We Were the Only Girls to Play in Yankee Stadium
“We Were the Only Girls to Play in Yankee Stadium” is an essay from the forthcoming book “Yankee Stadium 1923-2008: America’s First Modern Ballpark.” The book, being published by SABR in 2023, was edited by Tara Krieger and Bill Nowlin.
AAGPBL 1950 Chicago Colleens/National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum
Between 1923 and 2008, Yankee Stadium hosted 6,746 major league baseball games, including 161 postseason games and 4 All-Star Games.[i] On August 11, 1950, the stadium hosted its first and only game between two teams of female professional baseball players, when the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies of the AAGPBL played a three-inning exhibition prior to that day’s contest between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Athletics.[ii]
The New York Times called the game “a spirited exhibition,” noting that the “Colleens, managed by Dave Bancroft, famed Giant shortstop of thirty years ago, won by a score of 1-0.”[iii] The New York Herald Tribune saw the game differently, noting that the Colleens won 3-0. “Umpires were provided by the Yankees: Ralph Houk at home plate. Gene Woodling at first, Ed Lopat at second and Allie Reynolds at third.”[iv]
At present, we do not know who got on base, scored, or drove in runs in this historic game, as no box score, scorecard, or narrative game account has yet been found. We do know the name of the first woman to throw a pitch at Yankee Stadium, though: “No other woman had ever pitched off that mound before me,” said Gloria “Tippy” Schweigert, the 16-year-old who started that day for the Colleens. This source credits her with throwing a no-hitter in the start, though no game account confirms that.[v]
For this story, I spoke to all three of the surviving players who took the field that day: Joanne McComb, Mary Moore, and Toni Palermo. All expressed difficulty recalling much beyond the honor of playing in “The House That Ruth Built.” “I played first base, I know that,” recalled McComb. “I was more impressed with the surroundings. The game itself, to me, was just another game.”[vi] Mary Moore played second base, and recalls hitting a ball into the infield and running toward first base, where she took a dive on wet grounds after veering off to the right, muddying her bright white uniform. She can’t recall if she was safe or out, but “I would think that I would remember, if I was safe.”[vii]
Toni Palermo played shortstop, recalling that Phil Rizzuto loaned her his glove—and she used it in the game. She also cannot recall game details, but notes “I just know that I really enjoyed it, that I had his glove and I felt like a star out there. I was a confident player. I wanted every ball hit to me, no matter what the situation, and with his glove, I felt even more powerful.”[viii] Palermo also recalled Casey Stengel working with her on double plays before the game, teaching her to time the approaching ball, get it on the hop she wanted, and to just kick the corner of the bag. “And it made a difference,” she recalled.[ix]
Beyond the lack of a box score, another intriguing loss for history is the fact that, according to Merrie Fidler, the Yankee organization wrote an enthusiastic letter to the AAGPBL after the game, which included the sentence "The game was carried in its entirety on television and there has been a great deal of interesting comment around the city since."[x] This footage has not survived.
Playing in Yankee Stadium was a source of pride for many of the players that day, as they have often given that as their favorite memory, when asked on questionnaires, by reporters, and at panel discussions.
