Battle Creek Belles · Washington, D.C. · 1952

Girls' Pro Nines Clash Tonight If 'Ahearn Weather' Permits

May 1952 at Griffith Stadium: Jimmy Foxx's Daisies against Guy Bush's Belles, two of the biggest names of the 1930s now managing in girls' baseball and refusing to apologize for it. Not even the Yankees could get me now, says Bush. And the closing declaration, with Foxx nodding agreement: this is not softball, this is girls' professional baseball, period.

On May 10, 1952, the Evening Star’s Bill Fuchs previewed a Griffith Stadium date between “girls’ pro nines” managed by two of the biggest baseball names of the 1930s: “Jimmy Foxx and Guy Bush each were drawn into girls’ baseball by a long-time friend, and now neither would give is up for anything.”

That is Jimmy Foxx, 534 home runs, managing the Fort Wayne Daisies, and Guy Bush, the old Cubs ace, running the Battle Creek Belles, “members of the American Girls’ Professional Baseball League.” The weather angle supplies the headline: promoter Goldie Ahearn “has his fingers crossed,” since “every time Goldie has an outdoor attraction, rain or threat of rain blocks it.” Bush, it turns out, is all in: manager, scout, general manager and bookkeeper, with “32 millionaire stockholders” behind him. His conversion story is simple. A stockholder friend insisted he come see the team: “Well, I went up to Battle Creek and saw the girls play a couple of games. That did it. Was I surprised! I never knew girls could play baseball like that. I signed the contract right away.” Then the flourish: “Not even the Yankees could get me now.” Foxx “had practically the same experience,” sold the moment he saw the players play.

Bush’s praise gets specific, and the specifics were earned: “Take this Sophie Kurys. I tell you she is the fastest girl that ever played… And she can slide better than four-fifths of the men in the majors.” Kurys once stole 201 bases in a single season, 1946, a number no professional anywhere has matched. When two men who played against Ruth and Gehrig vouch for your league, that’s a scouting report, not a courtesy.

The ending deserves framing. “‘One more thing,’ Bush said, with Foxx nodding agreement, ‘this is not softball—this is girls’ professional baseball, period.’” Nine years of clippings in this series, from “Softy Girls” through name confusion, rule changes and a rival league that muddied the words on purpose, and here are two men who spent the 1930s among the game’s greats settling the question in one sentence. If a slugging great managing in the girls’ league puts you in mind of a certain 1992 movie, this is the newspaper trail it grew from.