little
bit better. It distracted from what we actually did, but I can understand why they did it. I
still enjoyed the movie a lot and I thought they did a nice job.
Interviewer: “What aspect of your experiences as a ball player do you think they
did a good job with?”
The games themselves, the coaching of the games and the relationships, like the two
sisters, and the competitive part of it, that was good and I thought the whole thing, as a
whole, was good except for—like doing the splits and ending up with a hotdog and the
manager being in the locker room, that never would have happened, and those types of
things. 43:58 Everything else, I thought was good. Some of the things they did, as far
as the chaperones, were a concern—we use to play trick on the chaperones, but I think
they went a little bit farther than they needed to go in the movie, but we did those types of
things though—it was not too far off.
Interviewer: “If you just think back again to the time you spent in the league, are
there other particular memories or stories that come back to you that you haven’t
mentioned yet?”
17
�No, I can’t really think of anything. You know, this is so long ago, fifty years ago, and a
lot of things escape me and I can’t remember things as vividly as I once did, so I can’t
think of anything else that would stand out at the moment. 45:03
Interviewer: “Well, you managed to tell us quite a bit, so thank you very much for
coming in and talking to us.”
Thank you.
18
�19
�
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
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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_KVonderau
Title
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Vonderau, Kate (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
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Vonderau, Kate
Description
An account of the resource
Kate Vonderau was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1927. She grew up playing ball with her brothers. She learned about the AAGPBL when the Daisies came to Fort Wayne, and tried out for and made the team in 1946. She was a catcher, and eventually spend eight seasons in the league, playing for Peoria, Muskegon and Chicago as well as Fort Wayne. She attended college in the off season and became a teacher after her playing career, starting in elementary school, then moving on to high school and college teaching, and coached college softball and volleyball teams.
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--Michigan
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Illinois
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
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
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fff4db0931b72f7532359498cdb682a4.m4v
72ed15cc84d8bda66515f1060fc06225
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/428f12781a3bd30360554b6dce3001a6.pdf
9d94cfc8650e7efc9c87ceb92ddb1a91
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
ELMA WEISS
Women in Baseball
Born: Columbus, Ohio
Resides: Phoenix, Arizona
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, January 4, 2011
Interviewer: “Now Elma, can you begin by giving us a little bit of background on
yourself?”
Yes, I was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1923 and we’ll skip the early years.
Interviewer: “I would like to ask a little bit about the early years. What did your
family do for a living in those days?”
Well, originally farmers, everybody was a farmer in that era and he was an electrician.
He had a lot of work with professional buildings. He wired hospitals and businesses and
part of the Ohio State University stadium because we lived in Columbus just a short
distance from the campus. 55:12
Interviewer: “Did you grow up in Columbus and go to school there?”
Yes, I grew up and went to school there and started at Ohio State University, and I
completed three years and then the war changed people’s lived dramatically, as you
know, and we had we had a shortage of teachers, but the rule at that time was, if you had
completed three years of college and you could get a principal to hire you, you could
teach school, so that’s what I did. After my third year I went to Port Clinton, Ohio, and
taught high school for a year and then I was supposed to go back and finish, but I went
back, but the urge, the desire to be patriotic again—instead of finishing my senior year I
joined the navy.
1
�Interviewer: “Why did you choose the navy as opposed to another branch of the
service?” 56:00
This is going to sound funny, but it was strictly because I didn’t like the khaki uniforms.
I liked the navy blue.
Interviewer: “You are not the first WAVE to tell us that. That they had better
uniforms.
Is that right?
Interviewer: “So you did that and once you signed up what—where did they send
you for training?”
For the navy, do you mean?
Interviewer: “Yes”
All of us went to New York at the time and we spent—I think it was four months or six
weeks, it was six weeks, in basic training and my major was in physical education, so I
had another three months in New York City and then eventually I ended up in Oakland,
California.
Interviewer: “While you were going through basic training and then more
specialized training, tell us a little bit about what that was like. In basic training,
what do they have the women do?” 56:56
Well, they were trying to get us familiar with navy terms and so forth, and we had to
learn that the floor was the deck and the stairs were ladders and so forth, so we spoke in
navy terms and we were taught to recognize and identify airplanes and ships and so forth.
Just so we could—we didn’t expect to get aboard a ship, and of course we didn’t, but we
knew all the navy lingo and that’s the way they wanted it.
2
�Interviewer: “Did they teach you discipline and all that kind of thing?”
Oh yes, we were under the same rules. I went home for Christmas at one time and we
were snowed in on the train coming back and in the navy they don’t care about a
snowstorm. What happens if you miss your ship? The war might hinge on you making
your ship, so we had to serve what they call “a captain’s mast” and you had to work
cleaning the decks or something of that nature. 57:54 They treated us like the young
men.
Interviewer: “Did they give you a lot of physical training and exercise?”
No, I already had that actually, at the university, but we did go through—they called it PT
and we did some exercises and swimming.
Interviewer: “What year was this when you joined the navy?”
It was in 1943, in 1943 I was still in school at that time, so we covered the summer and I
went in the fall of 1943 and served in 1944 and was discharged at the end of 1945.
Interviewer: ‘What did your physical education background—how did that affect
your assignment? You mentioned you had been majoring in that, so they had you
go to a particular kind of training and you stayed in New York for three or four
months and what were you doing at that time?”
Well, they called it Specialist I Training and I guess it’s what a drill sergeant would do
more or less and when I was a student I was a student company commander and I was in
charge of six sections of forty girls each. 59:05 I recall one day we mustered out in front
to go to breakfast and one—she was a specialist I guess, and she called out the window
that she overslept and I was standing down there and we were all standing at parade rest,
two hundred girls there, and she said, “can you get them to the mess hall?” I called the
3
�company and turned them around and marched them down the street and bleeped them to
the right and to the mess hall, and I was so proud of myself and I was so proud of myself
as a youngster doing that, really.
Interviewer: “Now, were most of the women training about the same age?”
I suppose they were, you had to be twenty-one to go in—well I was, let’s see—you had
to be twenty-one to go in the navy, which is one reason I didn’t go in earlier. I wasn’t
that old yet. 59:54
Interviewer: “Well, the men were going into the navy at seventeen and eighteen.”
But not the women
Interviewer: “Not the women, alright, so basically you’re training to train other
people.”
That’s pretty much the size of it, yeah. The S really stood for shore patrol for the men,
but we ended up being in charge of barracks.
Interviewer: “So, you go out to Oakland, California, now what was there?”
Well, the WAVE barracks were in the heart of town and what we had to do, we were
called “ship’s company” because we didn’t go, but every morning buses would come in,
and several hundred girls would get on the buses and they would be taken out to one of
the navy stations, but “ship’s company”, there were about twenty of us, stayed there and I
arranged recreation for them by buying books for the rec room I guess, and records and I
painted a badminton court and I managed a softball team and things of that nature for the
girls. 0:56
Interviewer: “All right, what do you think was the most interesting aspect of that
job?”
4
�Well, I enjoyed—I took leather craft the year before—see, when I’d gone out there I
couldn’t get in because I was a day late at the university, so I was out there and all I had
was about seventy five dollars and I came from Ohio of course, and didn’t have enough
money to go back home and didn’t know—I said, “don’t panic”, and I had training in
recreation, so I went down to the city recreation department to see if they would hire me
and they said, “well, you’re in luck because we’re just doing Civil Service training now
and you can take the test”, so I took the test the next day, as a matter of fact, and the rule
in Civil Service was that whoever got the top scores had to get the top jobs, so they had to
hire me. There was a woman who had taught at the Golden Gate Recreation Center down
there and she was much better and knew her job and they wanted to keep her too, so they
had to create a job for me. 1:58 I ended up working at playgrounds quite a bit for a year
until I was eligible to go to the university.
Interviewer: “That was after the naval service then?”
No, this was—let’s see, I’m getting mixed up on dates. It was after the naval service, but
before the baseball.
Interviewer: “All right, we were talking about the naval service itself and I asked
what was the most interesting part of that job.”
