The South Bend Blue Sox: A History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Team and Its Players, 1943-1954

Immortalized in the film A League of Their Own, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League debuted in 1943 as a way to fill ballpark seats should Major League Baseball suspend operations during World War II. Any fan expecting to see a watered-down version of the game was in for quite a surprise. The women on the field proved every bit as tough and competitive as their male counterparts, running with abandon, diving for catches, and sliding fearlessly, all while wearing uniforms with short skirts. This work examines the history of the league as seen through the eyes of the players and management and the experiences of the South Bend Blue Sox--one of only two teams to play in all 12 seasons of the league. Although players never saw themselves as revolutionaries, these daring heroines helped pave the way toward greater freedom of choice for the generations of women who followed.

Jim Sargent, a longtime professor of American history, retired as dean of the Social Science Division at Virginia Western Community College in 2010. Before that, he taught on the college and university level for more than 30 years. He lives in Roanoke, Virginia. Robert M. Gorman is a retired university reference librarian with more than 40 years of professional research experience. He received the 2009 Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award for the book he and David Weeks wrote, Death at the Ballpark (McFarland, 2009). He lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina.