Leslie
Heaphy /
Ladies
Leagues
Women in Baseball
Committee Newsletter
February
2001
Vol. XXIII
@Society for American
Baseball Research
Send info., questions,
submissions, etc to Leslie Heaphy, 2214 31st str, NW Canton, OH
44709, or e-mail; Lheaphy@stark.kent.edu
**************************************************************************************
Baseball season
is just around the corner so another winter of waiting is nearly
over. There will be lots to
look forward to this season and hopefully many of you will be able to attend
the women's games being played in your
area.
Cleveland hosted
the 1st women and baseball conference the weekend of February
9-11th with sessions on the history of the game, playing and coaching
as well as organizing teams and leagues. The key note speaker was Dorothy Seymour Mills with Audrey
Daniels from the AAGPBBL also speaking.
The place to find out more about these kind of events is
www.MsWBL.com.
The conference brought
together players, coaches, and other interested people to discuss the future
of women's baseball which looks bright.
The idea that came out of the conference is to establish a national
organization to help coordinate all the efforts that are going on and to
keep people in contact with one another.
It will also help us to document the history that is being created
now. A national tournament and
more international competition can be expected also.
Also attending this
conference were two women umpires from Canada who have worked for men's and
women's games there. The exciting
piece they shared with us is the upcoming Female Umpire's Clinic in Kincardine,
Ontario this fall (September 28-30,
2001. If you have any interest in becoming an umpire or just
want more details you can reach Lisa Turbitt-Baker at
905-633-9425. This clinic is
entering its fifth year being presented.
Committee Project
Update: Based on responses I have received
and talking to some others who will be involved in this project I have proposed
to Mark Alvarez a book that is more comprehensive than a top 25 and will
include a whole variety of broad essays as well as individual entries to
cover as much of the history as we can and make this useful to researchers
and fans alike. Preliminary
guidelines have been written and passed on to Mark Alvarez so that we can
begin to move forward. Stay
tuned for more information and requests for
participation. I hope to see
a large response from our committee for research and writing when the time
comes. What would be helpful
to me at this time would be to hear from the members of our committee about
their areas of expertise concerning women and
baseball. Please e-mail or write
and let me know what areas you could be most helpful
with.
Remember to keep
watching for articles, books, other programs pertaining to this subject and
send them to me.
Keep sending me
information and I will be sure it gets passed along.
*********************************
Recent books,
articles, websites and other projects.
Thanks to the following people for sending
material.
Gai Berlage, Dick
Clark, Harrington Crissey, Jim Glennie, Denver Howard, Larry Lester, Dorothy
Mills(Seymour), Jim Nitz, John Pardon, SABR-L, Joan Thomas, Justine Warren,
Tim Wiles.
(**Denotes item
available for a SASE, 1 stamp per 4 pages).
WWW.MSWBL.COM--
new website from the Cleveland area.
It is an on-line baseball magazine to promote and inform people about
women's baseball.
www.akisa.com/Books-E.html--
this site has a number of listings for different women's baseball groups
as well as books and other information
Up to the
Plate
by Margot Fortunato Galt, 1995.
** Results of the
Championship game at the Roy Hobbs Baseball Championship in
November
**AAGPBL Series
III card set released by Larry Fritsch
Inc. (Call 715-344-8687).
**Obituary from
Sports Collectors Digest on Dolores Moore.
** "Women Take Field
Again as Players Reunite in Milwaukee"
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 August 2000.
** "These Girls
Could Play Ball." The Journal
Times, 28 August 2000.
** "Tip of the Cap
for Pioneers." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 27 August
2000.
** "Belles, Old
Rivals Safe at Home" Racine
Journal Times, 29 August 2000.
** "Kenosha Comets
Reunite for a Day of their Own."
Kenosha News, 29 August 2000.
** "Getting back
in the Swing of things." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 27 August
2000.
** "Talented Chicks
Forced to Leave Nest." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 26 August
2000.
** "Weaker Sex,
Who Says?" Sport Life March 1949.
** "How Women Play
Ball." Chicago Tribune,
18 May 1879
HBO program entitled
"Sex in Sports" had a short section on Beverly D'Angelo, a South Bend
player.
