Ocean State Libraries

Debra A. Shattuck pulls from newspaper accounts and hard-to-find club archives to reconstruct a forgotten era in baseball history. Her fascinating social history tracks women players who organized baseball clubs for their own enjoyment and found roster spots on men's teams. If the women faced financial exploitation and indignities, they nonetheless staked a claim to the nascent national pastime. Shattuck explores how the determination to take their...

"In this 1950s coming-of-age story, two sisters are left reeling when their father is accused of being a member of the Communist party. Bertha finds a haven with the All-American Girls Baseball League. Flossie finds herself in an unexpected friendship. Both are about to discover how much good there is in the world-even in the hardest of circumstances"--

While baseball is traditionally perceived as a game to be played, enjoyed, and reported from a masculine perspective, it has long been beloved among women, more so than any other spectator sport. This book upends baseball's accepted history to at last reveal just how involved women are, and have always been, in the American game. Through provocative interviews and deft research, Jean Hastings Ardell devotes a detailed chapter to each of the seven...

"Making My Pitch tells the story of Ila Jane Borders, who despite formidable obstacles became a Little League prodigy, MVP of her otherwise all-male middle school and high school teams, the first woman awarded a baseball scholarship, and the first to pitch and win a complete men's collegiate game. After Mike Veeck signed Borders in May 1997 to pitch for his St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, she accomplished what no woman had done...

"Abby is teased by her classmates, who call her "Pepper" because she loves eating peppers and who say that girls can't play baseball, but she decides to do what makes her happy and play in the local baseball league."--

Though most men had returned to their hometowns after World War II, few came back to the tiny village of Magrit, Minnesota. Irini, a nineteen year-old woman, works in the Scientific Kitchen at Margaret Mill, a cereal factory, with most of Magrit's other eligible bachelorettes. Hoping to promote his business and attract some suitors for his staff, the owner of the mill forms a women's baseball team called the Sweetwheat Sweethearts. Irini, who wields...

"In 1950, Kathryn Johnston wanted to play Little League, but an unwritten rule kept girls from trying out. So she cut off her hair and tried out as a boy under the nickname "Tubby." She made the team--and inspired future generations. An inspiring and suspenseful story about what it means to want to do something so badly you're willing to break the rules--and how, sometimes, breaking the rules can lead to change"--