| An Era to be Remembered |
| By Sally Haase August 28, 2010 “I used to play baseball with some pretty good players.” “You mean softball.” “No, Baseball.” “Girls don’t play baseball.” Above is an exchange from the book When Women Played Hardball by Susan E. Johnson, the book, published in 1994 chronicled the lives of the women of the All- American Girls Professional Baseball League. Several players told stories of similar exchanges between friends and co-workers who knew nothing of the league. Most players would give up on the conversation than explain the AAGPBL to them. From the sixties to the early nineties it was likely many people had no knowledge of the AAGPBL and it is a shame. It is a part of our American, sports and baseball history and the amazing thing is it was done in a time when women were expected to stay at home and raise the children while their husbands worked. But then America entered World War II and millions of men were sent overseas including several professional baseball players. Women were then asked to go to work and that included playing professional baseball. There are very few women’s professional sports teams to this day. I’m sure there were many men and women in the years the AAGPBL was in existence who said women would be playing alongside men in Major League Baseball within ten years. Sixty years later it has not happened, and probably will not happen in my lifetime. In 1992 the movie A League of Their Own was released and was a critical and box office hit. Director Penny Marshall brought these wonderful athletes back into the limelight, teaching a whole new generation, myself included of women playing professional baseball. The interest in the movie also generated new interest in the women who created the history acted out by Geena Davis and Madonna. I’m sure the movie peaked Johnson interest in writing her book. In the book, Johnson says she grew up watching the Rockford Peaches play and that those women were her heroes when she was young. It got me thinking, about my female sports idols growing up. I didn’t have to think very long, with the exception of a female Olympian who captured America’s hearts every two years, young women my age had no professional female athletes to look up to. There was no Dottie Kamenshek or Alice “Al” Pollitt for girls to see and think “if she can do it, so can I”. I grew up watching Kirby Puckett and wanting to play baseball just like him, never once thinking I couldn‘t do it because I‘m a woman. I guess I was born about 50 years too late. In 2010 there is now the WNBA, Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, Lindsey Vonn, and Shawn Johnson giving young girls plenty of female athletes to emulate. Not many women who played in the AAGPBL are still living today, most are now well into their 70’s and 80’s the same goes for many who watched and followed the league. Hopefully, players and fans have passed on stories to their children, grandchildren and friends. The movie will be preserved forever, but the true stories along with the newspaper reports of games will soon be the only memories remaining from an amazing era of women’s sports history. |
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