Yolande Teillet

Yolande Teillet’s publicity photo upon joining the Fort Wayne Daisies in 1945. (Courtesy Manitoba Aboriginal Sports & Recreation Council)

 

In 2022 the Manitoba Indigenous Sports Hall of Fame was launched as a project of the Manitoba Aboriginal Sports & Recreation Council to publicly document the countless ways in which Indigenous peoples have served as athletes, coaches, and builders in the province of Manitoba.1 Among the inaugural class of inductees was a Métis woman, Yolande Teillet Schick, whose professional sports career had begun over 80 years before. Teillet’s induction served as an important recognition not only for Indigenous and Métis citizens, but also for women in baseball as well as elite athletes throughout Canada.

She was born Yolande Marie Sara Jeanne d’Arc Teillet on September 28, 1927, to Camille Teillet and Sara Riel in St. Vital, Manitoba, a neighborhood just south of Winnipeg. Métis leader and Canadian politician Louis Riel was her great-uncle. Teillet’s older brother, Roger J. Teillet, was later a politician who served as minister of veterans affairs from 1963 to 1968.2 Teillet’s father was French and her mother Métis, an aboriginal group of people in Canada of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry.3 Often politically marginalized throughout Canadian history, the Métis, including many of Teillet’s family, have worked toward gaining proper legal recognition and protections. Despite the lack of opportunities for Indigenous women and girls in the 1930s, especially in sports, softball was growing in popularity in the Prairie provinces of western Canada. Girls’ softball leagues were springing up everywhere, even in tight-knit Métis communities, attracting the attention of young athletic girls like Yolande Teillet.

Away from the softball diamond, Teillet worked at Eaton’s Department Store and like most everyone at the time, thought constantly about the ongoing World War. Her brother Roger, a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, had been a prisoner of war in Germany since 1942.7 He would eventually return home in 1945 just as Yolande was turning pro as a ballplayer. Contributions to the war effort became part of Teillet’s duties with the Tigerettes. She was chosen to participate in an all-star game benefiting Chinese War Relief. “The All-Star game will be seven innings and should be one of the treats of the season for followers of this sport,” the Winnipeg Free Press reported in August of 1944. “It is hoped some 6,000 people will be on hand to give their aid to the valiant Chinese next Wednesday night.”8 As for regular league play, the Tigerettes continued to excel despite losing Audrey Haine to the All-American League earlier in the year. Pitcher Marg Sutton threw a no-hitter for St. Vital in July 1944. Truly a team effort, it was reported the next morning in local papers: “Sutton’s no-hit game was made possible by two great plays in the last inning by Yolande Teillet and Dot Ferguson. Both drew rounds of applause from the fine crowd in attendance.”9 Increased competition prevented the Tigerettes from reaching the championship finals in 1944, although the program remained strong, winning several provincial titles heading into the 1950s.10

With this high level of play and other Manitoba softball stars having performed well professionally for two seasons in the United States, it was only a matter of time before scouts from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League would take notice. A brief announcement in the Winnipeg Tribune on September 26, 1944, states, “Gals Get Offers: Dot Ferguson, Joan Henderson, and Yolande Teillet of St. Vital Tigerettes of the Senior Girls Softball league have received offers from the All-American Girls’ Softball league. It is not known whether they’ll accept or not.”11 Henderson would continue to have a storied career in Manitoba softball for many years. Ferguson and Teillet headed south to Chicago and embarked on a shared journey as professional ballplayers. As Teillet told a reporter decades later, “When I was working at Eaton’s, I was making $18 a week,” compared to the $55 a week she made playing in the All-American League. Not in it just for the money, however, she added, “I played because I loved baseball.”12 The decision to turn professional and play at a higher level was not a difficult one.

The league Teillet entered was relatively new and while each season brought changes – whether rules of the game, field dimensions, or relocated teams – 1945 proved to be a pivotal year in the league’s history. First, the underwhelming response from expansion into the larger cities of Milwaukee and Minneapolis in 1944 caused league officials to focus on smaller industrial cities, expanding eastward to Indiana and, for the first time, Michigan. Second, during the offseason, ownership of the league changed hands from Philip K. Wrigley to his advertising director, Arthur Meyerhoff. Part of Meyerhoff’s restructuring of the organization included a central governing board composed of representatives from each league city, meaning all teams now had a say in the direction of league operations and ideas about rule changes. Max Carey, manager of the 1944 league champion Milwaukee Chicks, served as league president. Finally, Meyerhoff’s increased promotion of the players’ athletic skills, along with the wholesome image conveyed in the previous two seasons, set the league up for what many consider to be its peak year in terms of attendance, quality of play, and media exposure.