** "The True First
Female Ump."
"Baseball as a gender
specific Sport" can be found at
www.prgwmn.com
** Interested in
how to get a new women's team started? Looking for tips and
ideas? Request a copy of the
starter kit put together by Jim Glennie.
*********************************
Research
Requests
Tom Brucato is looking
for the championship series results for the
AAGPBL. He has the winners but
would like more details. Any
information can be sent to me or to Tom at
tbrucato@umr.com
Anyone with any
information on umpire Christine Wren please send it to Leslie
Heaphy.
Justine Warren continues
to look for input as to why women play
baseball. Ideas can be sent
to her at
Jwarren101@aol.com.
John Pardon is looking
for information about the uniform shown in the movie "A League of their Own"
that said on it Peekskill Parks.
Any information can be sent directly to John at PO Box 728, Crugers,
NY 10521.
Any articles about
the AAGPBL Summer 2000 reunion?
Please pass on to Leslie Heaphy.
The Public Museum
of Grand Rapids is looking for memorabilia, artifacts etc for an exhibit
on baseball they are planning for the year
2003. If you can help them out
or want to learn more about their plans you can reach them at Public Museum
of Grand Rapids, 272 Pearl Str., NW, Grand Rapids, MI
49504
Anyone have any
articles from last year's many women's games that were played all over the
country? Please send copies
to Leslie Heaphy so they can be saved and become part of the record of Women
and baseball. The same will
be true for this upcoming season-if you see an article just make a copy and
send it to me.
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.
*********************************
Trivia
Question
Does the name Mary
Hamilton Van der Beck ring any bells for
anyone? If you know who she
is and her connection to baseball please e-mail and we'll see who knows the
correct answer.
********************************
Women's Baseball
Festival 2001
Will be held from
June 28- July 1st in Toronto. The championship games will be played at the
Skydome.
Women's World
Series--July 4th through the 8th in
Toronto. For more details on
either of these upcoming competitions contact Peter Topolie from Baseball
Ontario at 519-740-3900 or at baseball@iprimus.ca
*********************************
http://www.womenplayingbaseball.com/
a good link to all
kinds of information about women's teams and tournaments around the
country.
********************************
Roy Hobbs Women's
Amateur National Championships--October 24-28, 2001 in Fort Myers,
Florida. For more details contact
Tom Giffen at 888-484-7422 or
tom@royhobbs.com.
They also have a website at
www.royhobbs.com
*********************************
Interested in writing
a review for our newsletter? How
about writing up your thoughts on books about the Colorado Silver
Bullets? 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.
*********************************
Looking for a chance
to play baseball yourself or know someone who wants to
play? Contact Justine Warren
at Jwarren101@aol.com or Jim Glennie
at jimbosk@mindspring.com
*********************************
Kim
Braatz
An outfielder for
the Colorado Silver Bullets.
Kim played softball for the University of New Mexico before joining
the Bullets. In 1990 she received
second team All-American honors at the
university. In 1993 Kim hit
.466 for a professional softball team in Italy and also coached an 18 and
under team while there. With
Colorado Kim was best known for her stellar defensive play, tying for the
team lead in assists by an outfielder even though she missed part of the
season with a back injury.
(most of the information
above came from Kim's baseball card put out by the Silver
Bullets.)
*********************************
There are a number
of recent changes in the AAGPBL Player's Association including a new web
address at
www.AAGPBL.org
Jeneane Lesko will
be the new editor of their newsletter and can be reached at 4401
145th Ave NE #J-5
Bellevue, WA 98007 or
at
Jeneane@aol.com.
The player's reunion
will take place this fall in Grand Rapids, MI September 5-9th,
2001.
*********************************
Series # 3 of the
AAGPBL Cards is now available from Fritsch Cards for
$10.95. They can be ordered
at 735 Old Wasau Rd. PO Box 862, Stevens Point,
WI 54481.
********************************
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.
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.
*********************************
Thanks,
Leslie and
Claudia
Looking
Ahead: SABR 31 in Milwaukee
from July 11-15th. On
the program as of now is a player panel from the AAGPBL and our committee
meeting scheduled on Thursday, July 12 at 9 a.m.