The 1950s

3 clippings from the 1950s.

News story headed High-Class Baseball Promised As Girl Teams Battle Tonight, previewing an exhibition at Griffith Stadium between the Fort Wayne Daisies and Racine Belles at 8:15, with a photo of pitcher Isabel Alvarez captioned Pitches tonight. Manager Max Carey is expected to use his two Cuban hurlers, Mirta Marrero and Isabel Alvarez. Maxine Kline, the leading hurler in the All-American Girls League with a 47-14 two-year record, starts for the Belles. Betty Foss, the league's leading hitter at .346, smacked three hits last night. Carey, former star of the Pittsburgh Pirates, claims the girls play sound, smart ball as good as most minor league teams.

High-Class Baseball Promised As Girl Teams Battle Tonight

Fort Wayne Daisies
Washington, D.C. · 1951

Story by Bill Fuchs headed Girls' Pro Nines Clash Tonight If Ahearn Weather Permits, reporting that Jimmy Foxx and Guy Bush were each drawn into girls' baseball by long-time friends and neither would give it up. Bush's Battle Creek Belles and Foxx's Fort Wayne Daisies, members of the American Girls' Professional Baseball League, play at Griffith Stadium at 8 o'clock, weather permitting. Bush praises Sophie Kurys as the fastest girl that ever played, and the story ends with Bush declaring, with Foxx nodding agreement, this is not softball, this is girls' professional baseball, period.

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

Battle Creek Belles
Washington, D.C. · 1952

AP Newsfeatures story headed Girl Softballers Finish Their Transition To Professionals, with a photo of catcher Ruth Richard. The American Girls Baseball League, founded 12 years ago by Phil Wrigley and Branch Rickey as a four-team professional softball circuit, has completed its gradual transition to baseball as played in the major leagues, with the regulation nine-inch ball in use since July 1. The story recounts the ball shrinking from 12 inches in 1943 through 11 and a half, 11, and 10 and three eighths, sidearm pitching introduced in 1946 and overhand two years later, and Rockford's Marie Mansfield hurling a four-hitter. Falling attendance forced the changeover, and the new game must save the league financially or the girls will be back in the amateurs.

Girl Softballers Finish Their Transition To Professionals

Rockford Peaches
Rockford, Illinois · 1954