The Baseball Guru - Women in Baseball - October 2002 by Leslie Heaphy

World Series time is upon us and I hope you are enjoying the games as they take place. Maybe one day we can enjoy watching the Women’s World Series on television as well. That would be reason to celebrate.

Claudia shared that our meeting in Boston went well with good attendance and lively discussion. We have added a number of new committee members and look forward to their contributions. Jean Ardell has a book coming out soon so watch for it.

I just received word from Gail Rowe that they are looking for abstracts from those wishing to present at next year’s Annual Meeting in Colorado. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words and can be sent along with a brief biographical sketch and an indication of audio-visual needs to Gail Rowe at 7205 Poudre River Rd #6, Greeley, CO 80634 or growes36@attbi.com

Poster presentations are also encouraged.

In addition if you would be interested in serving as a blind reviewer for the selection of presentations send your name to Gail Rowe.

Did you hear about the no-hitter pitched by Jennifer Hunter earlier this summer? She pitched against an all-boys team.

This summer the Fort Wayne Oldtimers Baseball Association inducted five new members into their Hall of Fame. Included in this group were Vivian Kellogg, Maxine Kline and Dottie Schroeder, all of the Fort Wayne Daisies. Congratulations to you all on this honor!

Miller Park’s Walls of Honor added Annastasia Batikis of the Racine Belles and Ellen Tronnier of South Bend to those they have paid tribute to. Congratulations for this honor.

According to the latest newsletter from the Latin American Committee the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame included among its 21 new inductees—Jacinto “Jackie” Hernandez.

The Players Reunion this fall was in South Bend—any articles? Please send them along.

The AAU has agreed to sanction the Women’s Baseball National Championship in November in Fort Myers.

Just learned from Eddie Bedford that in his class on the Negro Leagues are some students who are interested in the women players and as part of the class they will get the opportunity to interview Mamie Johnson. What a great educational opportunity for them.

Please send me any and all articles, programs, citations etc that you find. It will be better for me to receive the information four times than not at all. You can either mail the materials to me or attach them as e-mails or even fax an article to me at 330-494-6121. Thanks in advance for your continued help in preserving the history of women in baseball.

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Committee Project Update: Letters have been sent and assignments made on some of the needed articles for our book project. This is an exciting project and opportunity for our committee to help spread the word about the history of women and baseball. There are lots of things still to be done. Whether you just like to do research or want to write please contact me if you are interested in being involved and have not been contacted yet. Our first set of deadlines is not until February 2003 and there will be others after that so it is not too late to help out with this committee project.

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Recent books, articles, websites and other projects. Thanks to the following people for sending material.

Jean Ardell, Dick Clark, Jim Glennie, Roy Hobbs, Larry Hogan, Lou Hunsinger, Larry Lester, Phyllis Otto, Lou Parrotta, Justine Warren, Tim Wiles, Bill Williamson, Laura Wulf

(**Denotes item available for a SASE, 1 stamp per 4 pages).

** “Hall of Fame Hosts Roundtable with Former Members of AAGPBL” by Lou Parrotta in the Boonville Herald

** Obituary for Faye Dancer from Newsday 6/2/02

** “Oldtimers Association Has Induction Ceremony.”

** “Pioneer didn’t Play Just for Peanuts”

** Another obituary on Faye Dancer—Los Angeles Times 6/1/02

** “Women Striving to Get League Its Turn at Bat”

** “Women’s Baseball Hits the Strike Zone”

** “Baseball Veteran Hopes to Form League of Her own”

** “Diamond Club Isn’t Just for Men”

** “Diamond Cutters”

** “It’s Time to Let Women Play Ball”

** “Nicholle Strikes a First”

** “June Rose Schofield, Ballplayer in Storied Women’s League”

** “She was no Joke for Indy Clowns”

** “Negro Leagues of Their Own”

** “A Solitary Journey: Lefthander Ila Jane Borders” by Jean Ardell (2 stamps)

** “Ila Borders, Pitcher” by Jean Ardell

(2 stamps)

** “A League of Their Own” by Lou Hunsinger

** Obituary on Millie Deegan

Look for the new book Making Her Mark by Ernestine Miller. It includes a chapter on women’s baseball.

Research Requests

Anyone know anything about a Wanda Maldonado who played amateur ball in Puerto Rico. Please send information directly to Leslie Heaphy.

What are you looking for? What are you currently working on? Let us know and we can help one another as we are doing our research.

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Have a good question to ask our members? Please send it in before the next newsletter for inclusion.

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Be sure to check out www.BaseballGlory.com and www.uswb.org for all the latest news on women’s baseball

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Interested in writing a review for our newsletter? How about writing up your thoughts on books about the AAGPBL? Or a review of the movie Baseball Girls.” Send your reviews to Leslie Heaphy for inclusion in the next newsletter. If you have another book you'd like to review write up your comments and send them in.

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Member News

The new website put together by Dorothy Mills is now up and running at www.haroldseymour.com. Lots of interesting materials can be found on this new site.

An interesting question posed to your chair and one I now share with all of you—If you had to put together a women’s all-star team with 5 pitchers and 3 utility players in addition to your regulars who would you include and why? Send your replies to me and the results will be shared with the rest of the committee in future newsletters and in the near future on our newly revamped website.

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Please send correspondence, questions, suggestions, ideas to Leslie Heaphy for future newsletters. Also, I heard from a number of you and am grateful for the responses. Those who did not respond please try to let me know whether you still wish to receive our newsletter. Please write or e-mail me as to whether you wish to continue to be on the mailing list. If I do not hear from you I will not be sending future issues of the newsletter. Our committee is only as active as you the members help to make it. Thanks for your help in keeping our list updated. Just a reminder that some of you have not paid your dues to SABR yet this year and should send that in if you also want to continue receiving other SABR publications.

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Thanks,

Leslie and Claudia