Q.
How many Canadian players were involved in the professional women's
baseball leagues in the 1940s?
A. In 1942, Chicago Cubs owner Philip Wrigley had the idea of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League as a way of attracting fans to ballparks. The league, which was featured in the 1992 movie, A League of Their Own, had several Canadian players.
Because
of World War II, major league baseball and the minor leagues had lost several of
its players to the services. Journalist
Jane Foy, who researched women's professional baseball from that era, says 53
Canadian women played in the league from the inaugural 1943 season to the last
season in 1954, accounting for about 10 per cent of the women who played.
Among the Canadian standouts were Gladys Davis of Toronto who was the league's first batting champion. She hit .322 for the Rockford Peaches. Olive Bend Little from Moose Jaw held a league strikeout record that was never equaled, according to Foy.
Although
the game started out with underhand pitching, it eventually evolved to overhand
pitching and delighted fans with its high calibre of play.
Almost one million fans watched league games in 1948. The league remained something of a novelty in the early '50s, but lack of finances and the resurgence of the major leagues led to the women's game's demise.