“Imagine, if you will, back then, being a girl and playing professional baseball on the field at Yankee Stadium. Think what it must feel like to us, walking and running around the outfield, standing in the same batter’s box where the likes of Babe Ruth, Phil Rizzuto, and Joe DiMaggio had stood. It was truly amazing and exciting for us,” recalled pitcher Pat Brown in her autobiography “A League of My Own.”[xi]
The Yankees and A’s players were friendly with the female players, and there was much interaction on the field and in the dugouts. Jane Moffett: “I…found myself in the dugout with several of the Yankees ball players, I was with Yogi, Whitey Ford, Casey Stengel, and others. Casey and Yogi were very friendly and stayed with us in the dugout talking baseball. I went out and warmed up the pitcher, and we played our three-inning game. Then we stayed for the game. I have been a devoted Yankee fan ever since. All in the life of a rookie.”[xii] Joanne McComb recalled Johnny Mize: “He was a character. He sat on the bench with us during the game, and offered to trade us chewing tobacco for bubble gum.”[xiii]
AAG Joanne McComb/National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum
Joanne McComb listed the game as her favorite baseball memory, and recalled “The Yankee players acted as our bat boys in the dugout with us.”[xiv] Mary Lou Kolanko mentioned that “I warmed up playing catch with Phil Rizzuto.” [xv][xvi] Barbara “Bobbie” Liebrich, who along with Pat Barringer, was one of the two player-manager-chaperones on the touring teams, remembered that “After the game I and the other manager (Barringer) were on Paul and Dizzy Dean’s TV show.” Liebrich and Barringer were also the keepers of the excellent set of three tour scrapbooks and a photo album documenting the annual tours, which is housed at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown. “I’m just sorry I broke my ankle, because after that, the teams went up and played at Yankee Stadium, and I missed that game,” lamented Shirley Burkovich.[xvii]
“I remember the game at Yankee Stadium,” said Jacqueline “Jackie” Mattson, “What a thrilling experience it was to meet Yogi Berra. His offer to let me use his bat was hilarious. What a club it was! It had a thick handle and was very heavy at the end. I was 5’5” tall and weighed one hundred pounds. If I had swung Yogi’s bat, it would have spun me in a circle, once or twice around.
Needless to say, I used my own evenly balanced bat with its nice thin handle.”[xviii] “We were the only girls to play at Yankee Stadium. That was an experience in itself. The stadium was the hugest thing that you’d ever seen.”[xix]
Pat Brown, who was in the A’s dugout, said: “We were all talking to the (A’s) players who had come into our dugout, and, at the same time, we’re cheering for our team playing out on the field. Suddenly everyone became very, very quiet, and we all looked toward the entry to the dugout. A tall thin man with white hair and a nice smile had just entered the dugout. We all knew who he was, and we respectfully waited for him to speak. It was Connie Mack, the manager of the Athletics, a man who was indeed a legend in baseball.”[xx] “Everybody was in awe,” she said [xxi] “It turned out that this was to be his last year managing. In 1956, when I read in the paper that he had died, I remembered him as that very special person who took the time to come into the dugout and say hello to some women professional players. Some things you can never forget.”[xxii] “What a thrill! We even met Mr. Connie Mack, wearing his customary vested suit and his straw hat,” recalled Pat Courtney.[xxiii] “I was so impressed with Connie Mack—his demeanor, and always so well dressed,” remembered Joanne McComb.[xxiv]
“We did play in Yankee Stadium which was a great thrill,” recalled player Mary Moore in a 2004 interview with AAGPBL historian Merrie Fidler. “Walking onto that field was like in a movie. It just was so beautiful — manicured. It was — I mean words just can’t describe it, actually. We played very good ball at the time and you could just hear the crowd “oooh” and “aaah” and It was just awesome.
It’s really — you can’t even describe it. You know, when we were touring around the country, we played at some nice places and then some of them they were almost like cow pastures.”[xxv]
AAGPBL Springfield Sallies/National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum
The game in Yankee Stadium came roughly midway during the 1950 travelling exhibition schedule conducted by the two teams. From 1948 to 1950, the Colleens and Sallies toured through much of North America, in order to promote the league, generate revenue, and recruit new players.[xxvi] The Colleens and Sallies were also considered farm teams, not just scouting the available talent at their many stops, but also refining the skills of those players already on their rosters, in preparation for call ups to the established, fixed location teams in Midwestern cities like Rockford, South Bend, Peoria, and Kalamazoo.
