Bunch: Toronto’s Depression-era beauty queen baseball star
From Adam Bunch at Spacing Canada on April 19, 2016:
Women have been playing baseball for as long as anyone can remember. And for much of that time, they’ve been playing despite the men who’ve tried to keep them off the field. In baseball’s early days, women were told they were much too fragile to swing a bat or field a grounder. Even Al Spalding, founder of the National League, said that women were welcome to sit in the stands and cheer for the men — but that was it.
“Neither our wives, our sisters, our daughters, nor our sweethearts may play Base Ball on the field,” he declared. “Base Ball is too strenuous for womankind, except as she may take part in the grandstands, with applause for the brilliant play, with waving kerchief to the hero of the three-bagger.” As if playing shortstop were somehow more physically demanding than, oh, say, giving birth.
Luckily, many women ignored that poor, Victorian advice. And when you look through the oldest photographs in the Toronto Archives, you’ll find plenty of women already there, playing baseball on diamonds all over our city. They were forming their own teams and their own leagues, drawing their own big crowds.
By the time the end of the 1930s rolled around, even Miss Toronto herself was getting in on the action.
Read the full article here: http://spacing.ca/toronto/2016/04/19/torontos-depression-era-beauty-queen-baseball-star/
Originally published: April 19, 2016. Last Updated: April 19, 2016.