The All-American League’s final tryouts and spring training took place at Wrigley Field in Chicago in 1943 and Washington Park in Peru, Illinois, in 1944. The league returned to Chicago in 1945 with a series of drills and exhibitions at Waveland Park in order to field six teams for the second consecutive year. A Life magazine article in June 1945, reintroduced the league to a nationwide audience with both staged photos and action shots of standout players.13 Completing the article is a two-page spread photo of all six teams in which Teillet appears in the second row among her teammates, the newly minted Fort Wayne Daisies. The six teams paired off for tours of military bases en route to their home cities and played exhibition games for Stateside troops.

 

The 1943 St. Vital Tigerettes softball team featured several players who turned professional. Yolande Teillet is at the far left of the front row. (Courtesy Manitoba Sports & Recreation Council)

 

Eleven players from the Minneapolis Millerettes comprised the majority of the Fort Wayne roster when the franchise relocated there ahead of the 1945 season. Of the 20 players who appeared in a Daisies uniform that year, eight were from Canada, including Teillet’s former Tigerettes teammate Audrey Haine. Fellow St. Vital alumna Dottie Ferguson was assigned to the Rockford Peaches, appearing with that team through the final season of 1954. Although the charm-school exercises famously reported during the league’s first two seasons were no longer part of the players’ spring-training agenda, rules on comportment and appearance standards were still enforced by each team’s chaperone. The Daisies employed Helen Rauner in this role, a local woman only a couple of years older than most of her players.14 Players typically stayed in private homes with regular check-ins from the chaperone. This level of guidance and responsibility often convinced parents that the league was a first-rate operation for their daughters, including Teillet, who at 17, was one of the youngest players in the league.15 At the helm was first-year AAGPBL manager, Bill Wambsganss. A major-leaguer 20 years prior, Wambsganss is best known for being the only player to complete an unassisted triple play during a World Series.

By the time the Daisies played their first home game at Northside High School’s football stadium, just a block from the St. Joseph River in Fort Wayne, the roster was set with eventual league stars.16 Speedy basestealers and hard hitters Helen Callaghan and Faye Dancer patrolled the outfield. Haine, along with Annabelle Lee and strikeout queen Dottie Wiltse, anchored the pitching rotation. Solid defense was found in infielders such as Vivian Kellogg, Margaret Callaghan, and Lavonne “Pepper” Paire; and catching in 110 games that season was Ruth “Tex” Lessing, who would be honored as the league’s All-Star catcher for the following three years. It was no doubt a difficult lineup to break into for a rookie, but Teillet still appeared in 10 games and hit a respectable .231 in 13 at-bats in 1945.17

The Daisies were an immediate hit with hometown fans when their season opened in May 1945. The team nickname had been chosen via a panel of judges tasked with selecting a name from thousands of submissions.18 Like other All-American teams, the uniform featured the host’s city seal on a patch affixed to the center of the chest. In this case, an outer ring reading “City of Fort Wayne Indiana” encompassed a smaller circle that includes typical municipal symbols – a caduceus, a sword, and scales of justice. The Fort Wayne seal also features the word “KE-KI-ON-GA” referring to the capital village of the Miami tribe, located at the center of what is now Fort Wayne. The Daisies also inherited the Millerettes’ pink uniforms, of which a replica anchors the AAGPBL exhibit at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

New cities, talented rookies, and for the first time, bus travel for teams that previously used trains all made for an exciting season in which camaraderie among teammates flourished. Years later, former players might remember an exceptional play or a come-from-behind win, but most will reflect on the friendships made and fun they experienced. Teillet once recalled deliberately missing a pitch while catching so as to hit a disagreeable, tobacco-chewing umpire. “The pitcher threw the ball … and it got him right in the stomach and you could see this snuff come out. The girls were laughing so hard we couldn’t play for a few minutes.”19