“We had good, good crowds because half the proceeds would go to some local charity. Murray Howe, our public relations guy, he was always ahead of us and he had press coverage and we had to take turns giving interviews on radio in each town that we went into. So we did have good advance publicity, noted Mary Moore.[xxvii] The Liebrich-Barringer scrapbook collection reveals fundraisers to raise money for swimming pool construction, the Fresh Air Fund, a high school band, which needed funds to pay expenses to Chicago to play at the Lions International convention, a scholarship fund for a young pianist to the New England Conservatory, polio benefits, police and fire departments, Boys Club Building Fund, Optimist Club’s Boys Work program, funds for needy families, Community Chest funds and a city playground fund.[xxviii] Admission was usually one dollar for adults and fifty cents for children. A few locations had discounted bleacher seats, and at least one Southern venue, Duncan Park in Spartanburg, S.C., offered “Colored Bleachers” for fifty cents.[xxix]
Between June 3rd and September 4th, the players travelled by bus through Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia and to points southward, including Roanoke, Asheville, Macon, Knoxville, and Hazard, KY. Then it was over to Hagerstown, MD and then up through New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, then back south for games in Washington D.C., (Where they played two games at Griffith Stadium) Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Then it was New York again, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and games in Sherbrooke and Montreal, Quebec. They finished up by working their way west across New York and Ohio.[xxx] The teams scheduled 95 games in that stretch, playing 83, with twelve rainouts.[xxxi]
The players were mostly in their late teens or early twenties, and only one, Canadian center fielder Joan Schatz, was married at the time.[xxxii] The bus rides were long, often conducted overnight, with players assembling on the bus after their post-game showers. ““The bus driver, Walt, loved to sing along with those songs, he had a beautiful voice, we travelled at night, and Wimp (Baumgartner) would stand up in front of the bus with him, and we’d sing songs all night. We had good singers on those teams!” recounted Isabel Maria Lucila Alvarez de Leon Y Cerdan, also known as “Lefty” Alvarez: “The days were ours to do with whatever we wanted. We had to do laundry, and catch up on our sleep, and do letter-writing. But in a couple of places, like New York, we went to Radio City Music Hall and Coney Island. It was a beautiful experience to get to do that and travel all over. We played through all the South, the East, the New England States and Canada, so there are places I would have never gotten to see, to do all this and get paid for it was really nice.”[xxxiii]
Speaking of the 1949 tour, Jane Moffett reminisced: “We traveled 26,000 miles that first summer in a bus. We played every day and prayed for rain because that was the only way we got time off. We could play a game and the next stop could be 200 miles away. A lot of police departments, fire departments and organizations would sponsor us as a fundraiser and we got called frequently to be on radio shows.”[xxxiv] Anna Mae O’Dowd added: “there was a lot of singing and a lot of jokes on the bus. It was fun. Of course, you got very tired too. I remember that well.”[xxxv]
Mary Moore, who led the Sallies in games played (77), hits (75), total bases (96), home runs (3), runs scored (65), and RBI (48), in 1950, recalled “We toured 21 states and Canada that first year. On the farm team level, we got $25 a week and $21 for meals that wasn’t taxable, plus all of our travel and housing expenses taken care of.”[xxxvi]
Many of these young women had never been away from home, and the opportunity to see the country, and Canada, was educational. Massachusetts native Pat Brown was surely not the only player whose eyes were opened to segregation: “I learned a lot that summer of 1950 while traveling through the segregated South. I had never seen such signs before as “Colored Only,” or “White Only.”
Even some of the posters announcing our games advertised separate seating for “Colored.” I was only a teenager, but after what I had seen, nobody had to tell me that segregation was wrong; I just knew it. Those images and other situations stayed with me, and I became a firm believer in civil rights and equality. Even today, I cannot erase those images from my mind”[xxxvii]
A week before the Yankee Stadium game, the AAGPBL made national news when former Yankee star Wally Pipp called 26-year-old Rockford Peaches first baseman Dottie Kamenshek, a perennial All-Star who was hitting .343 at the time, the “fanciest-fielding first baseman I’ve ever seen, man or woman.” Shortly thereafter, Both Kamenshek and AAGPBL President Fred Leo were contacted by officials with the Fort Lauderdale team and the Florida International League, offering to buy her out. Both Kamenshek and Leo turned down the offers. Dottie thought the offer was not sincere, and Leo said “Rockford couldn’t afford to lose her. I also told them we felt that women should play baseball among themselves and that they could not help but appear inferior in athletic competition with men.”[xxxvii]
When asked about Pipp’s comments, Bancroft replied that “Kamenshek was ‘an extraordinary player,’ but leaned against any woman being able to play in the major leagues. But he also added ‘Remember, it was only a short time ago that most major league players, managers, and sportswriters rejected the idea of Negroes ever playing the big top. Time marches on.’ ”[xxxix]
Of managing the women’s teams, Bancroft told Will Wedge, “It’s fun here, mixed with the usual headaches of a second division skipper, and it pays better than the minors. And it sure comes under the head of new experiences, and even at 57, and as gray-haired as I am, I can be attracted by novelty.
