The Girls of Summer
By Anne Madarasz

Just as World War II impacted the political, social, and cultural life of the nation, so too did it impact sport in America. As huge numbers of young men were called to action in the 1940s, many minor league baseball teams disbanded, depleting the ranks of the professional leagues. Fearing a collapse of the fan base as talented pros were called to service, Cubs owner Phillip Wrigley put together a committee charged with generating ideas to save baseball. Ultimately the committee recommended the development of a girls' softball league ready to play in major league ballparks should attendance for big league games plummet.

This idea became the nucleus from which the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League emerged. Lasting from 1943 to 1954, the league changed the face of America's pastime. Over 600 girls and women competed in this pro league that, at its peak in 1948, attracted almost a million paid fans to ballparks across the nation. From four initial teams, the league grew to 10, then contracted to five as fan attention returned to Major League Baseball in the early 1950s. But for a time, the women of the AAGPBL were in "A League of Their Own."

Most of the teens and women who played in the league were trained as softball players. A few, such as Dorothy Kovalchick from the western PA coal town of Sagamore, had been exposed to baseball, playing in neighborhood or community leagues. For eight years Dorothy barnstormed with her father's team, the Kovalchicks, the only girl on an all-male team that took on all-comers across the region. The first baseman stood only 5'2" but became known for her willingness to bunt any pitch hurled at her, and for her headfirst slide. In 1945, Dottie accompanied her father on what she thought was a business trip to Chicago. There her father signed her up with the AAGPBL as a member of the Fort Wayne Daisies. Playing for $75 a week, the team toured with the Grand Rapids Chicks playing exhibition games, then got into regular season play. Dorothy competed against women from across the United States and Canada, before returning home to once again play for the Kovalchicks.

Other local girls, such as Betty Jane "Curly" Cornett played competitive softball before trying out for the AAGPBL. After attending rookie camp in 1949, Betty Jane played first for the Rockford Peaches, then toured with Springfield and Kalamazoo. Her most vivid memory of her playing days was an exhibition game at Yankee Stadium. Betty Jane, like other girls from the area, came home to a postwar life without many opportunities in organized sport, but these "girls of summer" changed the face of wartime baseball and blazed a trail for the female athletes that followed.

Anne Madarasz is Director of the Western PA Sports Museum where the story of baseball and the AAGPBL is featured.