Minneapolis Millerettes

As late as the 1980s, the softball/baseball Minneapolis Millerettes were one of Minnesota’s forgotten professional sports teams.1 Eventually, the Millerettes and other female ballplayers in the 1940s and 1950s got the spotlight they deserved. Reunions and the development of a players association led to an exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, a documentary, and a hit movie that created a new life and frequent media attention for those still alive.2

THE LEAGUE

The organization that became known as the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) began in 1943 as a result of Philip K. Wrigley, chewing-gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs, trying to hedge his bets. With the immediate future of men’s baseball in doubt because of World War II, Wrigley saw a women’s league as a way to keep ballparks in use if the American and National Leagues were forced to halt operations.

President Franklin Roosevelt saw baseball as a beneficial distraction during the war and allowed the white major leagues to continue with players not eligible for military duty. Just as Rosie the Riveter had been born and married women who had been banned from government and teaching jobs were welcomed into the workforce, women would play professional baseball.3

Even with the men’s game continuing, Wrigley moved ahead. Along with Cubs director and attorney Paul Harper and Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey, Wrigley announced in February 1943 that he had applied for articles of incorporation for the All-American Girls Softball League.4 The group was hoping to build on the popularity of women’s softball, which reportedly had 40,000 semi-professional teams in the United States.5

The game the girls and women played in that initial season was a baseball-softball hybrid. As the years passed, however, the ball got smaller and the diamond larger, and pitching evolved from underhand to sidearm to full overhand in 1949. In 1944, the ball was decreased from 12 to 11½ inches and the distance between bases lengthened from 65 to 68 feet. By the league’s final year, in 1954, the distance was 85 feet. The pitching distance was 40 feet in the first two years and gradually increased, finally reaching 60 feet in 1954.6

As the game evolved with the ball size, distances, and pitching styles, so did the league name. Although “Softball” was in the articles of incorporation, the term wasn’t used in the league name.7 Wrigley had one of his scouts scour the country to find players based on athleticism and femininity, not necessarily in that order. Some players were turned down for being “either too uncouth, too hard-boiled, or too masculine.”8

Traveling teams of female ballplayers can be traced back to the 19th century. While no evidence supported the charges, these barnstormers were sometimes accused of practicing “a profession considerably older than baseball,” according to Sharon Roepke in Diamond Gals.9 Wrigley wanted no such aspersion cast upon his players and assigned a coach-chaperone to each team.10 The regimen of spring training included a charm school, featuring instructors from the Helena Rubinstein Salon.

The femininity Wrigley sought was effective in some ways as the league even attracted groupies. Helen St. Aubin (Callaghan when she played for the Millerettes) told writer Nancy Randle, “Wherever we were, guys used to hang outside our hotel, hollering up to us. We’d throw our bras down to them.”11 Regardless of the image, there was no hiding the athletic talent of these women. Many were prominent in basketball, softball, field hockey, speedskating, and other sports.

The league began with four teams: the Racine Belles and Kenosha Comets in Wisconsin, Rockford Peaches in Illinois, and South Bend Blue Sox in Indiana. Two more teams were added in 1944, the Milwaukee Chicks and Minneapolis Millerettes.12

THE MILLERETTES

Claude “Bubber” Jonnard, a pitcher for the New York Giants in the 1920s, managed the Millerettes.13 The team had two Minneapolis players: catcher Lorraine Borg, who had attended West High School, and outfielder Peggy Torrison from North High. The two were locked into a contract with the Millerettes before attending spring training in Peru, Illinois, where other players were added to the team.14

The lessons in charm and femininity continued during two weeks of training camp and included conversation techniques, etiquette, posture, dress, makeup and hairdo for the outdoor girl, and how to attract the right kind of man as opposed to a wolf.15 “We giggled and laughed at that. It wasn’t what we expected to know,” said Borg (by this time Lorraine Alpin) in an interview with a Twin Cities television reporter in 2001.16

On the field, Minneapolis was led by right fielder Helen Callaghan, who had a .287 batting average and three home runs in 111 games. Callaghan’s sister Margaret also played for the Millerettes, and Helen later had a son, Casey Candaele, who played nine seasons in the major leagues with Montreal, Houston, and Cleveland. Another son, Kelly Candaele, later produced a documentary, A League of Their Own, which led to the popular movie of the same name.

