2008 Woodie Awards
Women in old baseball
Skyline professor Katharine Harer completes latest book
Karen Mondale
Date created: 5/21/04 Section: SPORTS
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Skyline English professor and poet, Katharine Harer, Known to many as "Miss H," has completed a manuscript for a book entitled, "Comets, Blue Sox, Peaches, Chicks: Voices of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1943-1954." The book, an oral history of the only successful Women's Baseball League started by Phillip Wrigley, gives first-hand accounts from the players themselves, who are now in their 70s and 80s.
Inspired by oral historian Studs Terkel, Harer attended three annual reunions of the league-in the last, the women were honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame-and even traveled to Southern California to speak in person to women living there.
Softball to Baseball
When the Women's Baseball League was started in 1943, softball was considered the women's ballgame. Although many young women played baseball in their neighborhoods, it was assumed that women were incapable of the strength required to hit regular baseballs successfully. As a result, the League actually started with softball. However, when William Wrigley Jr., owner of Wrigley field, saw the players had no problem with hardballs in practice, he quickly switched the game to baseball. Scouts would find talent at games, held by factories whose female employees were working in lieu of males who had gone to war. After the scouts brought them to spring training, the best players were chosen.
According to Harer, the women of the WBL were different from other women in their day. Many did not marry or have children, or they had them later in life. They loved baseball and other sports and they participated in them; that made them different.
"They were not trying to stand out and be different; playing sports made them different," Harer said, making the distinction that the women did not otherwise seem different.
Playing in War and Depression
The ten teams of the Women's Baseball League were comprised of young women who had grown up playing baseball with boys in the streets of their communities as a pastime. Most players came from poor families that could not afford typical feminine activities like ballet, so they spent time playing sports in neighborhood areas that were available. Playing on teams not only provided those who made the cut with the excitement of travel and playing ball, they were also paid two to three times the typical male worker in those days. Many were able to pay for college educations with the money they made.
Inspired by oral historian Studs Terkel, Harer attended three annual reunions of the league-in the last, the women were honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame-and even traveled to Southern California to speak in person to women living there.
Softball to Baseball
When the Women's Baseball League was started in 1943, softball was considered the women's ballgame. Although many young women played baseball in their neighborhoods, it was assumed that women were incapable of the strength required to hit regular baseballs successfully. As a result, the League actually started with softball. However, when William Wrigley Jr., owner of Wrigley field, saw the players had no problem with hardballs in practice, he quickly switched the game to baseball. Scouts would find talent at games, held by factories whose female employees were working in lieu of males who had gone to war. After the scouts brought them to spring training, the best players were chosen.
According to Harer, the women of the WBL were different from other women in their day. Many did not marry or have children, or they had them later in life. They loved baseball and other sports and they participated in them; that made them different.
"They were not trying to stand out and be different; playing sports made them different," Harer said, making the distinction that the women did not otherwise seem different.
Playing in War and Depression
The ten teams of the Women's Baseball League were comprised of young women who had grown up playing baseball with boys in the streets of their communities as a pastime. Most players came from poor families that could not afford typical feminine activities like ballet, so they spent time playing sports in neighborhood areas that were available. Playing on teams not only provided those who made the cut with the excitement of travel and playing ball, they were also paid two to three times the typical male worker in those days. Many were able to pay for college educations with the money they made.