Well, I use to play a trumpet years ago and I recall one time we were raising the flag on
our post and several officers came out and I practiced raising the reveille in the morning
and took some pictures of that and that was kind of thrilling and exciting too because I
wasn’t a top trumpet player. I was kind of exciting with all the people standing around
saluting and watching the flag go us and here I was struggling with that bugle. 2:59 that
was interesting and then we had a softball team and the navy girls played the coast guard
5
�and marine women’s group and we sang in a chorus and we went out to San Quentin one
time just to sing for the prisoners, so there were recreation type of things you know.
Interviewer: “Did you feel like you were doing something useful for the war effort
or making a contribution?”
Well, I suppose so, I didn’t really think about the war in essence, I just did the job that I
was supposed to do and we were supposed to take care of the women. They trained me
in leather craft during my work in the recreation department there in the city of Oakland,
and I ended up teaching the craft to women in the Golden Gate Community Center. That
was fun because that was strictly afterwards, but I had learned that in the navy and that
was good because that was something they could really gain from. We made wallets and
belts and purses and things like that. 4:02
Interviewer: “So, you had kind of a direct connection between the naval career and
that work in the Civil Service that you did afterward. It all kind of fit together and
they all grew out of the training that you already had in college.”
You’re exactly right, the physical education and the actions there and the recreation
things that I did.
Interviewer: “All right, now we’re going to go back up a little bit, going back again
to being a kid, how did you start playing sports?”
Well, we lived near a playground and it was just about a block away, a city municipal
playground, and every summer when school was out we were at the playground. They
had fifteen softball diamonds there and every summer they had the industrial leagues and
church leagues and other leagues there and I used to go down there all the time and sell
pop for five cents to—carry a bucket with twelve bottles of coke and holler, “ice cold pop
6
�five cents”, and they would stop the ball game, and so I worked in the summer selling
pop to the ball players. 5:00 In the daytime when the diamonds weren’t used , we used
them and we played different, other playgrounds..
Interviewer: “Who is “we”, who were you playing with?”
Well, mostly local boys and girls that I knew and who were my age level. It was from
about the—well, I started doing that when I was in the first or second grade when I
started playing softball, but more in the ninth grade and on into high school.
Interviewer: “There were other girls beside you who were playing?”
Yes and we played other local playgrounds and eventually we played night ball for a shoe
company, J.K. Shoe Company, and we were hired to work at the shoe company because
we played softball, so every summer we did that and we had a pretty fair team.
Interviewer: “By this time you’re getting specifically women’s teams?”
Women’s softball teams 5:52
Interviewer: “So, you’re actually involved in that at that time. Then did you
continue to play when you went on to college?”
Yes, but not so much. You know in those days women were supposed to behave
differently and we were told not to play on a team that was coached by a man. That’s
what they told us at Ohio State, so we—but I loved softball so much that I thought what I
do in the summer is my own business as long as I make my grade in the winter, so I
played for local teams that were coached by men and then we went to state tournaments
and so forth, so we had pretty fair teams.
Interviewer: “Did you go out of state when you were playing softball or did you
stay in the state?”
7
�It was all state wide, but we went to state tournaments up around Elyria and Toledo and
Cleveland, up that way. 6:41
Interviewer: “How did you wind up signing with the All American Girls
Professional Baseball league?”
Well, I was out in California at the University of California Berkley working on my
master’s degree in 1948 and I was playing at the time with some softball players in
Alameda, California and they were quite famous because they were the world champions.
I knew two girls out there that had been picked to be members of the All American
League and they told me about it and they told me that Bill Allington was a scout and
coach and he was trying people out, so I got a hold of him and he tried me out and I was
an outfielder, so he hit a lot of fly balls to see if I could catch and checked my arm out to
see if I could throw and whether I could run and the next thing I knew I was in Peoria,
Illinois. I was sent there to play with the Red Wings.
Interviewer: “What year was that?”
That would be 1948 and that was a little bit difficult for me because, well, I was older
then, I was twenty five and many of the girls played ball when they were fifteen years
old, but it was a little different for me and I sort of suspected that maybe they were going
to make a chaperone out of me because I had the college credits and all of that, but I
played there and enjoyed it very, very much. 8:03
Interviewer: “Did they have you play all outfield positions?”
I was outfield and I could play any of them. The trouble is, the college wasn’t out until
June and they started their spring training in April and by the time I got there they had
finished their spring training and were well into the season, so I’d of had to be a pretty
8
�fair player in order to break into the line-up, so I did a lot of things, I pitched batting
practice, and participated and they taught me different things. The game was different
from softball, so it took me a while to learn, so one time at the end of that first season the
coach said, “you’re going to start tonight. You’re going to play right field and you’re
going to play the whole game”. Oh boy, I thought this was just great, so I played the
game and played well. I made a couple double plays, which I figured in catching the ball
and throwing the runner in off base. I thought, “Now I can show them what I can do”.
This proves, in those days professional ball was the same for the women as it was for the
men and it is a business. 9:08 I didn’t know it, but the next day I was shipped out to
Rockford, and he let me play the game because he knew I was going to be leaving the
next day, so it’s a business, you go wherever they want you.
Interviewer: “All right, when you got to Rockford did you get a chance to play any
more?”
Well, there were two weeks left in the season, so then I went home and worked there and
the next year instead of going back to Rockford they had me on the tour. They were
trying to popularize the league in the south and we played in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas
and Louisiana, all the way down there for the season. Getting close to the end of the
season my back was hurting me quite a bit, so when I went home I just never went back
to the league. 9:51
Interviewer: “Because of the way you joined the league, coming in in mid-season
and kind of moving around a lot, and maybe also the fact that you were a little bit
older, did they tell you much in the way of what kind of rules you had to follow and
that kind of thing?”
9
�Well, they didn’t because they were well into their training, but I learned from the other
girls everything that I had to know and they had their rules, which we had to follow, as
you well know.
Interviewer: “So, you had to wear the skirts and so forth and all that kind of
thing.”
The nice thing about the league—the fact was they just accept all the girls. If you play
one day, one week, one month, one year or ten years, you’re part of the family more or
less. That is the thing that has been so good because over all these years we’ve all
maintained a relationship with each other and I think that’s a wonderful thing. I think we
did a lot really. 10:50 I was teaching school when Title IX came in and women just
didn’t do things in those days and I was in on a lot of this changing and I think it was
fascinating business. We didn’t know we were pioneers until the movie was made and
the cards were made and we didn’t know this.
Interviewer: “When they got to the point where they were making the movie were
you connected with that or did you participate?”
I was teaching school again and I couldn’t go. You know that’s—that was a good thing,
but it also kept me from doing other things.
Interviewer: “How long did you teach?”
As a whole now, I’ve taught over thirty years. I have a degree from Ohio State and from
the university in Berkeley, California and a doctorate from Arizona State University.
Interviewer: “And did you take the doctorate also in physical education?”
Yes
Interviewer: “And have you taught at the university level as well?”
10
�Yes, it was almost all—I finished my last twenty-five years at Phoenix College, which is
a two-year community college. 11:51
Interviewer: “Did you do coaching while you were there too?”
Yes, we had to coach and that was another thing, we had intramurals and we had sports
day, but women coaches were not paid, we just had to do these things, but we never got
paid, we just had straight teaching jobs. We got paid for teaching and we went through
all of that, we went through all the different sports and then Title IX came along and the
men gave us a lot of static because they thought they were going to lose some money.
That the women were going to get the scholarships and some of the money, so we had all
kinds of wars with the men’s departments. It was just true over all the universities at that
time and I think Title IX was—and thing like our league here being pioneers and all that,
I think they were some of the best things that ever happened for women in sports and to
live in that era was a very interesting thing for me. 12:47
Interviewer: “And you were really in a position to watch those changes.”
Yes, I saw all those, I was department chairman when the money came in and we hired
volleyball players, basketball players and I coached a softball team in college then.
Interviewer: “Let’s go back to the playing days. Tell us a little bit about life with
the traveling teams. How did that work?”