Callaghan wasn’t the only Millerette who had a relative in the major leagues. The Minneapolis pitching rotation included Annabelle Lee, the aunt of Bill “Spaceman” Lee, who pitched with the Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox from 1969–82. Star pitcher Dottie Wiltse, who led the league in strikeouts during the underhanded period, was a relative of former majorleague pitchers Lewis and George “Hooks” Wiltse.17

The Millerettes were honored at a luncheon of the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association on Friday, May 26, and played their opener the next day at Nicollet Park, the regular home of the men’s Minneapolis Millers.18 Halsey Hall of the Minneapolis Tribune had already provided a preview the previous Sunday: “Common courtesy and the sweet little niceties accorded ladies go by the boards next weekend at Nicollet Park.”19

Minneapolis lost its opener, blowing a 3–0 lead and losing, 5–4, to the Rockford Peaches. Hall reported that a crowd of “several hundred” marveled at the throwing arm of shortstop LaVonne “Pepper” Paire and the “ground-covering, fly-catching genius” of center fielder Faye Dancer.20

Paire and Callaghan were reportedly among the players used to create the composite for the character of Dottie Hinson, portrayed by Geena Davis, in A League of Their Own, while Dancer has been credited (or blamed) as the inspiration for Mae Mordabito, portrayed by Madonna in the movie.21 The fictional “All-the-Way Mae” shared characteristics with the real-life Dancer, including a propensity for breaking curfew. According to author Sue Macy, over time, Dancer’s style drew a variety of fans, including mobsters in Peoria, where Dancer later played. Macy quotes Dancer: “Here would come this old Packard with bulletproof glass. The kingpin liked me…. He offered to buy my folks a new car. He offered me a golden palomino, and he said he’d put me up in the sporting-good business if I stayed in Peoria. I said, ‘Never.’ Once he even asked me if I wanted anyone killed. I told him maybe the umpire, but I made sure he knew I was kidding.”22

League historian Sharon Roepke characterized the play in the league as “few home runs; lots of squeeze plays.”23 She could have added, “Lots of stolen bases.” On June 7 in Racine, the Belles beat the Millerettes, 11–5, while stealing 24 bases.24 On July 1, the Peaches stole 18 bases against Minneapolis; catcher Edna Frank threw out only one runner in a 16–3 loss to Rockford.25

Despite the romping on the bases, runs were always at a premium. In a June 16 game against Racine, Wiltse held the Belles hitless for the first 10⅔ innings. She completed a six-hitter in 15 innings but was a 3–2 loser as Minneapolis left 22 runners on base. Wiltse posted a 1.88 earned-run average in 1944, and despite the lack of support she often received, finished the season with a record of 20–16.

League attendance in 1944 was initially well above that of the inaugural season, especially with the addition of the new teams, although the figures dwindled as the season went on. The new teams in Milwaukee and Minneapolis, cities that had competition from top-level men’s minor-league teams, struggled for attention and attendance more than the smaller cities.

Milwaukee tried drawing fans for a doubleheader against the Millerettes with a pregame concert of classical music, everything from Edvard Grieg’s “Heart Wounds” to Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane pour une Infante Défunte.” “Hot-dog and pop sales came to a hushed pause during the concert,” reported Time magazine. “Shushed by indignantly reverent ushers, the fidgety fans sat in embarrassed silence, stretched their voices in relief after the sacred ceremony of music.” The mix of music didn’t have a big effect, as the attendance for the doubleheader was only 659.26

The Millerettes played respectable baseball in the season’s early weeks, but a slump dropped them to the cellar, where they stayed, and Minneapolis closed out the first half of the season with a record of 23–36.27

The situation worsened in the second half. Few fans were coming to Nicollet Park, and other teams complained of the long road trips to Minneapolis to play before small crowds. As a result, in late July, the rest of the Millerettes’ home games were switched to other cities, and the team became known as the Orphans.28

A week into the team’s permanent road trip, Lee pitched a perfect game, the first in league history, in an 18–0 Millerettes win at Kenosha.

