Browne: Why Thelma Golden walked out on a pro baseball career in 1943
From Lois Browne at In Their Own League on August 15, 2013:
I think I’ve clarified why Thelma Golden, the ‘strike-out queen’ of Toronto softball in the late 1930s and 1940s who was assigned by the All-American Girls Softball League to play for the Rockford Peaches, returned home to Toronto before she played a game as a pro.
In Girls of Summer: In Their Own League, I wrote that other Canadian players had suggested Golden left because she wasn’t given the special privileges she demanded or that she had found the batters too much of a challenge.
But there seems to have been a much more sensible reason for Golden to give up prospects for a professional career.
Toronto’s Globe and Mail columnist Bobbie Rosenfeld, herself a well-known amateur athlete, heard from Golden during the tryouts.
Goldie says the squad of 75 is in strict training and no foolin’…Up at 7, breakfast at 7:30 and then a mile hike to Wrigley Field for workouts…Lights out every night at 11…This is the daily routine until May 26, when the lucky ones will be allotted to places on the proposed four teams…
After reporting a couple of days later that Golden had signed a contract and been assigned to the Rockford Peaches, Rosenfeld wrote that Golden had given it all up.
Read the full article here: http://intheirownleague.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/why-thelma-golden-walked-out-on-league-pro-career/
Originally published: August 19, 2013. Last Updated: August 19, 2013.