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Minneapolis Millerettes

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All American Girls Professional Baseball League members performing calisthenics in Opalocka, Florida. Black and White photo

The different baseball clubs pictured are (left to right): the Fort Wayne Daisies (partially visible), the Chicago Colleens, the Rockford Peaches, the South Bend Blue Sox, the Springfield Sallies, and the Peoria Redwings. Photographed on April 22, 1948. From the State Library and Archives of Florida’s Department of Commerce collection.

The short-lived run of the Minneapolis Millerettes brought professional women’s baseball to the Twin Cities. While providing entertainment during wartime and highlighting women’s athleticism on a national scale, the female players struggled against press perceptions and male competition. Their two-year run was immortalized in the film A League of Their Own.

At the height of World War II, over 1,000 professional baseball players were enlisted into service, leaving barebones major teams to recruit male players from the minor leagues. When that failed to fill the empty positions, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League looked to recruit women into the field of professional baseball.

The mass entrance of women into the workforce was an effort to fill vacated industrial jobs, and a similar substitution was made in the male-dominated world of sports. Philip K. Wrigley, Wrigley Chewing Gum Company CEO and the owner of the Chicago Cubs, financed the creation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Women were scouted from throughout North America, and tryouts were held at Wrigley Field. The selected players were compiled into four teams—the beginnings of the league.

The game initially resembled women’s professional softball, as many players were accustomed to pitching underhand, and gradually evolved to regulation baseball. Many National League stadiums refused to allow women to play in them, so teams were established in Midwest cities. The selected cities were central to wartime production, and the presence of baseball provided entertainment. It also kept up morale for male and female wartime workers, as well as their families. Due to the initial success, Wrigley expanded the league to two other major Midwest cities only two years later: Milwaukee and Minneapolis, the new home to the women’s team, the Minneapolis Millerettes.

The Millerettes played at Nicollet Park, sharing the stadium with the men’s minor league team, the Minneapolis Millers. Despite the lack of players many other teams faced, the Millers continued to play during World War II and competed with the Millerettes for an audience. General admission to both teams’ games was eighty-five cents. The games were publicized as “family-friendly,” and the female players’ behavior was expected to reflect that image. The League hired chaperones to supervise the women, and smoking, drinking, and dating were among forbidden behaviors.

Wrigley wanted to assure fans that women were not trying to take over the “men’s sport,” and thus promoted femininity above all else. Many of the players were from rural areas, and the league established charm schools to educate the women on proper behavior, training them on how to speak, dress, apply makeup, and “proper posture.” Tryouts were not far from a beauty pageant, as the women were chosen as much for their looks as for their playing ability.

The uniforms of the Millerettes consisted of maroon-colored knee socks and a short-skirted dress (either cream or pink, depending on whether it was a home or away game) emblazoned with the Minneapolis city seal. Although shorts were worn underneath, the dresses did nothing to protect the women from injuries; the “strawberry” scrapes across their legs gained from sliding were all too common. In newspaper articles covering the games, Millerettes were described as “dainty,” “pretty,” and ”statuesque.”

Former Major League Baseball catcher Clarence “Bubber” Jonnard managed the team during their 1944 season. The Millerettes’ lineup included sisters Margaret “Marge” Callaghan and Helen Callaghan, one of the leading hitters in the League. Despite the season’s enthusiastic start, the Millerettes were 23–36 at the end of the first half of the season. They did not make much improvement, and ended that season 45–72.

Box office sales began to decline due to competition with the Millers. Many other teams in the league complained of the travel distance to play at Nicollet Park; their closest competitors were 400 miles away in Rockford, Illinois. On July 23, 1944, the Millerettes became exclusively a traveling team throughout the Midwest, earning themselves the nickname “the Orphans.” In 1945, after one of the shortest durations in the AAGPBL, the Millerettes were relocated to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where they played as the Fort Wayne Daisies until 1954.

In 1987, Millerettes outfielder Helen Callaghan’s son Kelly Candaele and friend Kim Wilson paid tribute to the female players in the production of the documentary film A League of Their Own. It chronicled the Callaghans’ experiences of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which inspired Penny Marshall’s 1992 feature film of the same name.

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© Minnesota Historical Society
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All American Girls Professional Baseball League: 1944 Minneapolis Millerettes.
https://www.aagpbl.org/teams/minneapolis-millerettes/1944

“City May Lose Millerettes; Prexy Here to Make Decision.” Minneapolis Star-Journal, July 22, 1944.

Dirt on Their Skirts: The Minneapolis Millerettes.
http://forgottenminnesota.com/blog/2014/06/dirt-on-their-skirts-the-minneapolis-millerettes

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

Melvin, Andrea. “The All American Girls Professional Baseball League Uniform.” Dress 44, no. 2 (2018): 119–132.

“Millerettes Get Day Rest After Stopping Peaches.” Minneapolis Star-Journal, June 27, 1944.

“Millerettes Give Up.” Minneapolis Star-Journal, July 24, 1944.

“Millerettes Lost to City Rest of Year.” Minneapolis Morning TribuneMinneapolis Morning TribuneMinneapolis Star-Journal, May 26, 1944.

Weiller, Karen H., and Catriona T. Higgs. “The All American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1943–1954: Gender Conflict in Sport?” Sociology of Sport Journal 11 (1994): 289–297.

Yomtov, Nelson. The Belles of Baseball. Minneapolis: Essential Library, an imprint of Abdo Publishing, 2017.

Related Images

All American Girls Professional Baseball League members performing calisthenics in Opalocka, Florida. Black and White photo
All American Girls Professional Baseball League members performing calisthenics in Opalocka, Florida. Black and White photo
All American Girls Professional Baseball League members in Opalocka, Florida
All American Girls Professional Baseball League members in Opalocka, Florida
All American Girls Professional Baseball League player Marg Callaghan sliding into home plate as umpire Norris Ward watches (Opalocka, Florida)
All American Girls Professional Baseball League player Marg Callaghan sliding into home plate as umpire Norris Ward watches (Opalocka, Florida)

Turning Point

On May 27, 1944, the Minneapolis Millerettes open their season playing against the Rockford Peaches.

Chronology

1942

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) is formed by Philip K. Wrigley, Branch Rickey and Paul V. Harper to support professional baseball while many male players serve in World War II.

May 27, 1944

The Minneapolis Millerettes open their season, playing against the Rockford Peaches.

July 23, 1944

Due to poor attendance, distance from other cities, and too many losses, the Millerettes become an exclusively travelling team.

September 2, 1945

World War II ends, and many male baseball players return to professional teams.

1945

The team is relocated to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and renamed the Fort Wayne Daisies.

1954

The All American Girls Professional Baseball League ends.

1987

Former Minneapolis Millerettes outfielder Helen Callaghan’s son Kelly Candaele and friend Kim Wilson produce the documentary “A League of Their Own” for the Los Angeles PBS.

1992

Director Penny Marshall adapts the documentary for her film of the same name: “A League of Their Own,” a fictionalized portrayal of the AAGPBL.