Well, when I was with Peoria, with the Red Wings, we had so many games away from
home and we were assigned by the chaperone, we had roommates in the hotels and we
were given per diem money. When we were at our home base we had a family that we
lived with and I guess maybe we were home about a week at a time and then we would
go off on the different trips, so that was interesting. The second year when I was
11
�traveling in the south and it was kind of rugged. 13:43 They had the two teams, we
traveled on one bus and I remember we had one more player than we had seats, so we
alternated and walked up and down the aisle. When it was time to stop somewhere they
had two rooms in a hotel and we all showered in those two rooms and we were off to a
game every night, but when you’re young you can do a lot of things.
Interviewer: “Because you were a little bit older, did you kind of fall into a little bit
of a chaperone role too?”
No, but after the end of my two years, they had never said this to me, but I kind of
suspected that might have been why they kept me on because I was not playing regularly.
As a matter of fact, I only played about seventeen games in those—if you take both of the
summers, the summers were only two months long because of teaching, and to play
seventeen games in four months was, I guess, all I could hope for, and that’s the reason I
suspected maybe they had another plan for me. 14:42
Interviewer: “Aside from that game toward the end of that first season when you
kind of got in there and played the whole game and made a couple double plays,
were there other games when you were out there playing, that stand out in your
memory?”
Well, I was out there practicing certainly as hard as the rest of them and learning all the
tricks and everything they were doing. I might have been called in for a pinch hitter or
something of that sort, but no, whether you were home or you were on the road, you had
to get there hours before the game started and of course I did the same routines all the
other girls did as though I was going into the game, but most of the games I spent on the
bench.
12
�Interviewer: “All right, who did you have managing you when you were going
around on the tour?”
Schrall, Leo Schrall that was his name, yeah, and we had a good team and there are some
very famous girls that played. 15:42 Now, Twila Shively, and we had—let’s see, who
were some of the others, these manes are—Terry Donahue, who was well known and
Kate Vonderau, who was a catcher. That one game I played before I was sent out, and
the reason I thought I was going to stay—I was playing out in the field and there was a
long low fly that I had to run and reach down to catch and I just saw the runner starting in
from third, so I just heaved it toward the catcher. We’re taught to bounce it in if you’re
coming from center field and one bounce if you’re coming from right field, but I just
heaved it and it got to the catcher on the fly and she tagged the runner coming in, so it
was a double out. I thought, “boy, I got it now”, and the next day I end up in Rockford,
so it’s a business. 16:30
Interviewer: “As you were traveling around, what kind of reception did you get
when you went to these little towns in the south?”
Oh, everybody just loved it and we had big crowds. The biggest crowd I every played
before in the baseball was ten thousand they were giving away—the girls all got a
suitcase and they were giving away an automobile, so when they had specialties and
things like that, the crowds were bigger. Everybody would stand outside the locker room
and wait for the girls to shower and then they would sign autographs, so it was exciting
and you begin to think you have some importance in this world.
Interviewer: “Were there any particular places that you went that kind of stand out
in your memory or do they all just run together?”
13
�No, they probably did at the time, but as I look back sixty years ago, I can’t remember
anything special except that it was just great. Of all the things I’ve done, the college
degrees and the teaching and getting married and having children and all of that, I recall
that the baseball was the thing that I remember the most and enjoyed the most of all the
things I’ve done in my life. 17:44 In eighty-seven years you do a lot of living.
Interviewer: “What is it about is it about the baseball, do you think, that makes it
particularly distinctive and makes it stand out?”
Made it stand out?
Interviewer: “Yes”
Probably—we played softball on the playground and I just knew since I was a kid—I
remember I use to play in the second grade, at recess we would play and at a high school
reunion one time a man said to me, “when you were in the second grade everyone wanted
you on their team”, because not too many girls played, just the boys, and they knew that I
could play some, so they enjoyed that and I enjoyed that also. I just always played
softball and we had some quite good teams in softball, we really did.
Interviewer: “What did you think of the “A League of Their Own” movie? What
was your impression of it?” 18:41
Well, I thought it was very good. Of course, it was an entertainment feature of course,
the parts with Tom Hanks and some of the other things. I don’t remember any girl that I
knew that had a husband who was killed in the war or anything of that sort because they
were still pretty young and there were not very many girls that had mates or anything at
that time, but you just get involved, you don’t have time to do anything else. It was fun
to go on the road because you would get up and have breakfast and you would go to a
14
�movie every afternoon or you would go shopping and then there would be practice and
then there would be the ball game. When you were home you had more things that you
could do and it just became like a sorority. We’re all sisters in the same thing, but we all
admired it. The pitchers did well, they usually made about a hundred and five dollars and
I made fifty-four dollars a week and that was my best salary, but that’s pretty good for
sitting on a bench. 19:47
Interviewer: “Do you think you changed much or grew much because of that
experience? Did that add something to your life or was it just a really good
experience?”
Well, I think so, it enlarged my field of acquaintances and you become quite close
because you’re definitely into it in depth. You don’t just play around like amateur ball.
Your money depended on it and you were competitive in other words and you wanted to
play. In softball, as amateurs, we use to play men’s teams and we got a kick out of trying
to beat the men’s teams, but in baseball you just wanted to make the team and play.
They had more players and of course they couldn’t put them all in and they had several
pitchers just like they have in ball today, so I enjoyed that. As a matter of fact, when I
married my husband was a professional ball player and he AAA ball for the Chicago
Cubs, so I continued liking baseball. 20:51
Interviewer: “As you were going through your career teaching and so forth after
you were out of the league, did you tell people that you played professional ball?”
No I didn’t, I just got busy teaching school and doing the things I had to do teaching
school because it was an era of my like that was over with just as the navy was, just as
the college was, and so forth. Actually it was the making of the movie that brought us all
15
�back to life again really. Before that we—it was it and it was over and it was done and
when I read through a lot of the biographies of the girls, they got different jobs, went on
doing their other jobs and the movie came out and all of a sudden we became pioneers.
Interviewer: “But you didn’t see yourselves as pioneers when you were doing it?”
Oh, no not at all, and in fact for the twenty-five years I was teaching after that until I
found out they had reunions every year and I started coming back. I didn’t know any
more about it, so I think that was a good thing, it makes you feel like you are part of a
sorority, part of a group and it was the relationships between the players, team work.
22:00
Interviewer: “That’s something that comes up very consistently when we talk to
people. It’s a hard thing to get people to talk about individuals sometimes because
everybody is the group.”
We pretty much liked everybody and everybody liked each other and we cooperated in
the things that we did and had a good time. Faye Dancer was on our team and she was
well known as liking life, but we didn’t do some of the things—well, you know a lot of
times they would do what—Faye liked to put Limburger cheese on the doorknobs so you
couldn’t turn the door and go in and playing pranks, but kids do that. Between fifteen
and twenty-five you’re still a kid and you’re not under your parents’ authority, so you do
what you have fun with. 22:49
Interviewer: “So, what have I left out? You have done a very good job and I
anticipated multiple questions in the process, so you were very helpful.
Thank you, thank you, I didn’t want to say too much and like I say, I wasn’t one of the
top players, but I was lucky to have lasted as long as I did and I had other conflicts with
16
�school and all of that, but over the years I think I accomplished more things than many
women did. That wasn’t our thing, women were supposed to stay home and cook and I
don’t like to cook. 23:00
17
�
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
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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
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_EWeiss
Title
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Weiss, Elma (Interview transcript and video), 2010
Creator
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Weiss, Elma
Description
An account of the resource
Elma Weiss was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1923. She attended Ohio State University and then enlisted in the Navy in 1943. She served in Oakland, California during the war and subsequently attended the University of California and was playing in a softball league in the area when she was recruited for the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. She played for parts of two seasons with the Peoria Redwings and Rockford Peaches, including a barnstorming tour of the south, and was a reserve outfielder. After her time in the league, she continued her education, received a doctorate and was a Professor of Physical Education at Phoenix College in Arizona.
