The Leagues That Built Women’s Baseball Worldwide
This is the first of a multi-part series chronicling the prominent leagues—both proposed and realized—that helped build and shape women’s baseball around the world. Future posts will focus on teams and players. But before we begin, let’s do a quick history recap. And sorry for the length of this post. Somehow it’s still long even after I cut out a lot of stuff. One more thing: all of the images included in this post are presented in chronological order.
The origins of women’s baseball can be traced back to 1866, when the first all-female team was formed by students at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The amateur club was called the Vassar Resolutes, and the ladies would split into two teams of nine and play games amongst themselves. Matches continued until 1878, when they were forced to disband due to parents’ concerns over the safety of the players. In 1867, an African American ballclub called the Dolly Vardens was created in Chester, Pennsylvania.
More teams formed sporadically across the United States at colleges and for one-off exhibition games, including contests between female ballclubs and games pitting men against women. In 1875, the highly publicized “Blondes” vs. “Brunettes” game in Springfield, Illinois, became what is considered the first all-women’s professional baseball game (I see what you did there, WPBL). The 1890s then ushered in the Bloomer Girls era, with female ballplayers leading all-women and mixed-gender teams on barnstorming tours across the country. Names such as Maud Nelson, Alta Weiss, Maggie Riley, Lizzie Arlington, and Lizzie Murphy became associated with the era, which continued into the 1930s. But the first organized women’s baseball leagues wouldn’t begin to form until a few years into the 1900s.
The First League (1905)
The first organized women’s baseball league in the United States was a collegiate league. A Los Angeles-area school called the Brownsberger Home School formed a ballclub in 1905, which led to the formation of a six-team circuit that same year. Occidental College also participated in the loop (which today has a women’s club baseball team that participates in the Baseball For All collegiate club baseball tournament). The Brownsberger school was run out of a house, and in advertisements the organization called itself “The Largest Business College in Los Angeles.” Although the 1905 season received a lot of press, I am not sure what became of the league, as references to it stopped after that season.
Southern California Girls Baseball League (1911)
After 1905, women’s ballclubs continued to appear sporadically in schools across the country, but no formal organizations were established and the game remained largely an intramural activity. The next circuit to emerge was once again in the Los Angeles area. The Southern California Girls Baseball League brought together eight high schools: Bonita, Compton, Echo Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Polytechnic, Olive, Santa Monica, and Whittier. Although the Pasadena Star reported that the league was formed in 1911, it appears that several of the schools had women’s ballclubs for at least a few years before the loop’s creation. The organization had such a profound effect on its players that two members of Santa Monica’s team began the process of creating a women’s baseball league at the University of California after joining the freshman class.
Proposed Women’s Leagues (1912–1914)
In 1912, women at Wellesley College and other universities in the East attempted to create a “Women’s American Baseball League” and even sought to have their own ballparks built. However, there are no accounts indicating that any of these proposed collegiate circuits ever came to fruition. In 1914, the Amateur Baseball Association (ABA), a governing body for men’s baseball in the United States, discussed forming girls’ and women’s leagues. More women’s baseball organizations were subsequently created, but it appears they never received the blessing or support of the ABA.
Industrial Girls’ Baseball League of Duluth (1918)
Women’s baseball continued to grow as grammar schools and high schools formed more teams across the country. This included a well-publicized league at Plainfield High School in New Jersey in 1916. But in 1918, perhaps the best effort yet to get organized women’s baseball to catch on across North America began in Duluth, Minnesota.
The Girls Industrial League of Duluth featured eight teams and, surprisingly, received national attention through newspaper coverage. Its publicity helped inspire other industrial circuits, including a widely covered league organized by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. Nevertheless, these circuits appear to have been relatively short-lived, with Duluth’s league continuing through 1925.
National Girls Baseball League (Proposed, 1926)
School and industrial teams continued to form throughout the 1920s, while the YWCA also began organizing leagues in cities across the United States. However, little of lasting significance came from these efforts. In 1926, a new organization outside of the school and industrial systems was proposed. The National Girls Baseball League would have brought together Bloomer Girls teams and independent clubs from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.
The proposed league featured the Baltimore White Sox Bobbies, New York Bloomer Girls, Philadelphia Bobbies—famous for their ill-fated trip to Japan in 1925—the American Bloomer Girls of Newark, New Jersey, the Defiance Club of Wilmington, Delaware, and the Tincutus Club of Chester, Pennsylvania. Had it come to fruition, this would have been the first league built around established independent women’s ballclubs rather than school or company teams. Unfortunately, the league never took flight. Instead, the ballclubs continued the barnstorming tradition of the Bloomer Girls era, playing teams locally and across the country.
No other notable women’s baseball leagues were formed to close out the 1920s. While women’s hardball did see some growth around the nation during the decade, it often developed alongside the growing popularity of indoor baseball. In some cases, schools and organizations that established indoor baseball teams would also form outdoor teams or leagues, giving women opportunities to play both versions of the game. The rules also varied considerably, with some leagues using larger balls, shorter basepaths, or other modified rules.
The beginning of the 1930s would bring new developments that ultimately led to women’s baseball losing favor in the eyes of the public. In the next part, we’ll begin with the start of the 1930s and move toward the war years, when women’s baseball would see a resurgence.