The Belles of Baseball: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
CHAPTER ONE PLAY BALL It was Sunday September 17 1950 at Beyer Stadium in Rockford Illinois The final game of the best of seven championship series between the Rockford Peaches and the Fort Wayne Daisies had been played earlier in the day The Peaches crushed the powerful Daisies 11 0 to win the All American Girls Professional Baseball League AAGPBL title the team's fourth championship in eight years The stars of the game were Rockford pitcher Nickie Fox and slugging first basewoman Dorothy Kamenshek Fox the owner of a 14 12 record during the regular season racked up her third victory in the championship series the only pitcher in the league to ever accomplish that feat Batter Dorothy Harrell was a star player in her eight seasons with the popular Rockford Peaches one of the founding teams of the AAGPBL
Kamenshek slammed four hits including a home run and a triple while scoring five runs and driving in two Rockford's assault began in the first inning against Fort Wayne's starting pitcher Millie Deegan Deegan a crafty right hander hit two batters and walked a third to load the bases Jackie Kelley then slashed a single to drive home two runs In the second inning with Marilyn Jones on first base with two outs Deegan surrendered a long home run to Kamenshek The score stood at 4 0 Fort Wayne reliever Dottie Collins fared little better In the third inning Eleanor Callow greeted Collins with a ringing double and scored on a Charlene Barnett single Rockford roughed up Collins for four more runs in the fourth inning The big play was a double error by Fort Wayne infielder Evelyn Wawryshyn that allowed two runs to score Rockford closed out the scoring with runs in the sixth and eighth innings to notch the 11 0 shutout This Game Seven showdown was a fitting climax to the hard fought championship series Playing in front of an enthusiastic home crowd Rockford had won the first game 3 1 paced by a 15 hit attack and the stellar pitching of Fox The Peaches won Game Two 7 2 scoring all its runs in a wild second inning For Game Three the series moved to Fort Wayne's Zollner Stadium where the Daisies topped Rockford 7 3 on a wet and
rainy night The Daisies evened the series in Game Four 5 3 on a strong pitching performance by Maxine Kline the winner of 23 regular season games Game Five was a nail biter won by Rockford in ten innings 4 3 The Peaches scored two runs in the top of the tenth inning on an infield hit and a steal of home plate to pull ahead 4 2 Fort Wayne threatened to SECRET ORIGINS tie the score in the bottom Despite baseball being one half of the inning but fell of the world's most popular games the exact origins of short by one run With the sport are unknown Many historians agree baseball its victory the Peaches evolved from a combination held the series lead three of English folk games including stoolball cricket and games to two The series rounders Stoolball involved a pitcher fossing a ball toward shifted back to Rockford either a milking stool or a where the Daisies rapped piece of wood mounted on a stake known as a wicket A out an easy 8 0 victory to batter defended the wicket set up the dramatic Game by hitting the ball and running between wickets to score a Seven finale run In rounders players hit a leather cased ball with a bat Baseball has and scored by running around traditionally been four bases on the field Various versions of a bat and ball considered a man's sport game were played in rural Even in modern times parts of America as early as the 1740s By the early 1800s newspaper and magazine the game had spread to larger cities articles online features
