I was, as a kid, somewhere between tomboy and Evel Knieval in my activities, with interests ranging from tree climbing and pogo sticking to riding my bike down small flights of stairs—and, of course, softball. I don't remember ever being made to feel ashamed of my interests—although my grandmother did relentlessly search for what she thought must be my closeted girly side, with gifts like baby dolls and frilly dresses, all of which sat unused in favor of things like my homemade skateboard: a two-by-four with a roller skate nailed to the bottom.
However, because I was pretty much the only person in my family with any interest in sports—not including my grandfather and uncle, who were diehard Green Bay Packer fans—I never developed an interest in baseball and baseball cards and the mystique that surrounded all of that. I never quite got what all the fuss was about over baseball cards. I can't think of a single thing that I collected as assiduously as boys collected baseball cards. My sister ardently collected troll dolls and some little locket dolls whose name now escapes me, but the closest I came to collecting anything was foreign coins, which interested me on a more or less intellectual level but about which I never felt great passion.
But just a few weeks ago, I finally got it, though—not just the collecting thing but baseball cards. I had stumbled on a Web site that had issued baseball cards for the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which started in 1943—and folded the year I was born: 1954. I have done a fair amount of research and writing on the league, been to one of their reunions, met a number of them in person, and collected a few autographs; I hold them in awe as the pioneers of women's sports they are and lament that I never got to see them play in their heyday. I printed out the order form for the cards and tucked it away for 'someday.'
Much to my surprise, my gal had secretly sent away for the entire set of cards: more than 400. I was excited to find them waiting in the mail for me one day, but it wasn't until I began leafing through the cards one by one that I became entranced. Suddenly, I got it. Each card brought a real person to life, right there in front of me, with not just a picture and name but also their stats, career highlights, and interesting bits of biographical information. I reverently looked at each card and wished, more fervently than ever, I could see them play. How I would love to have seen the Weaver sisters—Joanne, Betty, and Jean—smack out home runs for the Fort Wayne Daisies, Lou Arnold's 10-2 season pitching with the South Bend Blue Sox, or Olive Little's no-hitter in 1943 for the Rockford Peaches.
And the nicknames! Wimp, Beans, Tuffy, Big Swede, Pete, Buckets, Smokey, Jeep, Shu Shu, Hank, Duckie, Skeets: there's something about these names that helps bring these women to life, makes it easy to hear someone shouting from the stands or dugout, 'C'mon, Pinky, get a hit!' I tried to adopt one of the nicknames that didn't stick for Kerry Wood when he first joined the Cubs, but it never took for me either. I thought it was because no one could quite see me as 'Buzzsaw'I was hoping people would see me as tougher with a nickname like that—but now I realize that a nickname can't just be claimed: it has to be earned. And boy, did these women earn their nicknames.
I am, in a word, starstruck. I am saving the cards to read through in their entirety, numbers 1 to 420, so that I can anticipate and savor, and I think longingly about the 60th reunion that the AAGPBL is holding this year in Cooperstown, New York. I want to meet Sophie Kurys and Dottie Kamenshek the way little boys wanted to meet Hank Aaron and Lou Gehrig, to stand for just a moment in the glow of their dream fulfilled, their extraordinary achievement.
I can almost hear myself saying, 'I'll trade you my Maybelle Blair and Isabel Alvarez for your Audrey Wagner ... .'
For info on ordering AAGPBL cards, go to www.fritschcards.com/pages/aagpbl.html . The 60th reunion of the league will be celebrated Sept. 10-14, 2003, at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Yvonne Zipter can be contacted via e-mail at yz@press.uchicago.edu
2003 by Yvonne Zipter. One-time North American serial rights granted only.
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E-mail yz@press.uchicago.edu .
© 2003 by Yvonne Zipter.
