As early as 1450 young English ladies played stoolball, a game played with a ball and a bat that resembled an oversized ping-pong paddle. In the mid-1700s, cricket, a descendant of stoolball, had become popular and matches involving upper class English women were quite common. It was inevitable that these games would travel to early America, be popular with women there and eventually lead to their interest in baseball.
The Early Days of Women’s Baseball in America
When baseball developed in the early 1800s, it rapidly gained in popularity and became the new American sport. Following the Civil War, women were encouraged to participate in baseball as spectators. Rowdiness and rough tactics by the players had become quite common and it was hoped that the presence of women and their “genteel” manners would resolve these problems. However, some women wanted to be participants, not spectators, and there were efforts to organize teams for them.
Most of these early efforts originated among the upper classes. At Vassar College, two baseball teams, the Laurels and the Abenakis, were formed in 1866 through the encouragement of a female doctor who felt that exercise and good health went hand-in-hand. Later, Vassar and other colleges added more teams.
Unfortunately, these early teams were short-lived. Mothers protested against their daughters playing such an unladylike, violent sport; doctors claimed that such activity would lead to infertility or deformed babies; and, even some women believed that participation would make them less marriageable. Most of these teams eventually disbanded and did not return to the university level until the 1890s.
The First Professional and Barnstorming Women’s Teams
In 1867, at least three efforts were made to create women’s barnstorming baseball clubs in Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania. The Florida and Michigan teams were made up of ladies from the upper strata of society and participated under a strict set of rules including wearing “uniforms” consisting of bulky hoop skirts.
The third team, the Philadelphia Dolly Vardens, formed in 1867, had a little more significance in the history of the game. It was the first all-black women’s baseball team and, allegedly, the first paid baseball team on any level --- two years before the first men’s professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The team apparently folded after a short time, only to be revived again in the 1880s.
Between 1870 and 1890, attempts were made to organize other barnstorming clubs. Most of them generally had two things in common: They were made up of middle and upper class ladies and they didn’t play very good baseball. In Springfield, Illinois, two “professional” clubs, the Blondes and the Brunettes folded after four games. A newspaperman reporting one of their games wrote, “The whole affair was a revolting exhibition of impropriety, possessing no merit save that of novelty, and gotten up to make money out of a public that rushes to see any species of immorality.”
That the writer saw a connection between women playing baseball and immoral behavior reflected late nineteenth century social standards. When promoter Harry Freeman attempted to form a women’s professional league, a rumor spread that he was actually recruiting innocent young ladies for prostitution and was sued by one father. Philadelphia promoters upon fielding two teams assured the public that care was taken in seeing that only the most “respectable” of ladies were chosen from over 200 applicants --- variety actresses and other “improper” types were eliminated.
After 1890, however, the women’s game turned more serious with the appearance of the “Bloomer Girls,” and later professional teams whose players had more than adequate athletic skills.
Recommended reading: Berlage, Gai Ingham, Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History (Westport, CT: Praeger Trade,1994)