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
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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
2010-08-07
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/4fd79f3a42b80b163012ce9af72c0643.mp4
3ef4b44d77cb66a1b3a556ae5e1aa501
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d466a4826d54deafe6f3032ecc42eec8.pdf
d9f9aa41ac8efd6f78dba6ee36c1b405
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Joyce Hill Westerman
Length of Interview: (54:24)
Date of Interview: August 7, 2010 at the Reunion of the Professional Girls Baseball League
Interviewed by: James Smither
Transcribed by: Lindsey Thatcher, November 9, 2010
Interviewer: “The date is August 7, 2010. We are at Detroit Michigan at the reunion of the
All American Girls Professional Baseball League. We are talking today with Joyce Hill
Westerman and the interviewer is James Smither of Grand Valley State’s Veterans History
Project. Now Joyce, can you start with a little bit of background about yourself? Let’s
begin with where and when were you born?”
(00:51)
I was born in on December 29, 1925. I might add that I lived through the depression. I mean, to
me it wasn’t a big deal but to my parents it was a big deal. My father lost himself in the
depression so I was in 6th grade, no 1st grade in the city, I was 6 years old and I went one year to
school there and then we moved out of the county. My uncle had rented some land and there was
an old house on this land and half of it was falling down and we lived in 4 rooms and I had 4
sisters and or 3 sisters and 4 brothers and my mom and dad and we lived in that little house that
was not much. We did not have any running water, we did not have any electricity, and we had a
potbelly stove to heat the house. We had to carry the water in from the water tank and also to
take a shower we had to heat the water over the fire and stuff like that. Well I was a little bit of a
tom boy and I played a little ball in Kenosha in school (02:00) and I used to be embarrassed at
first to go up and hit because I hit better than most of the kids. And I started playing ball when I
was about 5___ pounds so I played next door, but when we moved in to the county it was a
whole different story. So I played mostly with all my brothers and sisters and stuff, and it was
really a good thing for my parents because for us kids we loved it. We were out in the county and
we could run, we had a big garden and I think that’s how we survived really, on the garden and
so forth. Then as I grew up we went to a one room school with one teacher, actually the teacher
taught my mother, she graduated from that school and I graduated from that school with the
same teacher, from 8th grade from that school. So that in itself was an experience. I had played a
lot of ball in school and stuff but then as I grew up and I graduated from my school when I was
17, and you couldn’t get a job until you were 18, now they didn’t have any (03:00) competitive
sports to speak of in high school and junior high school but I did manage to go into the city and
visit my aunt one night a week so I could play sports at the junior high school. Well then, after
high school of course I finally, by the time I was 18 I got a job at the American Motors, they
were making airplanes. Well we did have kind of a scrub team from the national holders (?). And
that was the extent of pretty much of my baseball experience except with playing with my
brothers and sisters in school and stuff like that. So anyway then in 1944 that was the first time
that I got to see the Comets who were one of the regular teams of the league. And it was really
�funny because they had a bunch of injuries on the team and they had called somebody. Who? I
don’t know. But anyway they picked two girls from Kenosha to try to fill in. (04:00) Well
luckily I was one of them and got to start with Hugh Rights a friend of mine who was a ball
player. Well I got a uniform and everything for that series and all I did was get up and pitch
some runs and I fouled the ball and I could…I thought oh my heavens it’s girl’s baseball. What a
dream this would be? You know, always wanting to play professional ball and you know being a
Cub fan it was the big thing you know, so anyway it was really funny because living on the farm
and so forth by that time we had moved on to my grandmother’s farm and lived upstairs by the
time I was in junior high school so we had all the conveniences then but my Dad still didn’t have
the money where I could run back and forth from Kenosha to play ball and stuff like that. So
anyway I tried out and like I said I got up a hit and fouled the ball and that was wonderful
because they were so (05:00) fast that I couldn’t see the ball anyway in my estimation. And I
tried out, they had try outs that fall in Kenosha and it was about 50 girls so I tried out there and I
made the try outs and then the following week they had try outs where they were seeing and
some of the girls went there and it was another I think another 50 girls there and I tried out there
and there were only 2 of us girls out of all those kids that made the cut to go spring training. Like
I said I was working at American Motors or National Motors at that time, I was making a dollar
an hour and so forth and you know after that I went to spring training, and then I found out that I
made the cut and I would be going to Grand Rapids. Well I signed a contract like $55 a week.
Well my dad was making $40 in the plant you know at that time and I thought “Oh wow, I’m
going to be making more than my dad,” and you know they weren’t sports people. (06:00) But
my mother, they didn’t say I couldn’t play or anything and it wasn’t you know something like
that but I think they knew how much I loved baseball you know, so anyway it was a little scary
for me in spring training because I had to take the train heck I had never been out of Kenosha
hardly you know, so I got on that train and got to Chicago. I made it through someway I don’t
remember how, but I got there. And like I said, I made the cut. My first year I went to Grand
Rapids and it was really cool, I had a lot to learn. Not having, I mean I had the ability but I didn’t
have the experience I had a lot to learn and of course when I went to Grand Rapids Mickey
Maguire was the captain at the time, and I was the catcher at that time and I didn’t get played too
often but I learned a lot from her. She was a competitive let me tell you, she was but that was a
really wonderful experience to be behind her. And I did, one time I was catching (07:00) and I
did catch my finger. The first knuckle was lying on the back of the second knuckle and doctor
came down and pulled it back into place you know and stuff like that. Anyway from then, I went
to went to South Bend the following year and then I went on and played for 8 total years so, it
was a wonderful experience. You meet so many wonderful gals you know that you get very
close.
(07:32)
Interviewer: “Ok, that’s a really good overview or starting point here. Now I’m going to
back us up a little bit.”
Ok.
Interviewer: “And have you fill in a few more pieces of this process. Why don’t you, the
other thing I’m not quite getting out of your stories, where did you go to high school?”
�Oh, I went to a Kenosha high school in Kenosha.
Interviewer: “So you were able to go into Kenosha at least at that point?”
Yeah, yeah. Actually we had to get up early in the morning and ride in when my dad went to
work (08:00). Way before any other school started, and we stayed about oh half a mile or so
from it and he would take us into high school as well. We would get up and in the morning go in
with my Dad in the morning and stay up at my aunt’s until it was time to go to school, and then
walk to school.
Interviewer: “Ok, and the school, did they have were there any kind of sports there, or gym
class or anything like that?”
The school wasn’t didn’t have anything.
Interviewer: “Nothing at all.”
No, like I said junior high school had gym once a week, I mean we had gym but nothing after
school.
Interviewer: “Ok. And the Comets were a pioneer team and they would’ve been in
Kenosha in 1943.”
Yes.
Interviewer: “Did you go watch them play?”
No. I didn’t watch them, and I didn’t even remember seeing them. We didn’t get the paper, you
know. And it was just all new to me I heard about them, but not a whole lot you know. And so
no, when they called for me to come into their try out I was surprised I was brave enough to do
it. I was pretty shy at that time.
(09:06)
Interviewer: “At that time, alright. And then, when you are doing the try outs, what did
they actually make you do?”
At the try out? Well we had to bat, and hit and then field you know you caught during the try
outs, and stuff like that. But we didn’t do a lot of exercises and stuff it was mostly batting and
catching and stuff like that you know. Mainly if you are a catcher they had you back there
catching but that was pretty much, we didn’t do many exercises or anything like that so 50 girls
you know so hit around with all of them.
Interviewer: “Alright, don’t catchers have a lot sort of to learn about how to call a game
and that kind of thing? Now you hadn’t played a lot of organized ball.”
�Right, and you know the reason that I did that was because I thought well I think there is one
position that they might need more than anybody else and it would be catching. And I thought
well I can do that. (10:00) I can throw a little pitch you know and I thought, well that’s
something I can do so that’s why I tried out for there, I thought that was my best chance. I was, I
was probably a little chunkier at that time and that was another thing, I wasn’t one of the real fast
girls that run and stuff like that and I thought, I think that’s my best chance. So that was why I
tried out and I did hard too, you know. And that’s why I said being out batting late it helped.
