Baseball's Bloomer Girls

You have probably seen the movie “A League of their Own” starring Madonna and Geena Davis.  Women’s baseball teams, belonging to the All-American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL) brought the game back to the field during World War II, when most of the professional ballplayers were overseas. Women’s teams were traveling teams – playing each other and barnstorming across the country.

You might have thought, as I did, that these 1940’s all-women teams were the earliest appearance of women on a baseball field. Well, we were both wrong.

New York’s Vassar College introduced the first girls’ baseball team in the late 1800’s. Women playing baseball wasn’t regarded as something serious. Not many people (men and women combined) thought it was appropriate. The girls wore the fashion of the day: floor-length skirts, underskirts, long-sleeved, high-necked blouses, and high button shoes - not very efficient for running the bases, but they were ladies after all. The first public game of ladies’ baseball was in 1875 - the Blondes vs. Brunettes (I told you they weren’t taken too seriously).

At the start of the 20th century, the idea of women’s baseball teams grew and many cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., created teams of their own. Still not taken seriously, Albert G. Spalding, baseball player, baseball writer, and founder of the sporting goods company voiced his opinion on women and baseball in 1911 (quoted in Gladys Palmer, Baseball for Girls and Women, New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1929):

“But neither our wives, our sisters, our daughters, nor our sweethearts, may play Base Ball on the field. . . They may play Lawn Tennis, and win championships; they may play Basket Ball, and achieve laurels, they may play Golf, and receive trophies; but Base Ball is too strenuous for womankind, except as she may take part in grandstand, with applause for the brilliant play.”

Good thing these amazing women didn’t listen!

As more teams were formed, they adopted a change in uniform wearing loose fitting pants that gathered at the knee, created by Amelia Bloomer. Hence, they were given the nickname “Bloomer Girls”.  Each team had at least one male player (usually catcher or pitcher). These men wore wigs and were tagged the name “Topper” as a nod to their additional locks. Smoky Joe Wood, one Topper, got his start with the Kansas Bloomer Girls and later played for the Boston Red Sox from 1908-1915. Rogers Hornsby, another pro ballplayer who got his start with the Boston Bloomer Girls, later played for the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.

Bloomer Girls also ranged in age. One of the youngest players, shortstop Edith Houghton Philadelphia Bobbies, was only ten years old. Another Bloomer Girl, Jackie Mitchell of the Chattanooga Engelettes, was later signed (at age 17!) with the Chattanooga Lookouts, a semi-pro team. In 1931 she played an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. She pitched to both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. No other woman in history can make that claim!

The Bloomer girls crisscrossed the country, rarely playing each other, but challenging college teams, amateur clubs, even semi pros! The better they played, the more people came, and the more money the managers charged. Unfortunately, though, not many thought girls had the strength, skill or stamina to play a great game of baseball. The Bloomer Girls teams petered out on the late 1930’s and the girls returned to home marry and start families. Their time on the field, though, would remain one of the highlights of their lives.