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Ann Meyer Petrovic signing her AAGPBL contract: Fred Meyer (father, standing behind Ann), Marty McManus (Kenosha Comets manager, sitting with contract in hand), Ann is in the center; man at the left is unidentified.
Above: Mary Lou Graham Douglas (center, sitting and being tended to by the South Bend Blue Sox chaperone)
Chicago Bluebirds team photo (Ann Petrovic is in bottom row, third from left)
by Stephanie Pendrys
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s the days grow shorter and the shadows grow longer, millions of sports fans are tuned in to that autumn staple: postseason baseball. Two local women have more than a keen interest in the World Series. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, when cars came with running boards and Coca-Cola was served in glass bottles, Ann Petrovic and Mary Lou Douglas barreled down base paths, smacked line drives and hurled fastballs as members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) — the only women’s professional baseball league this country has ever had.
Photo courtesy of Ann Petrovic
Shortstop Ann Meyer (now Petrovic) grew up in Aurora, Ind., and learned the game from her five older brothers. “My brother, Tugs, gave me his old ball glove, and they put me up against the side of the barn,” Petrovic recalls. “I guess I had to learn to catch or be killed.” Baseball was as much a part of everyday life for the Meyer clan as chores or Sunday dinner. In fact, the nine Meyer siblings had their own baseball team and one evening beat the local All-Stars as the whole town of Aurora watched from the bleachers, shoulder to shoulder as though the rural ballpark were a vast living room. “I loved the game and would have played anyone, anywhere and anytime, as long as someone would give me a shirt with a number on the back,” says Petrovic. “Pee-Wee” Meyer, nicknamed as such for her 5’3”, 110-pound frame, was only 15 and a freshman in high school when she signed a contract and became a member of the AAGPBL. “The train ride I took with my father to my tryout, that
was the first time I’d been outside of Aurora,” she recalls. Petrovic spent six years in professional baseball, one with the Kenosha Comets/Minneapolis Millerettes of the AAGPBL (1944) and five with the Chicago Bluebirds/Queens of the National Girls Baseball League (1945–50). When she was playing for the Bluebirds, the team’s batboy was none other than Bill Bidwill, owner of the Arizona Cardinals. Playing professional baseball wasn’t all fun and games. The AAGPBL uniform, a one-piece dress that many movie-goers might recall seeing in the 1992 film A League of Their Own, “was not exactly the best outfit to play ball in,” according to Petrovic. A leadoff hitter and speedy base runner, she accumulated many bruises and strawberries from sliding into bases and avoiding tags. “I still have scars on my knees,” she says. There were also long dusty road trips on buses and trains, as the AllAmericans toured the Midwest from mid-May through Labor Day, playing six days a week, with doubleheaders on Sundays. Ann recalled boarding a troop train once with her teammates. The servicemen wanted to buy the ballplayers drinks, but other than one beer with dinner, drinking was forbidden for the All-Americans. They were also not allowed to smoke, gamble or wear shorts or pants in public. When chew-
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“Pee-Wee” Meyer, nicknamed as such for her 5’3”, 110-pound frame, was only 15 and a freshman in high school when she signed a contract and became a member of the AAGPBL.
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Photo by Stephanie Pendrys
Ann Meyer Petrovic’s baseball card Ann Meyer Petrovic with her Aurora High School Sports Hall of Fame plaque
Mary Lou Graham Douglas’s baseball card Mary Lou Douglas outside of her Oro Valley home 16
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gle, but Petrovic is still a huge sports fan and watches the Diamondbacks, golf and college and professional basketball. She was recently inducted into the Aurora High School Sports Hall of Fame and is very proud of the AAGPBL’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. “Hey, it says Baseball Hall of Fame, not Men’s Baseball Hall of Fame, right?” Petrovic says emphatically. Former AAGPBL pitcher and Oro Valley resident Mary Lou Graham (now Douglas) grew up in a baseball family in South Bend, Ind. Her first glove came from Tom, one of her five brothers, who was playing in a league in South Bend. “When he was done with it, I hemmed, hawed and hinted and have been playing with it ever since,” she says. In 1952, Douglas, then 15, was playing in a parks and recreation youth league, and her coach took the players to see the AAGPBL’s South Bend Blue Sox. “We were playing catch in the parking lot before the game and Karl Winsch (Blue Sox manager) put his hands on my shoulders and asked me to go downstairs onto the field to throw some pitches,” Douglas recalls. She remembers walking out and looking across the playing surface, tan and white and green and huge. She was
Photo by Stephanie Pendrys
ing-gum magnate Phillip Wrigley founded the league in 1943, he was adamant that each player be a wholesome, feminine, All-American girl. It also wasn’t easy being a female athlete. “If you were a girl who could play ball, your name was Mud,” says Petrovic, who along with many AllAmericans felt like an outcast because of her athletic ability and competitiveness between the lines. “There just weren’t many girls like us, and we came across someone in every town who thought that there was something wrong with us because we could play baseball. I’m glad that times have changed, and it’s not unusual to see female athletes on the ESPN highlight reel.” After hanging up her spikes, Petrovic moved to Ohio, where she raised her family and played competitive volleyball for more than 25 years. She got a job at a leather-apparel company and played baseball for the company team — for one game. Petrovic was playing third base and threw the ball so hard to her inexperienced catcher that she put the catcher in the hospital. “I quit after that inning; I thought that I killed her!” Petrovic recalls. “Once a pro, always a pro.” She can no longer leg out a bunt sin-
nervous, but not afraid. “I knew that I could pitch pretty well. I didn’t fear anyone. I played with my whole heart and threw the ball as hard as I could,” she says. Douglas spent the 1952 season as the batgirl for the Blue Sox, who were League Champions after defeating the Rockford Peaches 6–3 in the final. She broke into the Blue Sox lineup when she was 17 and hurled eight innings with a no-decision. The right-hander pitched for the Blue Sox until the league disbanded after the 1954 season. The AAGPBL suffered with the emergence of televised baseball and a loss of sponsorships; but the called third strike was the end of the era of Rosie the Riveter. When the men returned to civilian life after WWII, the AAGPBL player was expected to put away her glove and bat and re-assume the exclusive role of wife, mother and baseball spectator. “I just barely got my feet wet and it was all over,” Douglas remembers wistfully. In 1955, Douglas and a number of other AAGPBL girls played semi-pro softball and basketball. Douglas also went to work in Los Angeles as a girl Friday, married and had a son. When A League of Their Own came out, Douglas drove 16 hours from Bend, Ore. to see the premiere of the Penny Marshall film in Los Angeles. “I’ve seen it dozens of times and Penny Marshall did a fantastic job showing what it was like to play in the league,” she says. “We really did have team chaperones and had to go to charm school.” Douglas, now 73, still has her brother’s glove and plays catch with the neighborhood kids when they are home from college. But for the most part, baseball has been replaced by golf, which she has played on and off since childhood. “I focus on making a putt the same way I used to focus on striking out a batter,” she says. Douglas won three club championships while living in California and took the Oro Valley Country Club title in 1998. Her handicap is in the 10–15 range and she’s made five holes-in-one, which she swears “are just as good as pitching a one-hitter.” An avid Diamondbacks fan, Douglas loves attending spring-training games. She also enjoys the response she gets when she tells people that she played baseball. “You mean softball.” “No, baseball.” “But, women didn’t play baseball.” “Yes, we did!” Yes, they did, and in doing so, the All-Americans blazed a path for future female athletes, became part of sports history and showed the country that gals could play hardball. DL Stephanie Pendrys is a local freelance writer. Comments for publication should be addressed to letters@desertleaf.com.
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