Another change in operations for the league’s third season was the introduction of the Shaughnessy Series format for playoffs, in which the top four teams compete in a single-elimination tournament to declare a champion. The first two seasons relied on a first-half winner vs. second-half winner structure. Thanks in part to stellar hitting from Helen Callaghan, 1945’s batting champion (.299), Fort Wayne remained in second place for much of the season, ensuring the team’s spot in the postseason. Teillet recorded two at-bats in four games against Racine in the opening round and is credited with one putout in the championship finals, which Rockford won four games to one.20 Still, 1945 was a successful season for the fledgling Daisies and a preview of what was to come as the league grew in popularity.

Season four of the All-American League introduced more changes for its players. In this season, the ball was slightly smaller, the basepaths and pitching distance slightly longer, and pitchers could now use a side-arm delivery in addition to the underhand that had been in use since 1943. The league again expanded to eight teams with new franchises in Muskegon, Michigan, and Peoria, Illinois. Also, for the first time, spring training was held outside of Illinois, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Teillet personally encountered another adjustment to make for the new year, having been assigned to the Grand Rapids Chicks.

The Grand Rapids roster had several holdovers from the 1944 league champion Milwaukee Chicks, including infielders Doris Tetzlaff, Ernestine Petras, and Alma Ziegler; pitchers Jo Kabick and Connie Wisniewski; and, returning to the outfield after a year’s absence, slugger Pat Keagle.21 Making the move with Teillet from Fort Wayne was catcher Ruth “Tex” Lessing, embarking on her first season as an all-star. By midseason Teillet’s former Tigerette and Daisies teammate, Audrey Haine, would join the Chicks’ pitching rotation. Former player Dottie Hunter began her third season as the Chicks’ chaperone and former major- and minor-player Johnny Rawlings joined as a manager for his first of eight seasons in the league.

The Chicks’ home stadium, South Field, was yet another football stadium with a baseball diamond cut into one corner during the summer months. A factory building next door resulted in a shortened right field that became a trademark of games in Grand Rapids. With limited appearances behind the plate, Teillet’s strong arm gained her playing time in either the abbreviated right field or endless left field of the Grand Rapids ballpark. By season’s end, Teillet was once again on the second-ranked team, although Grand Rapids lost in the first round of playoffs to Rockford, which eventually lost the championship to Racine.23 With just five game appearances, Teillet finished the 1946 season with a .167 batting average.24

The 1947 season brought even more change to the AAGPBL, most notably league-wide spring training internationally in Havana. The same eight teams participated in the league’s fifth season, with the same field dimensions and baseball circumference. This year, however, pitchers were exclusively required to use a full side-arm delivery. The league’s spring training in Cuba attracted much attention from local baseball fans and media alike. With league teams becoming more established in their home cities, as well as increased – and now international – media coverage, the 1947 season was perhaps the apex year of popularity for the league before expansion, management decisions, and other forms of entertainment signaled its decline a year later.

Teillet joined her Grand Rapids Chicks teammates for spring training in Havana and is present in numerous pictures, both in organized team photos and casual shots from league photographers. By the end of spring training, however, she is seen seated front and center with the Kenosha Comets in their official team photo – the only one without a Kenosha patch on her uniform. Last-minute allocations were not uncommon during the spring-training process. Unfortunately for Teillet, 1947 was be the season Grand Rapids won its first championship while her new team, the Comets, spent much of the year in last place.

Another advantage of hosting spring training far from league cities was the opportunity for teams to pair up on exhibition tours on their way back home. This not only spread news of the league to those unfamiliar with its existence, but often benefited the hosting cities and local charities financially and also served as excellent recruiting tools as teams hosted individual tryouts with local players. Exhibition tours also afforded playing time for less experienced players. For example, on one such tour stop in Charlotte, North Carolina, Teillet, filling in for a regular starter, and pitcher Janice O’Hara, a utility player turned pitcher thanks to the new side-arm rule, dazzled the crowd in a game against South Bend on May 14, 1947. “O’Hara, one of the most spirited players on the Comets with a ‘will to win’ all the way, was effective throughout the game. She missed a shutout when Bonnie Baker hit down the third base line for a home run in the sixth inning,” reported a Kenosha newspaper. The report continues, “With the exception of “Yo Yo” Tillay [sic] behind the bat for Dottie Naum and Martha Haines at second for Betty Fabac, the Comets presented their full strength and played impressive ball.”25

