The History of Women's Baseball

The 1992 Hollywood film "A League of Their Own" starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna introduced many moviegoers to the fact that a professional baseball league for women had existed in the United States from 1943 to 1954. In fact, women had been playing organized baseball in the U.S. since the end of the Civil War and women around the world continue to play the sport at a high level today.

Origins

According to the women's baseball website seaternal.com, the first women's baseball teams in the U.S. were formed at New York's Vassar College in 1866. Nine years later, a game between teams called the Blondes and the Brunettes in Springfield, Illinois, marked the first professional women's baseball game as fans paid admission and the players earned a share of the gate receipts. From the 1890s through the Depression years, women's professional baseball clubs known as "bloomer girls" barnstormed around the nation playing local teams.

The "Queen of Baseball"

Born in 1894, Rhode Island native Lizzie Murphy was a first "baseman" who would become the first woman baseball superstar. Murphy earned the nickname the "Queen of Baseball" for her exploits playing with a semipro team comprised of former major leaguers. She made baseball history on August 14, 1922, when she became the first woman to play in a Major League Baseball game---albeit an exhibition game---when she took the field for a squad of American League all-stars in a charity game against the Boston Red Sox. In 1928 she played in a similar game pitting a National League all-star team against the Boston Braves.

A League of Their Own

In the early 1940s, as World War II depleted the ranks of men's major and minor baseball leagues, Chicago Cubs owner Phillip Wrigley decided he could rejuvenate interest in the sport in his area by forming a women's professional baseball league. The four-team All-American Girls Professional Ball League, or AAGPBL, featured teams based in South Bend, Indiana, Rockford, Illinois and Kenosha and Racine, Wisconsin. Racine would go on to become the AAGPL's first championship team.

The league would grow to 10 teams by 1948, when the league peaked in attendance---a total season draw of 910,000 fans, according to the AAGPL website. Interest declined in following seasons, until only five franchises remained in 1954, the league's final year of existence. In all, more than 600 women played in the league during its existence.

"A League of Their Own," directed by Penny Marshall and released in 1992, was based on the AAGPL.

The Tradition Continues

In 1988, a baseball player named Darlene Mehrer founded the American Women's Baseball Association, or AWBA, a non-profit recreational league in Glenview, Illinois. It was billed as the first organized women's baseball league since the AAGPBL. According to the AWBA website, the league has had as many as five teams at a time playing throughout the Chicago area.

The American Women's Baseball Federation, or AWBF, was founded in 1992, according to its mission statement, "to help women's baseball teams around the country network through its website and to organize regional, national and international baseball tournaments for women." Since its formation, the AWBF has organized 17 regional and national tournaments, as well as the Women's World Series, an annual event played from 2001 to 2004.

Women's Baseball Today

In 2004 the International Baseball Federation, or IBAF, began organizing the biannual Women's Baseball World Cup as the top worldwide event in women's baseball. Teams from the U.S. won in 2004 and 2006, while Japan took the title in 2008.

The AWBF website currently lists more than 20 women's teams and leagues in the United States, as well as in Australia, Taiwan, Cuba, Taiwan, Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Korea.

References

• American Women's Baseball Federation
• "History of Women in Baseball," seaternal.com
• All-American Girls Professional Ball League