There did used to be a professional softball league which changed to baseball as the years went on. It was first called the All-American Girls Softball League, then in 1944 it became the All-American Girls Ball League. Finally, in 1945, it was changed to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League or also known as the AAGPBL. There were 545 athletes from the United States, Cuba, and Canada who were part of the AAGPBL from 1943 to 1954. They were taking over for the men who were at war at the time.
Philip Knight Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, held tryouts at Wrigley Field because he wanted to keep baseball going even though all the men players were at war. So he decided to draft women to play since softball was so popular during this time. Jack Fincher, the author of an article on the history of the AAGPBL, writes, "In the early 1940's amateur softball leagues for women were thriving in thousands of communities all over the country. Wrigley decided to skim the best players off those teams, wittle them down to a select few and use them in a play-for-pay league." (Fincher n. pag.)
The league started out as a cross between softball and baseball. Another historian of the league, Joanna Turner wrote, "the underhand softball pitch was stilled used, but the pitching distance would be 43 feet and the basepaths would be 70 feet, measurements between that of a softball and baseball diamond. The number of players were cut from 10 to 9 and they had 9 innings instead of 7." (Turner n. pag.) In the first year of play there were four teams. They were the South Bend Blue Sox from Indiana; Rockford Peaches from Illinois; Racine Belles from Wisconsin, and the Kenosha Comets from Wisconsin. During the last season of play there were ten teams in the league. Each team had fifteen players, a manager, a chaperone, and a driver for the road games. The chaperones made sure that the girls didn't get into any trouble and they made sure that they followed the rules set by the league. Those rules were that they couldn't smoke or drink and they couldn't date and they must act like a lady in public as well as on the field. If they didn't follow these rules then they were fined. (Turner n. pag.) The players got paid between $65 and $125 a week. Pepper Paire Davis, one of the women who played in the league said, "We were being paid for something we loved to do more than eat." (Turner n. pag.)
At first the league was not a huge success but after some time they were gaining more and more fans. Dorothy "Dottie" Schroeder, the only player in the league that played all 12 years, admitted, "once they saw how well we played ball, they were hooked." (Turner n. pag.) "Maybe at first the men came out to see the legs," remarks Pepper Paire Davis, "but they stuck around when they realized they were seeing a darn good brand of baseball." (Fincher n. pag.) The league folded in 1954 when the organization went to Arthur Meyerhoff. The franchises and Meyerhoff were having disagreements over whether the franchises were getting a fair share of the profit or not. Finally, Meyerhoff sold to individual owners and they didn't have the money to keep the league going. There was also cutbacks in advertising so less and less people were coming to the games. Television was also invented during this time and more people wanted to stay home and watch the television. The AAGPBL was forced to shut down after twelve years of making women's dreams of being able to play the game they love come true.