A week later, as the Comets prepared for their season opener against the Belles in Racine, the “new Comets” were special guests at a number of civic functions as all of Kenosha was seemingly excited for the coming season. A photo caption on May 21 reads: “WELCOME NEW COMETS – The Kenosha Comets, 1947 combination, were guests of the Rotary club at a luncheon at the Elks’ club Tuesday with Judge Edward J. Ruetz, president of the organization sponsoring the team, on hand with Shirley Jameson, who says she will retire this season extending the official greeting to new girls. From left; Mary Wood, Yolanda Teillet, Jameson, Ruetz, Claire Lobrovich, Martha Haines, Mona Denton, and Dorothy Naum.”26 Two days later, the same six players are featured as “Sensational New Players Added to Kenosha Comets Roster” in a full-page Kenosha Evening News ad promoting the team’s home opener on May 25 at Lake Front Stadium against the Rockford Peaches.27 For Teillet, the season was short-lived, however. An illness in the family and an aggravated thumb injury from the previous year resulted in her exit from the league. Her stats for 1947 reveal two games played with a career-high .333 batting average.28

Post-league life for Teillet meant a return to Canada, and for a while, to St. Vital Tigerettes softball. She married William Schick, a farmer and later proprietor of a service station, and the couple raised nine children.29 The following years found Teillet bowling, coaching softball, volunteering, and being very involved in her children’s education. Forty years after Teillet’s professional baseball career ended, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League entered a period of rediscovery among the public, and numerous accolades for all former players became routine. First, the league became the primary focus of a new Women in Baseball exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, in 1988. Redesigned as “Diamond Dreams: Women in Baseball” in 2006, the exhibit features a listing of all known AAGPBL players and years played, including Teillet and nearly 600 others. The 1992 film A League of Their Own introduced the league to generations of new fans and many former players found themselves celebrities again attending screenings and sitting for interviews. Evelyn Wawryshyn Moroz, Mary Kustra Shastal, and Yolande Teillet Schick all attended the Winnipeg premiere of the film and were introduced to the audience.30

In 1995, Larry Fritsch Cards produced its first AAGPBL Series, in which Teillet is card number 197. Her brief bio mentions the Tigerettes and the three teams for which she played. The card’s front features a photo of her in a Grand Rapids uniform.31 More honors followed in June of 1998, specifically for former players from Canada. First, all 64 former AAGPBL players from Canada were inducted as a group into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ontario. Days later, the 11 “Manitoban All-American Girls” were likewise inducted as a group into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in Morden.32 In addition to the Manitoba Indigenous Sports Hall of Fame induction in 2022, Teillet’s name is included in a Fort Wayne memorial unveiled in June of 2023 listing all former Daisies.

Yolande Teillet Schick died on January 26, 2006, at the age of 78, survived by her nine children and 21 grandchildren.33 She is buried next to her husband in St. Vital, where she was born and raised. Though her professional athletic career was brief, it is no less remarkable or surprising, given her accomplished family, that she rose to the height of her field through disciplined work matched only by natural talent. Teillet’s unique participation in baseball and contributions made to each of her teams remain a model for Indigenous and Métis athletes and also women in baseball.

RYAN WOODWARD created the inaugural Women in Baseball Week in 2017 and continues to develop projects commemorating women in baseball, including the Women’s Baseball Heritage Trail. Ryan is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the International Women’s Baseball Center and is currently the full time IWBC Project Coordinator. He lives in Rockford, Illinois.

 

Acknowledgments

Photographs of the 1943 St. Vital Tigerettes and Yolande Teillet in 1945 Fort Wayne Daisies uniform are courtesy of the Manitoba Aboriginal Sports & Recreation Council.

Special thanks to Mark Davis for preliminary research and gathering important sources needed for this project. For guidance and support, many thanks to Gary Belleville, Leslie Heaphy, Bill Nowlin, Barrett Snyder, and Kat Williams.

 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted:

Davis, Pepper Paire. Dirt in the Skirt (Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2009).

