Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
    A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
    A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
    Ebook175 pages1 hour

    A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

    By Sue Macy

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Sue Macy presents an engrossing and deeply researched account of women's baseball in A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

    "Play ball!" yelled the umpires as the teams of the AAGPBL took the field in the tense, war-torn days of 1943. Like all professional baseball players, these athletes scrambled to their positions, tossed balls across diamonds, and filled the air with chatter. But there was something different about them--they all wore skirts, went to charm school, and continually had to answer one question: "What is a woman doing playing baseball?"

    What were they doing? Having a great time, playing top-notch ball, and showing that a woman's place was at home only when she was at bat, behind the plate, or scoring a run. For twelve seasons, from 1943 to 1954, some of America's best female athletes earned their livings by playing baseball. This is their story in their own words, a tale of no-hitters and chaperones, stolen bases and practical jokes, home runs and run-ins with fans.

    Life in the league, however, was not all fun. Born out of a wartime "manpower" shortage, the AAGPBL ended with the growth of television and the ideal of the suburban home. Here, too, is the story of America's changing attitudes toward men and women and the roles we expect each to play. Author Sue Macy spent eleven years tracking down the women of the AAGPBL, interviewing them, and looking at their scrapbooks. Along the way she found that their odyssey did not end with the collapse of the league.

    The same courage and spunk the players displayed on the field led them to get back in touch with each other in the 1980s, to remind the world of what they had achieved, and to take their rightful places in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Balancing the voices of the women of the league with a lively, insightful overview of the changing patterns of American life, A Whole New Ball Game is a sports story full of telling insights about who we expect to be at home and how women can get back to first base.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 6, 2013
    ISBN9781466851092
    A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
    Author

    Sue Macy

    Sue Macy, author of A Whole New Ball Game, is a lifelong baseball fan who has written close to 20 award-winning books about sports and women's history. Her book, Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way), was a finalist for YALSA’s Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award. She lives in Englewood, NJ, and can be reached through her website, suemacy.com.

    Related to A Whole New Ball Game

    Related ebooks

    YA Sports & Recreation For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Young Guns

      Sep 30, 2021

      Young Guns
      5 min read

    • Article

      Becoming Anne Boleyn

      May 13, 2021

      Becoming Anne Boleyn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Mary-kate’s Empty House

      May 22, 2020

      Mary-kate’s Empty House
      4 min read

    • Article

      Kate Middleton Can’t Vote, And Other Everyday Things She’s Not Allowed To Do

      Mar 23, 2021

      In the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired in the UK on Monday, Meghan Markle described how her mental health suffered while living in the palace. “There was very little that I was allowed to do,” she claimed, say

      5 min read

    • Article

      How Encanto Explains America

      Jan 16, 2022

      How Encanto Explains America
      7 min read

    • Article

      March Fiction

      Feb 15, 2022

      Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson (Century, £20) In 2018 the ever-prolific James Patterson got together with Bill Clinton to write the best-selling The President Is Missing: a novel that combined Clinton’s insider knowledge with Patter

      2 min read

    • Article

      Rockford Peaches — 30 Years After ‘A League Of Their Own’ — Live On In A New Series: ‘We Didn’t Know We Were Part Of Something Bigger’

      Jun 30, 2022

      Rockford Peaches — 30 Years After ‘A League Of Their Own’ — Live On In A New Series: ‘We Didn’t Know We Were Part Of Something Bigger’
      4 min read

    • Article

      Pinch Hitters

      Mar 7, 2023

      In 1941, nineteen-year-old Margaret “Marnie” Danhauser of Racine began working as a book binder at Western Printing and Lithographing—a good, if unglamorous, job with an average salary of about thirty-two dollars a week.1 She was a 1938 graduate of S

      22 min read

    • Article

      Beyond Jackie Robinson: The Unsung Heroes Of The Negro Leagues

      Apr 5, 2021

      Jackie Robinson may have been the first Black player in the majors, but others soon followed – an exodus that spelled the end of the Negro Leagues.