The team moved to Fort Wayne in 1945. Speaking at the national convention of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) in Minneapolis in July 1988, Roepke and colleague Danielle Barber blamed the Millerettes’ lack of support in Minneapolis on a “hostile press.”

“The media was [sic] antagonistic in Minneapolis compared to other cities, where the outcome of the games received banner headlines,” Barber said.29 Although banner headlines appeared in the cities that didn’t have minor-league teams, the Millerettes had good coverage at home. Their first game dominated the Sunday sports section of the Minneapolis Tribune with a notable headline and three large photos from the game.30 The size and placement of stories changed as the team’s performance, along with its attendance, declined. When the team left, first on its banishment to the road and then with a transfer to another city, few seemed surprised, and little was written about it in the newspapers.

The AAGPBL lasted for a dozen years, but Roepke said at the 1988 SABR convention, “It’s been written out of history.”31 The history was soon on the way back. Kelly Candaele’s documentary had just debuted in 1987, and by the end of 1988, the National Baseball Hall of Fame opened an exhibit devoted to women in baseball. The Candaele documentary lead to the 1992 movie and renewed exposure to the players, the league, and women’s baseball.

BRENDA HIMRICH was not born into a baseball family and came to it in the excitement of the Twins’ run to the World Series championship in 1987. When introduced to the Society of American Baseball Research by her future husband, Stew Thornley, she discovered that going to a ball game as a regular fan was like eating a plain hot dog, but knowing some history was like adding the mustard. Himrich has since worked for Major League Baseball as a Balls, Outs and Strikes Spotter and Field Timing Coordinator.

STEW THORNLEY—who is related by marriage to another author in this publication—has been a SABR member since 1979.

 

Authors’ Note

The authors benefited from the Baseball Index (https://baseballindex.org), which was created by SABR members Andy McCue and Ted Hathaway.

 

Additional Sources

A complete list of Millerettes games is at https://stewthornley.net/millersgames/1941.htm (go to the “1944-Millerettes” tab)

Candaele, Kelly, “Gas Money,” Elysian Fields Quarterly, Fall 2002, 24–32.

Khan, Aron, “They Were the Girls of Summer,” St. Paul Pioneer-Press Dispatch, July 9, 1988, 6A.

Madden, W.C., The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000.

Mehrer, Darlene Ann, “Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,” from a speech by Sharon Roepke, Base Woman newsletter, July 1987.

 

Notes

1 The anonymity of the league was evident as late as 1988 when Jean Havlish, a native of St. Paul, was inducted into the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame for her achievements as a bowler. Her plaque—which hung in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis for many years—did not mention her playing in the AAGPBL.

2 Among the players in Minnesota who made the spotlight was Nancy Cato (Nancy Mudge when she played in the league from 1950 to 1954). Cato was part of the featured player panel, along with minor-league home run king Joe Hauser, at the 1988 Society for American Baseball Research convention in Minneapolis.

3 Sue Macy, A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), 6. More about laws passed to bar married women from certain jobs is at https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-married-women-employment, accessed January 17, 2024.

4 “Cubs, Dodgers Act to Sponsor Girls’ Softball,” Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1943, 20.

5 “Ladies of the Little Diamond,” Time, June 14, 1943, 73.

6 “Rules of Play,” AAGBPL official website, https://www.aagpbl.org/history/rules-of-play; Macy, A Whole New Ball Game, 11.

7 Macy, xiii; Grant Provance, “All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL),” Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball, Leslie A. Heaphy and Mel Antony May, eds. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), 11. Provance maintains that the word “professional” was not added to the league name until after the creation of a players association in the 1980s. However, the designation is used in a pair of magazine articles in the 1940s. “Baseball, Maestro, Please,” Time, July 31, 1944, 70; and “Girls’ Baseball: A Feminine Midwest League Opens Its Third Professional Season,” Life, June 4, 1945, 63. Both refer to the organization as the “All-American Girls Professional Ball League.”

