All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association

 
 

AAGPBL Players Association News & Announcements

  • Lou Arnold has joined the great game in Heaven posted on 05/28/2010


  • Louise "Lou" Arnold, 87, passed away Thursday, May 27, 2010.

    A native of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Lou established permanent residence in South Bend in 1952. She first came to South Bend in 1948 to become a member of the South Bend Blue Sox of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.

    Lou spent four years with the team as a pitcher during which time she became so fond of South Bend and her many friends in the area that she chose to remain here.

    In 1951 Lou contributed significantly to the success of the Blue Sox in winning the AAGPBL League Championship. During that year she led the league with a winning percentage of .833, tossed 32 consecutive scoreless innings, pitched a one-hitter and had 9 complete games out of 11 starts.

    She had a thirty year career with Bendix Corporation where she worked on the brake line. After retirement in 1982 she focused much of her time and energy visiting friends and family and traveling to reunions of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, where she treasured the moments spent with former players of the league, as well as associate members of the Players Association.

    She spent countless hours responding to requests for autographs and corresponding with young athletes interested in hearing of her days in the AAGPBL.

    Lou was inducted into the South Bend Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005. Lou was a devoted fan of Notre Dame Women's Basketball. Her season ticket location, just behind the Irish bench, gave her plenty of opportunities to offer Muffet McGraw coaching tips and lend words of encouragement to the team.

    As the youngest of thirteen children, Lou selected #13 for her AAGPBL uniform.

    She is preceded in death by her parents, George & Mary Ann (McCormick) Arnold, seven brothers and five sisters. She is survived by nieces Rita Lampinski of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Ann Barrie of Esmond, Rhode Island, her close friend and caretaker, Beverly Cloud, and many nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews.
  • Dorothy "Kammie" Kamenshek passed away on May 17th, 2010 posted on 05/22/2010


  • Obituary: Dorothy Kamenshek / Player portrayed in 'A League of Their Own'

    Died May 17, 2010

    By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times

    Former New York Yankee first baseman Wally Pipp called Dorothy "Dottie" Kamenshek "the fanciest-fielding first baseman I've ever seen, man or woman."

    Spurred by the personal philosophy that "anything less than my best is failure", she was known to jump three or four feet in the air and to even do the splits to snag the ball at first base as a player for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

    Ms. Kamenshek, who had dealt with various health issues since suffering a stroke nine years ago, died Monday at her home in Palm Desert, said Bridget Burden, a friend. She was 84.

    The left-handed first baseman and lead-off hitter for the Rockford (Ill.) Peaches was one of the brightest stars of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

    She won back-to-back batting titles in 1946 and '47 and was the league's all-time batting leader with a .292 lifetime average. She also was selected to seven All Star teams (1943, 1946-51).

    In 1999, Sports Illustrated for Women named Ms. Kamenshek No. 100 on its list of the top 100 female athletes of the century.

    "She was the greatest ballplayer in our league," said Pepper Paire Davis, a catcher and 10-year veteran in the league who remained friends with Ms. Kamenshek. "She was one of the few ballplayers in our league who hit .300, which is like hitting .400 in the majors."

    Added Ms. Davis: "She had the complete game, including the brains. She could hit with power, she could bunt, she could run, she could slide, and she played a great defensive first base. She had what I call the three H's -- head, heart and hustle -- besides all the talent in the world as a ballplayer."

    Ms. Davis, who served as a technical adviser on "A League of Their Own," the 1992 movie about the league, said the character played by Geena Davis "was symbolically named Dottie as the best ballplayer in the league, and that was after Dottie Kamenshek."

    Ms. Kamenshek, whose team won four championships, was such an exceptional player that an attempt was made in 1950 by the Fort Lauderdale club of the Class B Florida International League to buy her contract. But the girls' league board of directors rejected the offer.

    League president Fred Leo told United Press at the time that he told the Florida negotiators that "Rockford couldn't afford to lose her. I also told them that we felt that women should play among themselves and that they could not help but appear inferior in athletic competition with men."

    Not that Ms. Kamenshek was interested in making what would have been a historic move.