      2 min read

    • Article

      9 Sports Books That Offer Something For Every Fan

      Jan 31, 2019

      Whether an exhaustive new profile of Babe Ruth, the reflections of basketball great Bob Cousy, or a retrospective of the heyday of women’s bike racing, there’s plenty to choose from in this grab bag of books.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Broken Barriers

      Feb 11, 2022

      It’s our pastime. The sport of professional baseball, whose origins date back to the late 1800s, is as American as it gets. Whether enjoyed at the ballpark with snacks and sunshine, or on the radio with that familiar announcer’s voice on a warm summe

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Sixth Man

      Jul 7, 2021

      THE WORLD CHANGES fast these days, maybe faster than ever before. At least that’s how it feels—blink once, everything is different, blink twice, everything is even more different, and the world keeps spinning. So when actual history takes place, it r

      2 min read

    • Article

      Remembering The Negro Leagues On 100th Anniversary

      Mar 27, 2020

      I saw my first Major League Baseball game in 1954 when my father took me to see our hometown Brooklyn Dodgers play the Milwaukee Braves at Ebbets Field. As long-time fans know, both teams had great players. For me, there was one player in particular

      9 min read

    • Article

      Mark Of SUCCESS

      Feb 24, 2020

      Mark Of SUCCESS
      18 min read

    • Article

      Sports Books That Reveal Character And Grit

      Jun 29, 2020

      The story of the first all-black high school rowing team, a history of swimming, and Lou Gehrig’s “lost” columns offer compelling reads for summer.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Hear Us Roar

      Aug 26, 2022

      Hear Us Roar
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Whole New Ball Game

    3.5/5

    12 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A serviceable overview of the AAGPBL with a few anecdotes and background.
    • 3/5
      A pretty fascinating book, though very lightly written - I checked multiple times to see if it said "ages 8 & up" anywhere, but finally had to conclude it was just VERY simply written, with hilarious sentences to link paragraphs (like things I wrote in college).

      But it's amazing how much we don't know about the AAGPBL. For example, Sophie "Flint Flash" Kurys stole 201 bases in a season. Why don't we know her name like we know that of James "Cool Papa" Bell? (Don't all baseball fans know about James "Cool Papa" Bell? If not, oh jeez, what a world.)

      Two documentaries about the AAGPBL were made in 1987. The first book on the subject was published in 1992. 1992! If not for the movie, "A League of Their Own" (which came out the same year), would we know anything about women in baseball?

      Also: if this interests you, be sure to read "Bat 6", by Virginia Euwer Wolff.
    • 4/5
      A readable account of an interesting chapter in women's history. The All American Girls Professional Baseball League gave women a chance to play they game they loved. When the men went off to fight overseas in World War II, women were encouraged to step up and take over the vacant jobs. They worked in factories and plants... and they played baseball. A Whole New Ball Game covers the development of the League, information about some specific players, daily life for the women in the League, and more. Tons of photos break up the text and it includes a several-page spread of many baseball cards from the League. An appendix with information about League teams and standings, a chronology, source notes, suggestions for further reading, and an index round out the book. An excellent choice for women's history month and any fans of A League of Their Own.

    Book preview

    A Whole New Ball Game - Sue Macy

    The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

    Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Notice

    Dedication

    Epigraph

    Acknowledgments

    Notes on Names

    Foreword: Welcome to Cooperstown

    1 / War, Women, and Pro Baseball

    2 / The All-Important Femininity Angle

    3 / Learning the Game

    4 / The War Effort

    5 / Play Ball!

    AAGPBL Dream Team Lineup

    6 / Life in the League

    7 / Hometown Heroes

    8 / Going … Going … Gone

    9 / Reclaiming the Past

    Appendix

    AAGPBL Rules and Equipment Changes

    AAGPBL Teams

    Championship Teams

    Batting Champions

    Pitching Champions

    Chronology

    Notes on Sources

    For More About the AAGPBL

    For Further Reading

    Index

    Copyright

    To the Women of the AAGPBL

    Even today, when spring comes around, I think, Gosh, years ago I’d be getting ready to go to spring training. The smell of the earth coming alive again, it just brings back memories that make you want to go get out your baseball mitt.

    Shirley Stovroff,

    South Bend Blue Sox,

    1948–1952

    Acknowledgments

    Amelia Earhart was my hero when I was growing up. It’s not so much that I wanted to be a pilot. It’s just that her courage, her determination to do what others thought women couldn’t do, inspired me to believe that I could soar to any heights. Had I known about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Jean Faut, Audrey Wagner, Faye Dancer, and their teammates would have laid equal claim to my imagination. Like Earhart, they also dared to defy tradition and live out their dreams.

    It is the women of the league who ultimately are responsible for this book, for they refused to let history forget them. By publishing newsletters, organizing reunions, and lobbying for inclusion in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, they kept the spirit of the AAGPBL alive until the world was ready to rediscover it. Their persistence was infectious. It motivated me to continue my work on the league despite jobs and other distractions.