Interviewer: “Alright, and then, tell me a little bit more about how the spring training
worked. There actually still doing that at Wrigley Field there was the first couple seasons
they, what’s the process there? Now the people that come there, are they already signed
into the league? Or are they still eliminating people?
Well some of them were were, I mean they had been they had been there for 2 years. So a lot of
them were regulars, but then us rookies had to fill in for the regulars you know, and that was put
you know in a hard spot there (11:00) because they were so good and we were just so
inexperienced and trying so hard you know. But we did all kinds of exercises and stuff. Being to
the farm I worked on the farm and I did just about anything you could do on a farm. Milked the
cows you know, but I, you know I was in pretty good shape even though I was a little bit heavier.
And I, so it didn’t really bother me, the exercises and stuff. But still, at the end of the day you it
would almost like you could crawl back to the hotel you know, so and it was after the exercise it
was bad and the usual, much like the men’s you know.
Interviewer: “Ok, and then how do you find out how you made the cut and you are
assigned to a team? What happens?”
Well, there, well I can’t remember exactly but I know they read it off or we, I can’t remember if
we read something or, they just notified us and I don’t remember exactly how.
Interviewer: “Ok, so what was your response when you found out that you had sort of
made it?”
(12:01)
I was elated. I hadn’t quit my job or anything; I had to taken a leave of absence. So I went back
and I had to quit my job and stuff, before I started playing ball.
Interviewer: “Alright, now this is still fairly early in the history of the league. How much of
the rules and regulations and etiquette training and all of that kind of stuff, when they
teach you how to behave and so forth, how much of that was still in place when you
started?”
Well when I was there in 45, I did not go to charm school. Now the gal that went with me said
that she did. So I don’t know how I got out of that, but somehow I missed that. So they must
�have had it in 1945, but I think that was the last year because the following year it wasn’t in
effect. And we thought it was ridiculous to put on eye shadow and lipstick and put on our masks
and then go out and catch, you know? Play any position and you are perspiring (13:00) it’s bad
enough the way it is, all of that gear on you and stuff. But I knew the girls had to keep their hair
short and keep it curled. And anyway, down down to your neck there and so forth. And I wasn’t
much, I always had really short hair, much as I do now as I grew up. Then of course I had to
learn to curl my hair so it would look nice and then you would go out to practice in the morning
and you had your hair curled and when you come home it wasn’t curled, you’d curl it up again,
and I got so tired of curling my hair that after I was out of baseball it didn’t take me long to have
straight hair.
Interviewer: “Alright, and they had the dress code regulations? The skirts and…”
Yeah, yeah. No slacks, and things like that. And we would go on the bus and if you had to have a
potty break or something you would put your skirt over your slacks or take them off and if you
had shorts on you know you would have to cover them up (14:00). But one thing that I didn’t
like and I heard about the Comets and so forth was the skirts. I thought oh my god I couldn’t
show my legs, and I came from a town that was very modest and so that was hard, that was
something I thought I couldn’t do that. But once I played in the, the one series I thought well I
guess I could wear these uniforms. I never knew what to do people.
Interviewer: “Alright, now you were not too much of a runner so you didn’t get as many
strawberries as some of them did?”
Right, I got my share. But you know, they would send me, there would be a shock to the pitcher,
I would make second base but yeah, you get your share. But I didn’t steal like a lot of the girls.
Interviewer: “Alright, tell me a little bit more about that first season in Grand Rapids as
sort of a learning experience for you, you are the backup catcher. What kind of
accommodations did you have? Where did you stay when you were up there?”
(15:05)
We stayed with private families. And that was real nice you know, but we didn’t always have
transportation so it was like you had to take a bus or take a car. I didn’t have a car until 1948 so
that was a little difficult you know. Getting there in the morning for practice and then go home
and shower and so forth and go back and get ready for the game at night that was kind of a
bummer but you know it all worked out but…
Interviewer: “About how far from the field were you living from do you think?”
I don’t think I can remember.
Interviewer: “Were they playing at Southfield at that point?”
�Yeah.
Interviewer: “Ok, so that’s still in town right?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “Rather than Bigelow field which they played at later. Alright. Ok, and then
what was it like going on the road with the team?”
Well that was really super, I mean you know, at first when we went to spring training and from
there we went to Grand Rapids we took trains and that was really a bummer (16:01) because we
had to get on a train and it was it was one of those old fire trains and you would get all dirty and
then you always had a layover in in in Chicago and you wanted to go enjoy the scenery and
everything when you went back and forth, and we spent a lot of time you know, just getting back
and forth and it was during the war too and you know if if there was military men on the train
you were supposed to stand up and let them have the seats but of course the guys were always so
nice they always let you sit down which was very nice. So when they got the buses we were just
elated by that time I mean oh my goodness. To just hop on a bus you know was wonderful.
Interviewer: “That first season in Grand Rapids you were still riding trains most of the
time?”
Yup, yup.
Interviewer: “Alright, and then how much supervision did you have? How much
supervision did you have? How much did they look after you or regulate what you did?”
(17:00)
Well if you had a sore arm or any kind of bangs or bruises or anything you know, they would
take care of you. I know when I have a picture of I was in, we were we were practicing on some
field I don’t know where it was. Whether it was spring training, I think it was part of spring
training. And I had, I was playing in the offense catching flies and stuff. And I had stepped and
sprained my ankle really bad. So the chaperone came out there of course and took care of me.
And we had to put ice on it and all that stuff. Well then she said well you have to use heat. Well
evidently I must have been able to stand a lot of heat or something because I burned my ankle
something fierce and I had to heat it and it was going to make it well in a hurry you know and so
that wasn’t too pleasant. But had our share of, you know got spiked several times and stuff like
that. So they were wonderful really. But my first year I might add that I was so shy I don’t know
if I said 3 words the whole year. I’d listen and I didn’t ever have much to say you know, and I
kind of got over that but it took awhile. You know because I was just a _ you know.
(18:13)
�Interviewer: “Ok, ok you got to the end of that first season. Now, did they tell you that they
wanted you to come back or what?”
No, I was just went home and when they wrote in the spring training you know I went to South
Bend.
Interviewer: “Alright”
And that was fine. It didn’t bother me. The only time it bothered me was when I was with some,
I had met some wonderful, really close friends. We lived in, we lived in a house and a lady went
away for the winter and she let us stay in her house. It was 4 of us there and we got to be so close
you know. Well we were going on a road trip and we were loading up on the bus actually and
they called me over and told me it was I was traded to Racine (19:03). And at that time I thought
Racine was one of the better teams and I thought oh gosh you know, how will be accepted in a
team like that that won a championship? You know and stuff and I was kind of worried. And I
cried a lot, and I hadn’t before ever ever cried, couldn’t. And at that time I had a car so I had to
drive wherever it was to be the Racines so that was a bummer right before the bus left to go
somewhere and then told that you had been traded you know, so. But after that it didn’t bother
me.
Interviewer: “Alright, after your first season did you get more regular playing time as
catcher?”
Yeah, probably, well yeah probably even the second year I was behind Bonnie Baker as catcher
and it took a couple of years or so before I got to being got more playing time (20:04) you know,
but you got wait your turn you know. And you know I always thought a lot of the girls have so
much experience of course they had teams out there that played a lot so I just waited it out. So I
just kept trying and working and catching a lot batting practice. So…
Interviewer: “K, did you get to pitch hit or come into the games?”
Oh yeah I would a lot of times. I was a pretty good hitter. And yeah I did pitch you know, I’d get
my chances if we were ahead they put me in so I would get the experience and yeah that never
bothered me. I was just there and I was playing you know, and hung in there.
Interviewer: “Now you played with a number of different teams. Who do you think were
the best pitchers that you got to catch?”
Well the underhand pitchers was Connie Wisniewski (21:01) she was terrific. She was really
fine. Jo Kabick was on the team and was an underhand pitcher and she was fast, she was a really
good pitcher. Then, then later on when we went overhand I admired Jean Faut she was a great
pitcher and you know it was funny because I could hit Jeannie like nothing for some reason and
it used to get to Jeannie and she said she told them one time that it didn’t matter what she pitched
I would get a hit you know. But she was a great pitcher.