But don’t get me wrong. This girls’ baseball is more than a novelty, because it is good brisk baseball, and we give the customers a fast show, the games running only about an hour and a half. And I’m telling you that the adeptness of 99% of these dolls simply amazes me and their sport has caught on well in the Midwest.” “These girls just can’t get enough baseball. They want to bat for an hour before the game, but after twenty minutes on the mound, I’ve had more than enough exercise.”[xl]
Historian Merrie Fidler has also discovered that the AAGPBL planned, but apparently never held, another game in Yankee Stadium that season. “The (Kenosha) Comets and (Racine) Belles are scheduled in a nine-inning exhibition as a preliminary to the regular American League scheduled contest between Chicago and the Yankees…considerable interest has been evidenced throughout the East in the game played by the AAGBL after barnstorming tours by farm clubs last year. The two teams will fly by a chartered airliner to New York, and will return by air in time to resume their scheduled games at Fort Wayne and South Bend,” according to an article she found in the Scranton, PA Times Tribune.[xli]
In myriad interviews conducted over the last 30 years, since “A League of Their Own” was released, a trope emerges that these young women used their high salaries and newfound freedom to blaze new trails for their gender, which often involved higher education — at that time, not at all common for young women. Pat Brown’s autobiography repeats that pattern.
In a related article, Brown sums up, as no other player has done, the value of playing in the AAGPBL. This is the list of “Lessons from Pat Brown’s Baseball Life” that she wrote about: “Toughness, assertiveness, teamwork, belief in self, independence, broader perspective, acting under pressure, and courage.”[xlii] One quality she did not list was confidence. But she addressed it elsewhere: “I myself was only 17, 18 when I went out there to play. I was very shy, quiet through high school. The league changed me. It gave me confidence, it built me up. I finally realized that I wasn’t a freak because I was athletic. Before I started playing, people said to me ‘It’s wrong that you want to play baseball. It’s okay when you’re a little kid, when you’re a tomboy. Once I became a professional baseball player, I felt vindicated.”[xliii]
Pat would go on to earn not just her Master’s in library science, but also her law degree and a Masters in divinity.[xliv]
The entire tour was a rare opportunity for young women to expand their horizons through travel, athletic achievement, and making good money, while enlightening crowds and opening eyes all across North America. We’ll give the last word to Mary Moore: “Playing and getting to see the country like that and getting paid for it was more than you could ever dream of—I mean it was a dream come true—what else? You loved to play ball and you’re seeing the country and you’re traveling and everything and you couldn’t ask for anything more.”[xlv]
The author is grateful for research help from Dr. Merrie Fidler, Official Historian of the AAGPBL Players Association, Cassidy Lent and Rachel Wells of the National Baseball Hall of Fame library, former players Joanne McComb, Mary Moore, and Toni Palermo, Adam Berenbak of the National Archives, and historians Carol Sheldon and Ryan Woodward.
Grassroots Baseball correspondent Tim Wiles is a long-time advocate for women and girls in baseball, and the former director of research for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY. He is the author of two baseball books and dozens of articles. Catch his “Let’s Play Too” blog posts here at grassrootsbaseball.org.
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FOOTNOTES
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Stadium_(1923), retrieved October 31, 2022.
[ii] John Drebinger, “Yanks Bench DiMaggio, Stagger to 7-6 Victory Over Athletics,” The New York Times, August 12, 1950.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] No title. New York Herald Tribune, August 12, 1950, retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[v] W.C. Madden, “The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 1997, 220.
[vi] Joanne McComb, telephone interview, November 22, 2022.
[vii] Mary Moore, telephone interview, November 6, 2022.
[viii] Toni Palermo, telephone interview, November 6, 2022.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Merrie A. Fidler. “The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 2006, 110.
[xi] Patricia I. Brown. “A League of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 2003, 66.
