All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
CONTACTS:
Kat Williams,  AAGPBL-PA Board Member
304-617-4474 or williamskath@marshall.edu

Sue Macy, Former Board Member
201-567-3620 or sue@suemacy.com

BATTER UP!
Announcing the First-Ever AAGPBL Writers' Contest

October 19, 2011--Lois Youngen, president of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Players Association (AAGPBL-PA),  announced a writers' contest open to students in grades 6, 7, and 8 in the United States and Canada. The contest, “Batter Up!,” challenges students to write a 500 to 750 word essay that explores the legacy of the AAGPBL. The Grand Prize is a trip for two to the 2012 AAGPBL reunion in Syracuse and Cooperstown, New York.

Youngen, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, made the announcement from San Diego, California, where the AAGPBL-PA held its 2011 reunion.  “We want to encourage young people to reflect upon the legacy of our league,” said Youngen. “Many of our members became teachers after our playing days, so we know how curious and creative young people can be. We’re inviting them to do a little research about our league and to consider its impact.”

Specifically, students will be required to answer one of three questions:

1. Why was the AAGPBL important to the history of girls and women in the United States and Canada.

2. Why do you think it’s important that people remember the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League years from now?

3. Which All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player (living or dead) do you wish you could meet, and why?

All entries should be made electronically on an entry form available at a special section of the Players Association Web site: www.aagpbl.org/index.cfm/contest. The entry deadline is March 18, 2012, during Women’s History Month, and all winners will be contacted on or about May 30, 2012. The winners will be announced on the website. Besides the Grand Prize Winner, who will attend the AAGPBL Players Association Reunion from September 19-23, 2012, there will be four Runners-Up, each of whom will receive an AAGPBL prize pack with league memorabilia including a collectible baseball and bat signed by former players. Winners who list a sponsoring teacher on their entry forms will also win one or more age-appropriate books for that teacher’s classroom, along with a DVD of the film, A League of their Own. The essays of the Grand Prize Winner and the Runners-Up will be posted on the AAGPBL Website at aagpbl.org/contest by fall 2012.

Next year's reunion will mark the 20th anniversary of the film, A League of Their Own, which brought the AAGPBL unprecedented public recognition almost 40 years after the League's demise. The league was started in 1943 by Chicago Cubs' owner Philip K. Wrigley as a wartime contingency, in case the major leagues shut down for the duration of World War II. It thrived and survived through 1954, growing to encompass 10 teams in 1948 and attracting almost one million fans during that peak year. 

More than 600 young women from the United States and Canada, and a few from Cuba, made their mark in the AAGPBL, including pitching sensation Jean Faut, who threw two perfect games; first basewoman Dorothy Kamenshek, a slugger who was recruited by a men’s minor league team; and standout catcher Mary “Bonnie” Baker, who later stumped a panel trying to determine her career on the TV show, “What’s My Line.” Teams were located in Midwestern cities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, while rookie touring teams barnstormed throughout the Midwest, South, and East, playing exhibition games in New York's Yankee Stadium and Washington D.C.'s Griffith Stadium.

After their time in the league, players went on to become teachers, mothers, business owners, coaches, doctors, physical therapists, even professional bowlers and golfers. Today some 150 players survive.

Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2011

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