�Interviewer: “Alright, when you were catching her, who called the pitches? Did she decide
pretty much what to pitch, or did you just know?”
I called the pitches pretty much, when she was there. And we just got along so good and I think it
was Dottie Mueller that she pitched a golden game one time and I got her and you know I did
call the pitches (22:00). I used to sit in the dug-out you know when the other team was warming
up and stuff like that and I would watch the hitters, where they hit the ball and how they hit the
ball you know and kind of study them so I would kind of know where not to pitch them you
know.
Interviewer: “So it may be that you and Jean were pretty much on the same page.”
Yeah.
Interviewer: “Because when I interviewed her, she was pretty sure that she was picking
most of her own pitches.”
Well you know, she shakes it off and maybe she did, you know it’s been a long time. But I know
for the most part I…
Interviewer: “Right, but you and she did essentially the same thing. Which was to study the
hitters and then to get it so you got that together.”
Yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: “Now, one of the things about the league was there were certain women who
were really good base stealers. And, were you, how successful were you at keeping them
under control?”
I’ll tell you what to be honest I wasn’t the best catcher to pick off people (23:00). Now I had this
thing when I was in Grand Rapids, I used to throw a little bit more side arm and I had a much
better arm. Well when I got there they said oh, you go to learn how to throw overhand like this.
So I got so that I practiced, I did have a good sore arm from doing it in Grand Rapids my first
year, but I got the hang of it. But what it did was made me conscious of I had to bring my arm up
to throw the ball and I lost the timing of it and I just couldn’t overcome that so I wasn’t the best
in my mind I was always you know am I going to do this right?, or something you know and it
probably, I wasn’t the best catcher to pick off people. I was good at something but just to be
honest.
Interviewer: “Now once you got to be playing fairly regularly, were you a pretty consistent
hitter?”
Yeah, yeah. I was a pretty good hitter considering the batting averages that we have you know
the girls. I was right up there, not real close to the top but my last year in South Bend was my
best year around 77 so…
�(24:12)
Interviewer: “Now would you get extra base hits, would you get doubles and triples?”
Yeah. I never hit a home run. I can’t believe that because I was so slow. That would mean that I
would have to hit it over the fence and we didn’t have that many fences. We did in South Bend
but we didn’t in Grand Rapids. And I could do it in practice but I never did it in a game.
Interviewer: “Alright, now you were, what was the total length of time you were playing?
You started in really in ’45 in terms of full seasons and… ”
’52, eight years.
Interviewer: “Okay, that’s a good chunk of time in there and a lot of different things went
on in the league at that time. One of the things was that you kept moving spring training
around.”
Right.
Interviewer: “Your first spring training was Wrigley field.”
(25:00)
That’s right.
Interviewer: “Where did you go in later years?”
Oh gosh. We were in Mississippi, Indiana. We went to Florida. And I don’t know, so many
places I can’t remember all of them.
Interviewer: “Did you make the trip to Cuba?”
Yes I did.
Interviewer: “Alright”
That was quite a thing. My first airplane ride and first of everything and that was a lot of fun. I
mean, but I wasn’t too crazy about the food over there. So I ordered some leche, that’s milk and
at lunch time they would have ham sandwiches and stuff, American you know, milk…and I kind
of liked that. And they had fried bananas and powdered eggs and stuff that I didn’t eat…
Interviewer: “Alright, now how was playing in Cuba different than playing in the states?”
Well actually it was very much the same.
Interviewer: “Well I’m thinking in terms of the fans and the atmosphere.”
�Well the fans, yeah yeah. They were something else. Actually we knew more people over there
than we did in America so that was really interesting (26:00). So being in a hotel at that walking
on the streets you have to be with somebody at the time. And we had a curfew. And we couldn’t
go out of the hotel you know, because it was too dangerous. But anyway it was kind of comical
we had, I have a picture of it, we had we had the long rope had been hung from the 3rd floor and
it had a basket on it and we would lower that and the guys down stairs would go and get us some
cokes you know and we would pull it up and I got a picture of that you know. But my daughter
brought them up when she was here some of them, I remember that you know and sloppy joes. I
have pictures of course. I have a lot of pictures.
Interviewer: “And what sloppy joes?”
Well it was, they use a lot of their drink, what is it? Rum, they had a lot of rum and stuff, but I
wasn’t a drinker so I had coke, never was one to… I have never had a drink in my life.
(27:00)
Interviewer: “Alright, then what did you remember about Pascagoula? What was that
like?”
I remember going into the barracks when we were at an army base and opening the door and turn
on a light and cockroaches running everywhere you know. And we used to call it Cockroach
Boulevard and it was something else you know, it was something else. We slept with the lights
on but that was something else. But our managers at that time when they saw the situation they
came back with this, I forget what kind of fish that was red...no that’s not it.
Interviewer: “River snapper?”
Yeah, something like that. And they cooked it outside on a fire pit and that was the best fish I’ve
ever…that was good.
Interviewer: “Now when you came back from Pascagoula did you just go to your
individual teams or did you stop and play along the way?”
(28:04)
We paired off with another team and then we would stop at various places. They had a book and
we would play at exhibitions. Gave us the practice to play with teams and people could see what
kind of ball we played and in many places the people there were so great you know. That one
place, I think it was North Carolina a guy took us out on a cruise it was so nice, a nice man you
know took us out on like on a boat and we went on a cruise and stuff like that. But they always
wanted us in parades and stuff like that. You know, it was, it was fun. We would kind of laugh
amongst ourselves, we’re not nothing you know we’re just ball players you know. But it was a
great experience.
�Interviewer: “Now were you with the group that played at Griffins Stadium in Washington
and then when up into Yankee stadium? You didn’t do that part?”
(29:00)
I wished I had, but no.
Interviewer: “Ok, so what parts of the country did you tour through then, because you
were in the south?”
Through the south North Carolina, South Carolina, or Virginia or whatever…Mississippi.
Interviewer: “Ok, did you have one season that you thought was probably sort of your best
season or your most successful one, or either individually or as a team?”
Well I don’t know. Yeah I guess you know as far as the friendships and stuff that was one thing,
but of course I was fairly happy with my last year when we won the championship because I had
never won a championship before, but then in ’52 we won a championship then and that was just
an amazing you know. Although at that time you know I had been married for 2 years and after a
game I would go right home you know. I didn’t participate with the girls a lot and stuff. So I
probably wasn’t as close to them as I was with some of the other teams before.
(30:06)
Interviewer: “Now were you still catching at that time or had you changed positions?”
No, at that time I was playing at first base. I played the last two years.
Interviewer: “Now would you rather have kept catching or was it better at first?”
Well I like catching better but first base was ok too.
Interviewer: “Why did they shift you out from catcher?”
I don’t know. Maybe because, maybe because I didn’t throw well enough.
Interviewer: “Alright, well let’s see what was it? Well I guess when you had been growing
up and had been playing you would play anyplace, well first base you got to field grounders
and that kind of thing…”
Oh yeah, we’d play short stop or play the outfield you know. A few times I played the outfield
sometimes they would just stick me in so I could play. I was a pretty good hitter so they would
put me in and I liked that.
�Interviewer: “Ok, well you mentioned that you got married during your career, which was
a little bit unusual. Tell us a little bit about that, how did you wind up getting married?
And what, how, what happened after that?”
