HOW WORLD WAR II INFLUENCED THE HISTORY OF SOFTBALL


By bburbridge
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Player Marg Callaghan Sliding into Home Plate as Umpire Norris Ward Watches. The history of softball begins with the AAGPBL.

We are nearing the end of the 2023 college softball season as the NCAA College Softball Tournament is approaching the championship. As we look forward to seeing the outcome of these upcoming world series games, it's nice to look back on how the game got to where it is today, review the history of softball and the origins of the sport we all know and love.Related read: 10 NFL Veterans Defended Their Turf and Our Country

The History of Softball

The question, "when was softball invented" can be answered by tracing the evidence all the way back to a singular day in Chicago, Illinois, 1887. On November 24th, members of the Farragut Boat Club were participating in a common Thanksgiving Day tradition—watching football. On this day, Yale and Harvard were facing off. Following Harvard’s defeat a Yale fan jokingly threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter who swung at it with a bat. A nearby reporter yelled “play ball” which began a conversation that led to formal game rules. Eventually, the recreational game picked up and spread throughout Chicago. The game continued to be played informally until 1942 when over 200 women were invited to try out for an All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League at Wrigley Field.

How the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League Started

In 1942, Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, sent a letter to President Roosevelt asking if Major League Baseball (MLB) should shut down for the duration of the war. Roosevelt responded in the Green Light Letter saying “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going." He goes on to say that Americans are going to be working long, hard hours and that they deserve some recreation.The MLB attempted to stay strong and maintain with players who were too young or too old to be drafted or had health issues that kept them at home. This left little talent to be showcased on the baseball field. Trying to keep America’s pastime alive, Philip K. Wrigley thought to create a league of women. The owner of the Chicago Cubs and son of gum company owner William Wrigley Jr., made the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) in hopes to maintain interest in baseball while MLB players were fighting in World War II. Wrigley, along with other founders of the All-American Girl’s Baseball League—Branch Rickey and Paul V. Harper—held tryouts at Wrigley Field, where over 200 women showed up and only 60 were chosen. The league started out with only four teams: the Rockford Peaches, the South Bend Blue Sox, the Racine Belles, and the Kenosha Comets. Teams were made up of fifteen players and were mostly from the Midwest as traveling had to be cut down due to gasoline restrictions from the war. The movie A League of Their Own is a dramatized version of the origins of the AAGPBL. Currently, a streaming show based on the Rockford Peaches is available on Prime Video with the same name as the movie, and is now in development for a second season.

Belles of the Ball Game

The first league games took place on May 30th, 1943. As a mixture of softball and baseball, the AAGPBL started with a larger ball and underhand pitching. In its later years it would evolve to become more like baseball. The first season included a total of 108 games played from May to September. Salaries for the women ranged from $45-$125 a week ($761-$1,409 per week in today’s money) which was above average for a woman working at the time.Women wore dresses with belts which were not suited for the game as much as they were for the male gaze. Uniforms were dyed in light colors due to a lack of available dyes during the war. To be a player in the league women had to take mandatory etiquette classes in "charm school.” Newspapers described them as “belles of the ball game.” Each team was assigned an etiquette chaperone who would report any bad behavior from the women. Players were expected to act like ladies and were fired if their behavior was not seen as such. Suggested read: Top 12 Strangest Special Military Operation Names You’ve Never Heard Of

The Rise and Fall of the AAGPBL

By 1948, the peak year for the league in the history of softball, there were fifteen teams. These teams included:

Each of these teams had youth developmental programs attached to their names for the purpose of making sure there was talent in the pipeline to continue the league into the future. Although this did not help keep the league running, it did spark a love for the game that led to the institutionalization of softball as a popular American sport.Wrigley ran advertising for the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League until 1951. His disengagement with the league and his marketing campaigns is one of the reasons that the league went under in 1954. The other reason being that men came back from the war and interest in the MLB picked up again. By its end, over 600 women played in the league and the games drew over a million fans.

Softball Continues to Rise in Popularity

Now, in 2023, 40 million Americans engage in at least one softball game a year. The Women’s Pro Softball League (WPSL) is the current professional league for softball although overpowered by NCAA softball. Over 600 colleges have varsity softball programs through the NCAA. Last year, the NCAA softball world series two-game championship between UCLA and Oklahoma averaged 1.57 million viewers. This not only demonstrates how the popularity of softball has grown but also shows that it has spread much wider than just the Midwest. This craze is not stopping anytime soon as ESPN reports a 40% increase in regular-season college softball viewership for the 2023 season. It's crazy to think what a country can do in a time of distress and lack of resources. The United States turned a hard time into an opportunity to grow a love for the game that helps fuel togetherness and showcases the hard work of women.Read next: Meet Ken Norton, the Marine Who Beat Muhammad Ali


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