    While the ball players were pioneers in sports, Merrie Fidler was a pioneer in sports history. Fidler’s 1976 masters thesis was the only available manuscript on the league when I started my own research. I greatly appreciate her generosity in sharing that work with me. I am grateful as well to Sharon Roepke, the undisputed authority on league statistics. She helped me fill in some missing numbers and graciously granted me permission to reprint the AAGBL baseball cards in Chapter 5. My thanks also go to Diane Barts and her staff at the Northern Indiana Historical Society, for photo research above and beyond the call of duty.

    In addition, I would like to express my appreciation to the following people for their help along the way:

    To Estelle Freedman, who first taught me to seek lessons from women of the past;

    To Abby Jungreis, June English, and Julie Winterbottom, for their moral and critical support, and their friendship;

    To my colleagues at Scholastic Inc., especially Carol Drisko, for training me to be a professional writer, and Ernie Fleishman, for allowing me the time to finish this book;

    To my editor, Marc Aronson, for continually challenging me to do better;

    To my cats, Mickey and Lacey, for keeping me company as I wrote by contentedly napping on my desk—and on my source material;

    To my father, for teaching me to love baseball; my brother, for respecting me as a sister and a ball player; and my mother, for always having confidence in my ability to write;

    And to Sheila Wolinsky, for her unending support and patience as I struggled to find just the right words to tell this story.

    Notes on Names

    Throughout this book, players are referred to by the names they used during their years in the league. If a woman was married and played under her married name, that’s how she appears (for example, Olive Bend Little). If she was married but continued to use her maiden name in the official records, she appears here under her maiden name (for example, Jean Faut). If she married after leaving the league, she appears in the text under her maiden name.

    Also, the league’s official name changed many times, from the original All-American Girls Softball League (AAGSBL) in early 1943 to the American Girls Baseball League (AGBL) in 1954. During the 1980s the former players adopted the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) as their name of choice. In this book, the original name and initials (AAGSBL) are used when referring to the league before the first name change, in July 1943. After that, the league is referred to as the AAGPBL.

    Foreword: Welcome to Cooperstown

    "What are all these old women doing here?"

    On November 5, 1988, that was the question of the day in Cooperstown, New York. It seemed that the quaint village, home to the very male National Baseball Hall of Fame, suddenly was overrun with women. They came from California, Arizona, Indiana, even Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. Women called Slats and Beans and Frisco and Tex crowded into the hotels and restaurants, acting more like 20-year-olds than gray-haired retirees. The refined streets of Cooperstown were filled with their bear hugs, backslaps, and hearty cries of How the hell are you? No one could blame these women if their enthusiasm got the better of them on this crisp autumn Saturday. Three and a half decades after their accomplishments faded into history, they were about to be honored as sports pioneers.

    For 12 years, from 1943 through 1954, the women who now gathered in Cooperstown had played in the first, and only, women’s professional baseball league. When America’s top male baseball players joined up to serve their country during World War II, Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley started to worry. Wrigley wanted to make sure baseball fans on the homefront continued to spend their time, and money, at the ballpark. So he decided to form a professional women’s league, which would, he said, furnish additional means of healthful recreation to the public, who are all in one way or another under severe pressure from war work. As a first step he instructed the Cubs’ baseball scouts to find him the most promising female ball players in North America. Implicit in these instructions was the order to search for only white athletes. Although there were outstanding African-American women ball players in the United States, none were invited to try out for the new league. (See Chapter 5 for a discussion of this issue.)

    Wrigley hired 64 women to play in his new All-American Girls league in 1943, but eventually more than 550 would wear the uniforms of the AAGPBL. On that November day in 1988, 147 former players made their way to Cooperstown, along with hundreds more friends, family members, and fans. Catcher/outfielder Sarah Jane Salty Sands brought her 88-year-old father, who had spent more than 30 years bragging about his daughter’s baseball accomplishments. Outfielder Lois Tommie Barker brought so many supporters that she had to charter a Greyhound bus to get them there.

    Accompanying these baseball women were a few baseball men who in a way owed their own careers to the AAGPBL. Major leaguer Casey Candaele learned the tricks of his trade from his mother, outfielder Helen Callaghan. And former major league pitcher Bill Spaceman Lee says he got his competitive nature, and some valuable pitching lessons, from his aunt, hurler Annabelle Lefty Lee.

    At one P.M. on November 5, Candaele and Lee were part of the crowd that made its way through the arched doorways of the Hall of Fame Museum, where bronze plaques honor Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and other American heroes. They filed upstairs past the exhibit on the old Negro leagues and stopped at a covered display case across the room. A few moments later a cheer erupted as the cloth was lifted from the case to reveal Women in Baseball, the first collection in the Hall of Fame to acknowledge women’s contributions to the national pastime.

    • Women in Baseball

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1