    "I thought at that time it would just be a publicity stunt, and they wouldn't let me play", she recently told Marquette Magazine. "So I stayed where I was happy, in Rockford."

    A back injury caused her to leave the league in 1953, a year before its final season.

    Ms. Kamenshek, who earned a bachelor's degree in physical therapy from Marquette University in Milwaukee, moved to California in 1961. She worked as a staff physical therapist, supervisor and chief of therapy services for the Los Angeles County Crippled Children's Services.

    After retiring from the county in 1980, she treated patients in acute care on a part-time basis for the next six years.

    Born in Norwood, Ohio on December 21st, 1925, Ms. Kamenshek was a high school senior playing for an industrial league softball team in Cincinnati in 1943 when a scout for the new All-American Girls Professional Baseball League held tryouts in Cincinnati.

    She was among those selected to participate in the final tryouts at Wrigley Field in Chicago and was one of two Cincinnati girls to join the league.

    In the beginning, she told Marquette Magazine, they were "getting only 500 people in the stands, and then it got up to 10,000, which is good for a town that supports minor league baseball. Eventually, we won them over. At first they just came to see the skirts, and then we showed them we could play."

    She never considered herself the best player in the league, she said. "Other people did. I just went out and played every game to the best of my ability."

    Baseball, Ms. Kamenshek is quoted as saying in "Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball," a 1993 book by Barbara Gregorich, "gave a lot of us the courage to go on to professional careers at a time when women didn't do things like that."

    She had no immediate surviving family members. Surviving is her good friend Marge Wenzell, who also played in the AAGPBL.

    Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10142/1060053-122.stm#ixzz0oel7ZiUd

  • Edith Barney died March 23rd, 2010 posted on 05/13/2010
  • Edith Barney,who was known as "Little Red", was a catcher in 1948 with the Grand Rapids Chicks. Edith passed away on 3/23/2010.

    No further information is currently available.

  • Peaches Ballpark to be Rededicated posted on 05/13/2010

  • Beyers Field, home park of the Rockford Peaches has been restored and will be rededicated on June 5th, 2010.

    Beyers Field, aka The Peach Orchard, is located at 333 - 15th Avenue in Rockford (at the intersection of 15th Avenue and Seminary).

    The public is invited to attend festivities at the ballpark, scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m..

    Among the planned events are Rockford Peaches players sharing their memories of playing at the ballpark, as well as replica Peaches taking the field to catch "first pitches" from the real AAGPBL players.

    There will also be photo opportunities in front of the replica Peaches scoreboard, and an autograph session with the players, ending at 3 p.m..

    Please join the AAGPBL for a long overdue and much welcomed celebration of the restoration of the legendary Beyer Field!

  • Penny Cooke Obituary posted on 05/13/2010

  • PENNY COOKE was called out sliding home by the Umpire in the Sky on April 29, 2010.

    She was born in Smoky Lake, Alberta in 1919. She started playing baseball in Edmonton and married Earl Cooke in 1944, who was serving in the Canadian Navy. They lived in Alberta most of their lives until Earl's death in 1969.

    Her move to the Coast in 1981 showed her love and loyalty to her family. She played professional baseball in Saskatchewan before she was recruited to play for the Fort Wayne Daisies in the AAGPBL. She played for one year as Penny O'Brian and claimed it was the best year of her life.

    Penny attended several League reunions and went to Cooperstown when the league was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

    She was also inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on June 4th, 1998. The introduction: Blessed with blazing speed on the base paths, this Fort Wayne outfielder stole 43 bases in just 83 games during the 1945 season. From Edmonton, Alberta, meet Penny Peanuts (O'Brian) Cooke! Until 2 years ago she worked every day as chief cleaner and dishwasher for the family business Motion Foods.

    Her mourning fan club includes son Bob Cooke, daughters PenEarle Albers and Georgy (Bill) Good, grandchildren Brian (Kristine) Good, Shaela (Bal) Good-Bujar and Derek Good. Great-granddaughters Emily and Natalie and sisters Kaye and Micky.