(31:04)
Well yeah, well I had been going with my husband for about, I probably met him about a year or
two into when I was playing ball. And he used to come to Peoria and places to see me play and
stuff like that. And then of course then when I would go home we liked to dance and we would
go to a lot of dances every Saturday night and stuff. And then finally he in ’50 we got married so
I was playing in Racine, well no I wasn’t but anyway a bunch of the girls from the Racine girls
came to the wedding and it was real fun we had a big wedding. So we had been building our own
house before we were married because I said my parents lost their house and I saw what they
went through and I always said if I’m going to get married I’m going to have a house. So my
husband and I, he hadn’t done much building, (32:00) he had some cows and stuff but he hadn’t
done much building. But I had worked on the farm. I had shingled roofs and I had made cement
block. My Dad was always going to build a house and he never got to it but I would make
cement blocks by myself you know. So I had more experience. And we bought a place you know
and we did all, we built the house ourselves and we did all the cement work. I mixed it with an
electric mixer I mixed all the cement and Ray would install it. And I ended up bricking the whole
house and we had a very very nice house. We had hardwood floors. We did have, my uncle was
a carpenter so we did have him that was quite a job in itself you know. Ray learned and did the
electrical and the plumbing and I was right there to help with whatever, I helped with the roof
and putting in the cement floors. So we built part, we built 4 rooms and it was like a little doll
house. It was really cute, all we needed was utility you know. And then we added on 5 rooms
and we didn’t move in until it was done and we did have it plastered. We did all the dry wall but
we did get it plastered.
(33:14)
Interviewer: “At the beginning of that you mentioned that you had a book on how to build
a house?”
Yes, how to build a house.
Interviewer: “Alright, and you just followed that.”
Yes.
Interviewer: “How did you pay for it?”
Well I was working then again at that time American Motors. When I left South Bend, people
from the South Bend from the dealership there got me a job again back in American Motors. So
when I went back I had a job. So I worked there for several years and we were paid for it as we
�went along. Because we didn’t have much money and they wouldn’t give you a loan. So then we
paid for it as we went along. And we never owed a penny on our house.
Interviewer: “Were you able to save any money from when you were a ball player?”
(34:01)
Oh yeah. I was a saver. I used to save you know. Well you could get a meal for a buck then you
know after a game and stuff. Yeah I was a saver and that was one of the reasons that I could con
my husband into letting me play ball I could save my money you know and you could save yours
and we can add that 5 rooms on you know. So he was, he was a wonderful guy and very great so
he went a long with it. Which was so...yeah.
Interviewer: “Now did the league have a policy about married players? Were you treated
differently?”
Not really, except for riding the bus. I know Karl Winsch was our manager at the time and Ray
came down and it wasn’t too long after that we were married and we were both one city to
another and Ray was down there to visit and he wouldn’t let me ride with him. He said no, you
can’t ride, you have to ride in the bus because of insurance and blah blah blah you know and so
Ray had to drive by himself. I thought well come on.
(35:02)
Interviewer: “And then did you still have to stay in the team hotels with the girls and that
kind of thing?”
Oh yeah.
Interviewer: “So he was on his own there?”
Yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: “Alright, now why did you wind up leaving the league? Because you finished
after ’52.”
Mainly because I had been married for 2 years and things, you could see that things were going
to slow down. We weren’t going the way we did Ray coming over and driving back and stuff
like that. So there was one time that we didn’t we had to wait for our bus and stuff and I thought
I had been married for 2 years and it was time and it’s not fair to Ray and you are going to have
to hang it up sometime. But then, so then I called it quits. But I went on playing since and I
played with my two daughters until they went to college. I even played when they were in
college, we played summer ball. You know, so I never quit playing. Actually I played quite a bit
so.
�(36:03)
Interviewer: “Alright, so now so did you go, did you have continue to work or were you
eventually able to just to stay home or…?”
Well yeah, I worked for I guess about 5 years until when Janet my oldest daughter was born I
had to you know. And I was working nights, and Ray was working days. Well you know how
was it? He was working the nights and I was working the days. So Janet the baby, Janet the baby
would sleep during the night when I would get home from work should we rearing to go you
know. So I didn’t get much sleep. Well one day I was giving her a bath in the morning and I fell
asleep giving her a bath and it scared the tar out of me. So I quit after that, I took a leave of
absence, I quit. So then I didn’t work for, until the kids were in school. Then I worked part time
in the post man’s office. I used to fill in for her some. Then the last six years I worked full time
in the postman’s office and I retired from there.
(37:16)
Interviewer: “Alright, now as time goes on and you’ve got your daughters growing up, do
your daughters play sports or did you encourage them?”
Oh yeah, both of them played. Well Janet was more interested in music which she was a good
ball player but my youngest daughter was an excellent ball player and she’s a phys ed teacher
today. She was an excellent, she could have made the, actually they had a team in the Peoria
after that we went down when I was coaching and we went down and played them and lost to
them but I think we lost one to nothing actually. But Judy played in the, what was it? Applehorn.
Irene Applehorn was signed down there and she said you know you should Judy try out for this
team. Well you know, she was only 15 and I said oh she’s too young. Come on. But I couldn’t let
her go, so.
(38:13)
Interviewer: “As you are kind of going forward in time there are starting to be more
opportunities for women to be involved in sports and Title 9 comes into and stuff. Were
you following that or paying attention to what was happening?”
Not, not a whole lot. I mean, I mean we had more competitive sports. Although when my kids
were in high school they just started a basketball and volleyball or something, there still wasn’t
softball or anything in high school. But then when you went into college she played, the
youngest one played volleyball and softball and then I coached at the college area she was in,
close to Kenosha. And she, Janet went on into music.
(38:58)
�Interviewer: “Okay, back when you were playing in the league, did any you think about
what you were doing as sort of pioneering? Or doing new things for women?”
When I came home from the league I had, I had 8 balls one signed from every year that I played.
I had a bunch of different program books from all the various towns. I had contracts; I had 2
uniforms, a jacket with that went on the league at the time. I take the uniforms and stuff like that
so I had all that stuff and I threw it into a closet and forgot about it, you know. Well then when
my kids got to be 7, 8 years old one time I dragged them out put the uniforms on them and took
pictures of them you know. So they knew a little bit, I never really talked about it, but all the
years I played nobody really…you know and then it seemed like we had our first reunion in 1982
(40:00) and when I got that letter it had a picture of a baseball player on it and it was just like
they were calling you for spring training and you are getting your contract. I opened that letter
and I was just so excited you know. That we were going to have a reunion. Well I went to the
post office and I had, you had to pick your spot when you wanted to take your vacation at the
beginning of the year and that was it. So I had taken vacation a different time already with Ray,
and so I went up to them and said well you know this reunion is coming up and I am going to
that reunion I have to have off. You know I have to change, and at first they said well that’s too
bad you had your vacation picked out, we can’t do anything about it. I says, well then I quit. I
would’ve quit too. No question in my mind. Well anyway, it didn’t take them too long after that.
Then I found out that I could take off of work you know. So I went to that reunion and of course
that was something else. And you would have to look at people they would have a little picture
from when we played and we would say oh that’s who you are. You know, just like we knew it.
Now we see each other more often.
(41:19)
Interviewer: “So you’ve really been involved in this sort of league organization to regroup
since pretty much its inception. Now were you involved at all in the steps surrounding the
movie?”
