Ruef: Home to Rockford Peaches to become home to women’s baseball center
From Randy Ruef at the Rockford Register Star on September 1, 2016, with mention of SABR member Perry Barber:
Rockford often is associated with women’s baseball, thanks to the movie “A League of Their Own.”
As of Saturday, the city will be the literal home of the sport.
That’s when the International Women’s Baseball Center, or IWBC, will dedicate its new permanent headquarters in a building across the street from Beyer Stadium. The stadium is the original home of the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was immortalized in the 1992 movie.
“This is big, and Rockford will now be our home base,” said Kathie Williams, a professor of women’s sports history at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and the president of the IWBC.
The IWBC was created about three years ago with the intent of having a facility that preserves and promotes women’s baseball. The nonprofit organization, made up of people from across the country, was based in Cathedral City, California, but didn’t have a bricks-and-mortar home.
Read the full article here: http://www.rrstar.com/sports/20160831/home-of-rockford-peaches-also-to-become-home-to-womens-baseball
Originally published: September 2, 2016. Last Updated: September 2, 2016.