Leslie
Heaphy /
Ladies
Leagues
Women in Baseball
Committee Newsletter
June
2001
Vol. XXIV
@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
has arrived and there are lots of surprises to watch. As a result of lots
of planning already this year the Women's World Series is being held from
July 4-8, 2001 in Toronto. Teams
will be playing from Canada, Japan, Australia and the United
States. For more details you
can contact Jim Glennie at Women's
International Baseball Association, 294 Willoughby Rd, Mason, MI 48854
or at
jimbosk@mindspring.com. This is an exciting development for
women's baseball.
This Labor day
Cleveland, Ohio will be playing host to the WBL's Baseball
Fest. Activities will include
an All Star game, the WBL Championship game between the Eastern and Great
Lakes Conference, a homerun derby, a girls tournament and
more. The girls tournament is
designed for teams under age 13.
For more information or to sign up a team contact Justine Warren at
jwarren101@baseballglory.com.
The Waterbury Diamonds
reported in their May newsletter that they won the recent Citrus Blast by
defeating the Ocala Lightning 11-8. En route to that final victory they also defeated the
Florida Tornadoes, the South Bend Blue Sox, the Orlando Fire, and the Chicago
Storm.
Lots of information
can be found on the internet on most of the women's teams that are currently
playing. If you find a good
site please pass on the address so it can be shared with
others.
The AAGPBL will
be holding their annual reunion in Grand Rapids, MI in early
September. If you have an interest
in attending and meeting some of the players you can contact the AAGPBL Player's
Association for more details.
At this year's annual
SABR meeting our committee will be gathering at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, July
12th to discuss guidelines for our book
project. Claudia Perry will
be conducting our meeting. We
hope many of you will be present but if you cannot be there and have ideas
or suggestions please send them to me before the July 12th meeting
so they can be passed on to the
committee. It also looks like
there will be a player panel from the AAGPBL that should be exciting to go
and listen to.
Committee Project
Update: The progress is slow but it is
happening. 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. The
idea is to include individual entries for prominent players but to have longer
essays covering each team in the AAGPBL, the Colorado Silver Bullets, the
current teams playing, etc.
Preliminary guidelines are being worked on and will be shared at our
committee meeting in Milwaukee. 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.
Michelle Cristens,
Dick Clark, Paul Debono, Jim Glennie, Mary Lou Kolanko, Larry Lester, Skip
McAfee, Barry Swanton, Justine Warren, and Tim Wiles.
(**Denotes item
available for a SASE, 1 stamp per 4 pages).
"From the Grandstands
to the Dugout: Women in Baseball
Literature." By Kathleen Sulivan Porter, Dissertation,
1999.
** 6 pages of materials
related to baseball in Canada from the AAGPBL and today.
** "Baseball's Black
Trailblazer." On Effa Manley, 13 February 2001.
** "Gendered Baselines:
The Tour of the Chicago blackstocking."
** "Lady is an
Ump" about Ria
Cortesio.
** "Diamond Girls"
by Michelle Christens, written for a class project.
** "Welcome to the
US Women's Baseball
"
** "Woman to Play
1st Base for the Havana
Stars." 5/12/17 Chicago
Defender
**"MaryLou Kolanko
Was a Girl of Summer"
** "A League of
Her own" on Peanut Johnson
"An Invitation to
see the Hanshin Tigers: Japanese Baseball as seen through the Eyes of a Female
Fan." Nine, Vol.
9.
"Confessions of
an All-American Girl: Madonna's Model" Faye Dancer with John Holway in
Nine, Vol. 9
** Rockford Peaches
1945 Program Booklet
**Copy of a player's
contract for Bobbie Little
** "Belles Split
with Rockford"
** Short article
on Spring Training in Havan, Cuba in 1947.
** Induction program
for the 1998 ceremony at the Canadian Baseball Hall of
Fame
** Short excerpts
from a 1944 True sport magazine
** "Players Recall
Glory Days"
**Section from the
AAGPBL Newsletter on the 1943 Racine Belles and the 1943 South Bend Blue
Sox
*********************************
Research
Requests
Patricia Martinelli
is looking for information on the Philadelphia Bobbies--please send any help
to her at
ghostwrtr@netzero.com
Frank Fitzpatrick
is looking for information about the Dolly Vardens who played in the
1860s. Any help you can offer
him please send directly to Leslie Heaphy or to Frank
at
ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com
Justine Warren continues
to look for input as to why women play
baseball. Ideas can be sent
to her at
Jwarren101@aol.com.
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 with information
about women playing in other countries, particularly Latin
America? Please send any information
you have to Leslie Heaphy.
Suzanne Howarth
is looking for information on women who have played professional
softball. Ideas can be passed
on through Leslie Heaphy. She
is particularly interested in African-American women
players.
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
(repeated since
no one sent in a reply)
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.
Have a good question
to ask our members? Please send
it in before the next newsletter for inclusion.
********************************
Want to be published
in our newsletter? I continue to look for reviews, player bios, short articles,
poetry--anything that you are writing about women and
baseball. Share your work with
others who share your interests.
*********************************
********************************
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
*********************************
Ruth
Middleton
An outfielder for
Chicago, Battle Creek and Muskegon. Originally from Winnipeg Ruth joined the AAGPBL in 1950
and played through the 1953 season.
She played in 195 games during her career and batted
.185. Her real prowess came
in the field where she had a good arm and covered a lot of
ground. She also stole 25 bases
while walking 77 times.
(Information from
her Larry Fritsch Baseball Card, 1995).
*********************************
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
*********************************
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.
********************************
Interested in something
in particular related to Women's
baseball? Where can you go for
information? The best place
to start is the National Baseball Hall of
Fame. Ask for Tim Wiles. The
Northern Indiana Center for History in south Bend has the archives for the
AAGPBL. The Joyce Sports Research
Collection at the University of Notre Dame has AAGPBL
Materials. Ask for the curator
George Rugg. The Midway Village
and Museum Center in Rockford, IL has an exhibit for the Rockford
Peaches. You can call them at 815-397-9112 for
hours. The Saskatchewan Sports
Hall of Fame has materials related to Canadian players in the
AAGPBL.
You will also want
to check out the redone website at
http://www.AAGPBL.org
There is a great
deal of excellent information contained on this website, especially in their
articles section.
*********************************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.
*********************************
Thanks,
Leslie and
Claudia
Congrats to the following players on the American team playing in the women's World Series in Toronto in July.
Allison Adams (MD)
Elaine Amundsen (CT)
Tammy Chambless (FL)
Ashley Cook (MA)
Christene Dennis (FL)
Danielle Feretti (CT)
Jen Goodwin (MA)
Katherine Gurley (OH)
Jill Haas (RI)
Terri Lynn Herbst (NY)
` Karen Hunger (FL)
Theresa MacGregor (CO)
Melissa Miller (IN)
Donna Mills (MA)
Erin Mullen (OH)
Millie Muniz (FL)
Judy O'Brien (MA)
Jen Pawol (NY)
Victoria Ruelas (CA)
Trista Russo (NY)
Deb Sroczynski (MA)
Katy Smythe (MI)
Joni Stegeman (IL)
Amy Stinton (CT)
Kate Titus (CA)
Shelly Uwaine (HI)
Molly McKesson (FL-Inj. Reserve)