The Baseball Guru - Women in Baseball January 2003 by Leslie Heaphy

As you are planning your activities for this year be sure to include the annual SABR Convention in July. 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. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2003.

Committee member Jean Ardell is currently finishing a book on women and baseball—look for it soon. Dorothy Mills continues to update and develop her website on baseball which includes discussion of this committee’s activities.

Our book project is slowly moving forward—more details below.

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. Three manuscripts have arrived in recent weeks so there is progress being seen. We hope to have all the articles written by the end of 2003 and see the book in late 2004-early 2005.

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

Jean Ardell, Amy Brunner, Dick Clark, Jim Glennie, Roy Hobbs, Larry Hogan, Tom Kearney, Jim Nitz, David Oliver, Justine Warren, Tim Wiles, Bill Williamson, Laura Wulf

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

** “A Team of Their Own”-7/94

** “When the Chicks were Champs, But Not Many Fans Cared” Milwaukee Journal 7/31/94

** “Mamie ‘Peanut’ Johnson: The Last Female Voice of the Negro Leagues”

** “Belle of the Ball” 2000

** “Diamonds in the Rough” 8/7/02

** “Our Forgotten World Champions”

Marge Schott, Unleashed—1993

** “The Kid who Really Was One” 1997

** “Krissy Wendell” 1995

** “Girl Has Major League Dreams” 2001

** “Transition of Women’s Baseball”

** “Black Woman Pitcher Made U. S. History” 2002

**”Toni Stone Was one of the Only Women to Ever Play Baseball with Men” 1994.

Research Requests

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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Got word from Tom Giffen that women’s baseball is now a sanctioned sport of the AAU for a one year probationary period and possibly up to 3.

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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

From their latest newsletter:

A team called the WBL Sparks is looking for players aged 12 and under to join them

Third annual WBL conference is being planned for March 2003

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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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Excerpts from an Interview with Ann Batikis—found on the diamond angle web site along with many other interviews and articles.

Went out for tryout and made the cut in 1945. Ann played CF for the Racine Belles in 1945. She loved the travel but not the scrapes and bruises. She’d love to see more opportunities for women to play the game today. After her playing days ended Ann went on to teach for 35 years.

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Member News

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.

Women’s All-Star Team

C Mary “Bonnie” Baker

1B Dottie Kamenshek

2B Toni Stone

3B Jean Weaver/Maddy English

SS Dorothy Harrell/Dorothy Schroeder

OF Helen Candaele

OF Betty Foss (Weaver)

OF Jane Stoll/Joanne Weaver

P Jean Cione/ Ila Borders

P Helen Nicol (Fox)

P Doris Sams/ Connie Wisniewski

P Pat Scott/Mamie Johnson

P Dottie Wiltse (Collins)

U Sophie Kurys

U Elizabeth Mahon

U June Peppas

These names came from two rosters that were submitted to me—what do you think? Agree/disagree? Who would you want on your team? What about some of the earlier women ball players like Loretta Lipski? Send me your picks and I’ll include them in the next newsletter.

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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