Fidler, Merrie A. The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers), 2006.

Heaphy, Leslie A., and Mel Anthony May. Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers), 2006.

Henderson’s Winnipeg Directory (Winnipeg: Henderson Directories), 1948.

Kenow, L.J. “The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL): A Review of Literature and Its Reflection of Gender Issues,” Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal, 2010, 19(1), 58-69.

Kinsley, Lesley. “From the Prairie Fields to the Glamor League: Women’s Softball in Canada and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,” Journal of Canadian Baseball 2 (1) (2023). https://doi.org/10.22329/jcb.v2i1.8340.

 

Notes

1 “Manitoba Indigenous Sports Hall of Fame & Museum,” Manitoba Indigenous Sports Hall of Fame, 2024, https://www.mishof.com/.

2 Lawrence Barkwell, “The Accomplished Teillet Family,” The Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture, accessed October 2, 2024, https://www.metismuseum.ca/resource.php/07243.

3 Adam Gaudry, “Métis,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, January 7, 2009, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/metis.

4 “Yolande Schick,” Manitoba Aboriginal Sports & Recreation Council Hall of Fame, accessed October 7, 2024, https://www.mishof.com/yolande-schick.

5 “St. Vital Squares Series With C.U.A.C.,” Winnipeg Free Press, September 15, 1943: 12.

6 “Yolande Schick,” MASRC Hall of Fame.

7 Barkwell.

8 “Chinese War Relief Show Appeals,” Winnipeg Free Press, August 5, 1944: 12.

9 “St. Vital Girl Hurls No-Hitter,” Winnipeg Tribune, July 19, 1944: 14.

10 “St. Boniface Squares Playoff,” Winnipeg Tribune, September 9, 1944: 12.

11 “Gals Get Offers,” Winnipeg Tribune, September 9, 1944: 12.

12 Paul McKie, “Field of Memories: Manitoba Women Fondly Recall Their Days as Pro Baseball Players,” Winnipeg Free Press, July 3, 1992, sec. C, https://www.mishof.com/yolande-schick.

13 “Girls’ Baseball: A Feminine Midwest League Opens Its Third Professional Season,” Life, June 4, 1945: 65.

14 Larry Fritsch Cards, “AAGPBL Baseball Card Sets: Series 2” (Stevens Point, Wisconsin: Larry Fritsch Cards, LLC, 1996), 308.

15 Lynn Ruester, “No Crones in Girls League,” Evening Courier (Urbana, Illinois), June 12, 1945,

16 Don Graham, Daisies, Diamonds, & Dugouts: The Fort Wayne Daisies Story (D.F. Graham, self-published, 2021), 29.

17 W.C. Madden, The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book: Comprehensive Hitting, Fielding and Pitching Statistics (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2000), 229.

18 Graham, 28.

19 Judy Fostey-Owen, “The Girls of Summer,” Winnipeg Sun, June 27, 1992, sec. Inside Sports, 48.

20 Madden, 105.

21 “List Girls’ Loop Lineups: Reveal 1946 Rosters of 8 Teams in All-American Pro Ball League,” Kenosha (Wisconsin) Evening News, May 9, 1946: 18.

22 Michael Petrie, “Female Talent Honored,” Winnipeg Sun, October 21, 1997: 44.

23 Madden, 109.

24 Madden, 229.

25 “Jerry O’Hara Pitches Five-Hit, 4-1 Win: Comets Go One Up on Benders in Exhibitions,” Kenosha Evening News, May 15, 1947: 16.

26 “Comets Open at Racine Tonight; Helen Fox on Mound: Three of Six New Kenosha Players Bow,” Kenosha Evening News, May 21, 1947: 14.

27 “Kenosha Comets Open 5th Season,” Kenosha Evening News, May 23, 1947: 16.

28 Madden, 229.

29 Madden, 238.

30 Fostey-Owen, “The Girls of Summer.”

31 Larry Fritsch Cards.

32 “Diamond Girls Enter Baseball Halls of Fame,” Winnipeg Sun, June 3, 1998: 57.

33 “Yolande Schick (Teillet) Obituary,” Winnipeg Free Press, January 30, 2006, sec. Passages, https://passages.winnipegfreepress.com/passage-details/id-104844/SCHICK_YOLANDE.