All American Girls League

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League While America was at war in Europe, many Americans were stocking up on supplies like food, water, and clothing while worrying about shortages of these materials necessary for living. “America was in the middle of World War II. Baseball was at risk because, as citizens saw generously paid athletes "swatting balls while their loved ones were dying on foreign shores," interest declined and criticism went up” (Peterik, Adam). With top notch players participating in the war effort, the decline of interest in baseball fell. While this interest was down, Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley took noticed and wanted to make a change. He feared that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was going to call off the Major League Baseball season until the war was finished. Wrigley wanted to give Americans something that the people could sit down and enjoy while we were still at war. Philip K. Wrigley then came up with the idea of an all-women’s fast pitch league after taking notice of the popularity of softball in the United States. He strongly believed that the women in the United States could save baseball in America at the time. Eventually that’s when Philip K. Wrigley finally held a tryout for the first ever All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. “He invested $100,000 of his own money to start the league, with $22,500 going to each of four first-year teams. The $10,000 left was used to run the league office in Chicago.” (Peterik, Adam). For the first tryout ever for this league they had over two-hundred and eighty women try out for the four team league. In the end only sixty of them were chosen to be a part of this league. “Before they could play ball, however, the women had to attend charm school. Wrigley wanted his players to be tough and competitive on the field. Off the field, he wanted them to reflect "the highest ideals of womanhood." ( Macy, Sue). In the spring of 1944, the first season was ever played. When the

Cited: “AAGPBL Articles”, All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association, http://www.aagpbl.org/index.cfm/articles, accessed May 4, 2012. “All-American Girls Professional Baseball League”, Grand Valley State University, http://cdm16015.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15068coll11/, accessed May 3, 2012. Macy, Sue. 2010. "Classy Athletes." Cobblestone 31, no. 4: 18-19. EBSCO MegaFILE, EBSCOhost (accessed May 4, 2012). Peterik, Adam, “Women 's Baseball during World War II”, Illinois Periodicals Online, http://www.lib.niu.edu/1995/ihy950452.html, accessed May 4, 2012. Weiller, Karen H., and Catriona T. Higgs. 1994. "The All American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1943-1954: Gender Conflict in Sport?." Sociology Of Sport Journal 11, no. 3: 289-297. EBSCO MegaFILE, EBSCOhost (accessed May 4, 2012).