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Actually we went out to Cooperstown (New York) for the unveiling of our
display for the first time and that was something else. I think they said there was around 400
people there. The guy said he never saw so many people for something like that you know at the
museum there. So that was really a thrill to do that. So then when they came and said they were
going to make the movie oh my god we were like wow (42:00). You know so then they were
going to have these try outs for the movie and they said whomever would like to try out for the
movie if you can still play ball come to Smokey, Illinois. Well Anna Hutchinson who was a great
pitcher and lived in Racine, we were pretty good buddies by that time said we can play ball, heck
we can go down to Smokey. So we went down to Smokey and of course Madonna was there and
other ball players were there and stuff. And what was really cute was I went up and asked
Madonna for an autograph and I got a ball. So I got an autograph from Madonna and I didn’t
realize that nobody else but the ball players could go talk to the movie stars you know. Well we
�all had shirts on that we could tell so in the meantime I met this young man there and he was so
elated that Madonna was there he just wanted to say hello you know (43:01). I said to him, I said
“Gee I went up and asked for her autograph and I don’t think it’s any problem. Just go up and
ask her she’s very nice”, you know. Well he starts walking up toward Madonna and there were
men all around her within about 2 seconds they said “Where do you think you’re going?” You
know, I felt so bad I thought oh my god I told the poor guy that you could go up and ask
Madonna for an autograph. They just chased him away they didn’t do anything you know but so
that was all of you know. But then they were looking for the way I understand it that we could
play the part of the older players later you know, but you had to have the same eyes, the same
hair this ball of wax and it didn’t work out you know. Then we heard that they were just going to
take a few people extras to Coopersville. Well then our advisor said that I could that she had
talked to Penny or somebody and said you know all these 49 people came out for the play offs. I
think you should take them all (44:06). Well then they decided to take them all. So then Hutch
and I got to go there for the movie. But what the sad part was that the reunion at that time was
the same time as the movie in Florida. So that was the first reunion I was going to miss. You
know, and that kind of broke my heart, but you have to make a choice and I think we made the
right one, it was a fun time. We played ball all day and stuff like that. And she took hundreds of
film you know and one thing that I thought was great was on the scene when they came back to
the hall of fame but my friend there one day she forgot her glasses. Well they’re filming and all
of the sudden they say cut and Madonna or or...what’s her name? Our producer,
Interviewer: “Penny Marshall”
(45:00)
Penny Marshall, I’m sorry. She goes up and says you don’t have your glasses on. I mean, you
know here’s this whole bunch of people and she had to go get her glasses on before they could
start the film. She was just a stickler for…you know just oh just perfection. And then the thing
that killed me was when we had to cut the ribbon to the hall of fame, it took us 2 days to get that
right and we were there until I don’t know what time in the morning before she was satisfied,
and we were all going home that day. We were pretty concerned you know but…geese, she was
a perfectionist. But it was neat, we stayed in the motels there. And we got to see a lot of friends
again, all my friends were there. So that was really, it was a good time. But like I told Penny one
time, I said well I said it was a great time I talked to her but I wouldn’t want to be a movie star I
says it’s too hard. You spend all that time doing it over and over you know so. Then Penny, she
really put us on the map.
(46:18)
Interviewer: “Now if you look back over your playing career, what affect do you think
getting to play professional ball, what affect did that have on you or what did that do for
you?”
�Well I’ll tell you, for me it made me more outgoing type of a person. I had more confidence in
myself you know and I just figured it wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. So when we could build a
house, we could do anything. Anything you want to do you can do in this life if you just work
hard and keep working.
Interviewer: “Alright, well you got a great story, you do a great job at telling it.”
I was going to tell you about where I saw the movie.
(47:05)
Interviewer: “Yeah, do that, yes please.”
After we were in the movie, then my daughter lived in Europe for 7 or 8 years in Germany, and
we had been over there several times. Well we went over there, it must have been ’91 or ’92
when the movie came out and so Janet had a radio station or something and said you know about
me being in the movie and that I had played in that ball. And so Frankfurt called us, called Janet,
they must have gotten her number. And said that they had already shown the movie at the theatre
in Frankfurt, and she said Piper’s her daughter and they said would your mother come to the
movie and she can bring her family and she said and talk to the people afterwards after the movie
you know, and we will bring the movie back. So we said, oh sure, so we went to Frankfurt and
they took us all through the studio (48:00) and showed us a bunch of stuff and that and we went
to the movie and we talked for a little bit afterwards with the people and stuff but the thing that I
thought was neat is that my family over there got to get in on this movie thing you know because
they didn’t get much news and stuff from at home you know. Where my other family, my other
daughter was right there in Kenosha and she lived with me kind of. So then this reporter came
over to interview us and Piper’s daughter. And my grandkids were pretty small then and I had
brought one grandchild with me from Kenosha and so they, we were throwing balls and doing all
kinds of things and they were pitching to me and we were hitting and she took all these pictures
and everything and you know or movies and they put it on the TV and of course they made it
sound like I was Tina Davis because I had (49:00) come from a farm and I had told her all that
stuff. You know, but I had also told her that this was a composite; you know it’s not about me,
it’s not about, it’s about all the players and everything and I had never liked that when one would
take credit for it you know. So when she made the movie the tape, it made it sound like I was
Tina Davis you know, and I was pretty embarrassed about that, I didn’t want to show anybody.
And she did a really good job, so anyway later somehow she contacted me and sent me the tape.
So I have a tape of that interview in the in Germany you know. So that was a thrill. And then too
they took pictures and that and put them into the Stars and Stripes in an article about all the
league and about my name. So we were somewhere with Janet and some guy walked up and said
you look so familiar were you in the paper? You know, and here he had seen it in Stars and
Stripes you know. I thought that was pretty great.
�(50:01)
Interviewer: “So when you are being interviewed in Frankfurt was this by sort of by the
American military bases there and stuff?
Yes there was from the military bases. She was in the military and actually she tried to contact
me after she got out of the military and she called Dolly White and for some reason Dolly
wouldn’t give her my address and stuff and we lost track. And I went she was supposed to move
to Warsaw. So my husband and I were going up that way to see my brother and we stopped there
and tried to find her name in the book and stuff and we couldn’t find her. I felt bad about that,
she was a nice gal and she was really interested in the league and she wanted to stay interested
you know and we just lost out on her. You know, so that was that was a real experience that I
never would have thought I would have. Oh and I was on a marquee at a theatre. It said: “Joyce
Hill a Western Leader,” you know and I thought oh my god.
(51:00)
Interviewer: “You’re a star. Did you have something else? Oh you have a…”
Oh a friend of mine is from a neighboring place there and plays with the Kenosha Kings and he
hits. He comes back every year from Australia he went over there to coach and its softball or
baseball for the girls. So then after a couple of years the Australian girls came up here in
Kenosha were in the World Series thing. So this summer since they’ve been back again in to play
once again, and married a girl from Australia, she’s young. Oh they’re bringing 5 or 6 girls over
from Australia and they are going to make a tour of Rockford and there’s another team, I don’t
know much about it, we just found out about it at the meeting but they are going to play those
girls. I met the head of it (52:02). It was Ron, you know my friend. Everything just sort of gels
somehow you know? From one thing to another, so I had talked to Ron and he gave me a
schedule and said that you’re invited to come to all these things you know the Cubs games, you
know go see the Cubs. He said I’ll pick you up and take you and bring you back so that’s
another thing these girls are doing which is just super. It call came kind of from the background
of the All Americans. And I think that is one of the things that I’m the proudest of. You look out
how these kids started in little league as little girls you know, and they are great athletes. That’s
nice.
Interviewer: “Alright”
Oh in Milwaukee, yeah (53:00). They have a wall of fame and they were honoring some of the
Wisconsin girls. One every year for awhile and they would have a luncheon and we would get up
on a plaque. Now we have new owners in Milwaukee and they don’t do as much for us. So they
just decided that they just said that they put all the Wisconsin people on a plaque you know. But
that was really nice you know ...they gave us a Milwaukee blue jacket, it was nice yeah. It was
nice being there. There were several of us that would go there.
�So many things that, and it all evolved from the league so, it’s all tied together.
Interviewer: “It is and it’s kind of good to see more things coming back around kind of
getting more connecting women back to base ball, and more people playing. And you get to
sort of be connected to them. Alright.
Yeah right. One thing that I am really proud of, it’s my family. Two girls (54:00) and I have 8
grand children. Jan has 4 and my other daughter has 4. And most of them, almost all of them are
really good athletes. Dance, you know and that sort of thing. I’m very proud of them. Next to the
league that’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
Interviewer: “Alright, well thank again for coming in and talking to us.”
(54:24)
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Oral history
Baseball players--Minnesota
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Illinois
Baseball for women--United States
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-58_JWesterman
Title
A name given to the resource
Westerman, Joyce (Interview outline and video), 2010
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Westerman, Joyce
Description
An account of the resource
Joyce Westerman was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1925. She grew up there and played sports whenever she could. She was playing ball on a company team in Kenosha when she was offered a chance to fill in for an injured player for the Kenosha Comets in 1944, and then joined the league in 1945. She played for eight seasons, including stops in Grand Rapids, South Bend, Racine and Peoria, primarily playing catcher.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.)
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--Personal narratives, American
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Illinois
Baseball players--Wisconsin
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
2010-08-07
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