Girls Don't Play Baseball
By Suzanne
May 22, 1943
New Orleans, Louisiana
SPAR Barracks
“Belden!” The private in charge of distributing the mail yelled out and Trixie stepped forward to get her mail. There were three letters this week: one from Moms; one from Dan; and surprisingly enough one from her cousin, Hallie.
Trixie debated for a moment between opening her cousin’s letter or Dan’s, but in the end curiosity won out and she tore open the envelope from Hallie.
Dear Cuz, she read in her cousin’s, slanting angular scrawl.
Aunt Helen told me where to write to you. How are things going in the Coast Guard?
Bet that you are surprised to be hearing from me but I just did something so great that I had to tell somebody and for some reason, you sprang to my mind.
I’m going to play baseball! About two or three weeks ago, a scout came to one of the games that my team from the Belden mine was playing against the Mosteller Dairy team from town. I had three great hits in the game and afterwards, Lou Robbins, that’s the scout, came by the house to talk to me…
Trixie stopped reading as she heard her name being called.
“Earth to Trixie” her roommate, Anne Swanson, said again with a laugh. “You just walked right past our room. Is that a letter from Sergeant Danny boy?”
Trixie flushed at the mention of her fiance’s name, but shook her head as she followed Anne into their plainly furnished room. “It’s from my cousin, Hallie, in Idaho.”
“I didn’t know that you had a cousin.” Anne said as she dumped her own letter and a care package from her family down on the bed.
“Unhuh,” Trixie said absently, her blue eyes drifting back down to her cousin’s letter. “Three of them actually Hallie, has two older brothers.”
“Are they good looking and single?” Anne asked with a gleam in her bright blue eyes. “South Dakota isn’t that far away from Idaho you know.”
“Cap is. Knute married Gloria last fall before he went into the Marines. Cap is a CO.”
“Oh,” Anne replied her face falling as she reached for one of her own letters. A conscientious objector was not high on her list of desirable dates. Trixie went back to reading Hallie’s letter again.
…Lou Robbins, that’s the scout came by the house to talk to me. He said that a bunch of business owners headed by Mr. PK Wrigley, the chewing gum guy, were putting together a girls baseball league and he wanted me to try out.
Dad and Mom are down in South America again and Cap is off in the woods fighting fires or something, so I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission before saying yes.
Next thing I knew, I was in Chicago trying out for the league with all of these other girls. There must have been a couple of hundred at least. We were divided up into groups at Wrigley Field and put through all sorts of exercises. Throwing, catching, running, hitting, you name it we did it. I must have acquitted myself well, Trix, because two days later I found out that I made one of the teams. I’m now a proud member of the Kenosha Comets.
I really like my roommate. Her name is Elizabeth, but she said to call her Liza. She’s a few years younger than I am, but we have so much in common. She has two older brothers and her sister-in-law is going to have a baby soon just like Gloria. Liza also has a younger sister which I envy, but she says her sister is kind of a nuisance most of the time. The other thing we have in common is that her family owns a copper mine in Manitoba, Canada. Did I forget to mention that she’s Canadian? There are lots of them in the league.
The salaries that they are paying are crazy cool. I’ll be earning $50 a week plus my uniforms and travel expenses. There are fifteen girls on each team plus we get a major league manager and someone to handle all of the business stuff and of course a chaperone.
One of the clauses in our contracts state that we(the players) must at all times look and act as feminine and ladylike as possible so we have to go to beauty school at night. Can you just picture me in charm classes? I’ve attended three so far and am being taught the proper way to be introduced to someone and how to brush my hair and put on face powder and all sorts of other useless stuff like that. Yuck!
But I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. Wait until you get a load of the uniforms they designed for us to wear. I have to play in a dress, a really short dress with satin bloomers underneath the skirt. I foresee a lot of scraped legs in my future from sliding into bases. I’ll send you a photograph as soon as I get one.
Better close now, got to get ready for charm class tonight.
Hallie
“My cousin, Hallie, is going to play in that new girl’s baseball league that they are starting up in Chicago.” Trixie said looking up from the letter she had just finished reading.
“What!” Anne exclaimed in surprise. “Girl’s baseball?”
“Sure, don’t you remember that editorial announcement that was on the radio last week” Trixie answered with a smile. “The one where playing sports makes a girl unfeminine and unladylike and is going to ruin us for all of the soldiers when they come home.”
“Oh, yeah,” Anne agreed laughing at the memory. “Those old biddies were a scream weren’t they?”
“Would you say that I am unfeminine and unladylike” Anne asked standing up and twirling around daintily. “As the only girl in a family of seven kids, I was always following my brothers around trying to do whatever they were doing.”
“I always tagged around after Brian and Mart too.” Trixie replied standing up and extending her hand to her tall blonde roommate. “Would you care to dance, Miss Swanson?”
“I would be delighted, Miss Belden.” Anne took Trixie’s proffered hand and they began twirling around the room being careful not to bump into the beds or dressers in the small room.