[xii] Kat D. Williams. “Isabel ‘Lefty’ Alvarez: The Improbable Life of a Cuban American Baseball Star.” Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2020, 59.
[xiii] Joanne McComb, telephone interview, November 22, 2022.
[xiv] Joanne McComb. Hall of Fame Questionnaire, 1997. Need citation format.
[xv] Mary Lou Kolanko. Touching Bases, the newsletter of the AAGPBL Players Association, January 2005, 27.
[xvi] Retrieved from her biographical file at the Hall of Fame library.
[xvii] W.C. Madden, “The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 1997, 148.
[xviii] Patricia I. Brown. “A League of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 2003, 173.
[xix]“Brewers, ex-Comet preserve the legacy of the AAGPBL” by Andy Horschak. Undated clipping, likely from the Kenosha News, retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xx] Patricia I. Brown. “A League of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 2003, 67
[xxi] Dennis Daniels. “Move over Cobb, Ruth & Williams!” Boston Herald, October 12, 1988. Retrieved from her player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. Sept 30, 2022.
[xxii] Patricia I. Brown. “A League of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 2003, 162.
[xxiv] Joanne McComb, telephone interview, November 22, 2022.
[xxv] Mary Moore. Interview with AAGPBL historian Merrie Fidler, conducted by phone in March 2004. Interview transcript provided by Merrie Fidler.
[xxvi] https://www.aagpbl.org/history/league-history. Retrieved October 21, 2022
[xxvii] Mary Moore. Interview with AAGPBL historian Merrie Fidler, conducted by phone in March 2004. Interview transcript provided by Merrie Fidler.
[xxviii] Numerous articles retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xxix] Ibid. Numerous newspaper game advertisements.
[xxx] Tour schedule and results, retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xxxi] Typescript of schedule and results, retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xxxii] Mary Hayes. “Yank Stadium to Queen City: Diamond Damsels Hit With Patrons,” News (City Unidentified) retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xxxiii] Jim Sargent. “We Were the All-American Girls.” Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 2013. 281.
[xxxiv] Jessica Driscoll. “Former Pitman Resident Honored as Baseball First,” Gloucester County Times, Woodbury, NJ, July 5, 2010.
[xxxv] Katie Sartoris. “Annie O’Dowd recalls time spent in All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,” The Villages Daily Sun, The Villages, Florida, May 31, 2013.
[xxxvi] Pat Andrews. “Female Star Returns Downriver: LP grad depicted in ‘A League of Their Own,’” Heritage Newspapers/The News-Herald, Taylor, Michigan, October 25, 1995, 4-C.
[xxxvii] Patricia I. Brown. “A League of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.” Jefferson, N.C., McFarland & Company, 2003, 70-72.
[xxxviii] Ed Sainsbury. “Florida Nine Tries to Sign Woman Player. Unknown newspaper, August 3, 1950, retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xxxix] Tom Alesia. “Beauty at Short: Dave Bancroft, the Most Unlikely Hall of Famer and His Wild Times in Baseball’s First Century,” Chicago, IL: Grissom Press, 142-3.
[xl] Will Wedge. “Setting the Pace. (Substituting for Grantland Rice)” Unidentified Newspaper, August 5, 1948. retrieved from Liebrich-Barringer AAGPBL Tour Scrapbooks, (MSS 10, 1-D-2) National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, N.Y., September 30, 2022.
[xli] “Girl Ball Teams in Stadium Game: Jean Marlowe to Play in New York July 17,” The Times Tribune, Scranton, PA, May 31st, 1950. 41.
[xlii] Patricia I. Brown and Elizabeth M. McKenzie. “First Person… A Law Librarian at Cooperstown.” Law Library Journal, Volume 93:1. Winter, 2001.
[xliii] Liz Galst. “The Way It Was: A Real Professional Ballplayer Looks at League.” Boston Phoenix, Arts section. July 3, 1992. 7.
[xliv] https://www.aagpbl.org/profiles/patricia-brown-pat/219 retrieved November 1, 2022
[xlv] Mary Moore. Interview with AAGPBL historian Merrie Fidler, conducted by phone in March 2004. Interview transcript provided by Merrie Fidler.