8 “Ladies of the Little Diamond,” 74.

9 Sharon L. Reopke, Diamond Gals: The Story of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, AAGBL Cards, 1986.

10 The Millerettes’s chaperone was Ada Ryan, according to the Minneapolis Star Journal, May 24, 1944, 20.

11 Nancy Randle, “Their Time at Bat: A Women’s Professional League that Made Baseball Herstory,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 5, 1992, 10–15.

12 The Minneapolis team has been identified historically as the Millerettes, the nickname used by two of the Minneapolis newspapers—the Tribune and the Star Journal. The other paper in town, the Daily Times, referred to them as the Minneapolis Lakers, a name adopted three years later by a basketball team that won six titles in the National Basketball League, Basketball Association of America, and National Basketball Association between 1947 and 1954.

13 Claude Jonnard and his twin brother, Clarence, were both known as “Bubber” although the nickname was associated more with Clarence when the brothers were players. Minneapolis newspapers referred to Claude Jonnard as Bubber when he managed the Millerettes. This perhaps led to confusion among historians, who identified Clarence as the manager of the Millerettes. However, contemporary news accounts of the Millerettes make it clear that the manager was Claude, not Clarence. Claude was known to local sportswriters because he had pitched for Toledo, Milwaukee, and Louisville in the American Association, the minor league that included the Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints. Local writers sometimes referred to his career as a visiting player in Minneapolis, confirming that the “Bubber” in Minneapolis in 1944 was Claude.

14 “It’s a Fact,” by Halsey Hall, Minneapolis Star Journal, May 25, 1944, 23. Hall reported, “Lorraine Borg and Peggy Torrison have it in their contracts that they will be roomies all season.”

15 “Baseball, Maestro, Please,” Time, July 31, 1944, 70.

16 Interview of Alpin by Kevyn Burger, which appeared in a feature story on the Millerettes that aired on WCCO Television August 2, 2001.

17 Carolyn M. Trombe, “Wiltsie (Collins), Dorothy ‘Dottie’” in Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball, Leslie A. Heaphy and Mel Anthony May, eds. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 314.

18 The Millerettes were tenants of the Millers, who owned Nicollet Park on leased property. The Millerettes worked out their schedule to not be at home at the same time as the Millers.

19 Halsey Hall, “All American Girls Softball League Opener Here Saturday,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, May 21, 1944, S3.

20 Hall, “Millerettes ‘Uncurled,’ 5–4,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, May 28, 1944, S1.

21 “Former Millerettes Star Dies,” Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities, Sunday, June 2, 2002, 2C.

22 Macy, A Whole New Ball Game, 82–83.

23 Presentation by Danielle Barber and Sharon Roepke to the convention of the Society for American Baseball Research in Minneapolis, July 8, 1988.

24 “Belles Trim Minneapolis, 11–5, in First Game of Home Stand,” Racine Journal-Times, June 8, 1944, 18. Borg was the catcher for Minneapolis.

25 This game occurred a week after Borg and Torrison had left the Millerettes to return to the local softball leagues. In her interview with Kevyn Burger on WCCO-TV, Borg Alpin said she need a break from catching and that Jonnard said their only other catcher [apparently Frank] couldn’t throw to second. “Why are we carrying her?” Borg Alpin asked. She added, “After we had that talk, every time I’d see him, he’d say, ‘You complaining again?’”

26 “Baseball, Maestro, Please.” From the list of Millerettes results, it appears that this doubleheader was July 2, 1944.

27 The 1944 season was divided into halves with the winners of each half meeting in a postseason tournament to determine the league champion.

28 “Millerettes Lost to City Rest of Year,” Minneapolis Tribune, Sunday, July 23, 1944, S1.

29 Barber and Roepke presentation to SABR.

30 Halsey Hall, “Millerettes ‘Uncurled,’ 5–4.”

31 Barber and Roepke presentation to SABR.