Existing comment:
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
Philip K. Wrigley, Chicago Cubs owner and chewing gum mogul, began the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) at the onset of World War II. With most able men away at war, Wrigley wanted to keep baseball in the public eye. For a brief moment in American history, professional baseball was reimagined as a woman's domain. Eleven Latinas played in the AAGPBL (1943–1954), including Mexican American Margaret "Marge" Villa (later Cryan), from Montebello, California. These fair-skinned Latinas were able to pass as white in an era of de facto segregation and would become some of the few women ever to play baseball in the United States. |