Rosie the right fielder: citizen of the community, not just a temporary patriot

Abstract

While many critics have dismissed the gender bending potential of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), this article views the discourses surrounding the league from a rhetorical perspective so as to argue that the league's female ballplayers were constituted as citizens and civic symbols of progressiveness. In portraying the women as feminine tomboys in newspaper stories, advertisements, and other discourses, baseball remained a masculine institution while also encouraging the acceptance of the female ballplayers even though they eschewed dominant norms by being independent, strong and competitive.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Matt Guschwan and John L. Lucaites for their feedback on this article. The author would also like to thank the AAUW for awarding a 2010–2011 American Fellowship to the author which funded archival research for this article. This article was adapted from a chapter of the author's dissertation entitled, ‘Throwing Like a Girl!: Constituting Citizenship for Women and Girls Through the American Pastime.’

Notes

^1.Zoss and Bowman, Diamonds in the Rough, 212.

^2. The league went through multiple names (All-American Girls Softball League, All-American Girls Baseball League, All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and American Girls Baseball League), but I refer to the league throughout as the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL).

^3.Ardell, Breaking into Baseball, 4. For examples of the praise, see J. Maslin, ‘A “League” Where Eddie Can't Play’, The New York Times, July 12, 1992, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/; D. Laframboise, ‘Hollywood Discovers Feminism, Sort of’, The Toronto Star, July 9, 1992, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/; D. Sterrit, ‘Close, but No Home Run’, Christian Science Monitor, July 3, 1992, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/; and S. Spillman, ‘In the Big “League”’, USA Today, July 2, 1992, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/.

^4.Cahn, Coming On Strong, 162.

^5. Ibid., 141.

^6.Cohen, No Girls in the Clubhouse, 45–6.

^7.Berlant, Queen of America, 20.

^8.Miller, Cultural Citizenship, 1, 35.

^9. Ibid., 51.

^10.Holland, The Body Politic, xv.

^11.Butterworth, ‘Ritual in the “Church of Baseball”’, 112.

^12.Jay, More Than Just a Game, 4.

^13.Sage, Power and Ideology, 116–22.

^14.Nixon, Sport and the American Dream, 11, 16–9.

^15.Kimmel, ‘Baseball and the Reconstitution’, 57.

^16. Ibid., 60.

^17. One such example of this thinking came from Albert Spalding, who was influential in writing the ‘history’ of baseball and its American roots. Spalding's rhetoric emphasized the connections between democracy and manhood/masculinity. Spalding, America's National Game, 3–14.

^18.Elias, The Empire Strikes Out, 1–14.

^19. ‘Baseball became one of the central mechanisms by which masculinity was reconstituted at the turn of the century, as well as one of the vehicles by which the various classes, races, and ethnic groups that were thrown together into the urban melting pot accommodated themselves to industrial class society and developed the temperaments that facilitated the transition to a consumer culture.’ Kimmel, ‘Baseball and the Reconstitution’, 59.

^20.Elias, ‘Fit for a Fractured Society’, 3, 5.

^21.Butterworth, Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity, 11.

^22.Jay, More Than Just a Game, 11.

^23.Billings, Olympic Media, 108–22; Daddario, Women's Sport and Spectacle, 20–7; and Jay, More Than Just a Game, 3, 55–6.

^24.McDonagh and Pappano, Playing with the Boys, 7–28.

^25.Miller, Cultural Citizenship, 73.

^26.Shattuck, ‘Playing a Man's Game’, 197–200.

^27. ‘The congressional debates and public discussion about the WAAC highlighted the gendered and raced constructions of male and female citizenship underpinning the positions of both supporters and opponents of a women's corps. The issues raised in these exchanges, and their heatedness, portended the storm of controversy that would surround the women's corps throughout World War II, as well as the cultural anxieties raised with the inclusion of Euro-American women and women of color within the white male military. In response, Waacs felt it necessary to prove that they were needed for vital military purposes and that they were not mannish women attempting to usurp male soldiers’ authority.' Meyer, Creating GI Jane, 31–2.

^28.Roosevelt, ‘Green Light Letter’, 63.

^29.Bazer and Culbertson, ‘Baseball during World War II’, 114.

^30.Johnson, When Women Played Hardball, xix.

^31.Berlage, Women in Baseball, 134; and Johnson, When Women Played Hardball, xix.

^32.Berlage, Women in Baseball, 134.

^33. Ibid., 135; Berlage, ‘Women, Baseball, and the American Dream’, 244.

^34.Edwards, ‘The Common Dream Examined’, 141.

^35. ‘The girls who became professional baseball players were tomboys, girls passionately involved in activities conventionally reserved for boys. Of course lots of girls are tomboys, but somewhere in adolescence they run up against our society's demands that proper men and women be very different from each other, in looks, thought, word and deed. Tomboys, who have been enjoying a temporary stay of these rigid rules, are at puberty supposed to forego their childish pursuits and turn their attention to becoming women. They are supposed to exchange their baseball mitts for white gloves. What is extraordinary about these girl ballplayers is not that they acquired their love of baseball so young, but that they remained true to it; they kept playing ball when they grew old enough to know better. Several important factors worked to protect them from society's more conventional pressures: the families who supported them, the working-class origins that made fewer “ladylike” demands upon them, and the extraordinary skills that brought them to the attention of coaches. There was also an intangible ingredient, these girls’ love for baseball, a love that burned so strongly it could not be extinguished, even by the cold water of society's wake-up calls to womanhood.' Johnson, When Women Played Hardball, 25–6.

^36.Johnson, When Women Played Hardball, 87.

^37. Ibid., xii–xiii, 153–5.

^38.Vignola, ‘The Patriotic Pinch Hitter’, 102–13.

^39. E. McKenna, ‘Kenoshans Pool $25,500 to Back Girls’ Softball Team in New Loop', Kenosha Evening News, April 6, 1943, 8.

^40. All American Girls' Softball League, ‘Racine Proudly Welcomes’ [Advertisement], The Racine Journal Times, June 2, 1943, 7.

^41. All American Girls' Softball League, ‘See America's Greatest Girl Softball Players’ [advertisement], The Racine Journal Times, June 3, 1943, 10.

^42.The Racine Journal Times, ‘Racine Granted Membership in All American Girls’ League: To Open Play Sunday, May 30', April 24, 1943, 10; and E. McKenna, ‘Kenoshans Pool $25,500 to Back Girls’ Softball Team in New Loop', Kenosha Evening News, April 6, 1943, 8.

^43. All American Girls' Softball League, ‘Racine Proudly Welcomes’ [Advertisement], The Racine Journal Times, June 2, 1943, 7.

^44.The Racine Journal Times, ‘Sender and Receiver’ [Photograph], September 1, 1944, 14; and The Racine Journal Times, ‘Bonds for Belles’ [Photograph], June 15, 1944, 18.

^45.The Milwaukee Journal, ‘Wives of Ballplayers’ [Photograph], August 18, 1944, Sports section, 8.

^46. E. McKenna, ‘Organize Kiwanis “Knothole Gang” for Comet Kid Fans’, Kenosha Evening News, June 7, 1945, 14.

^47.Prescott, ‘Is It Worthwhile?’.

^48.Miller, ‘Cultural Citizenship’, 231–3, 240.

^49. Ibid., 238–9.

^50. Ibid., 239.

^51.Fort Wayne Daisies, ‘Civic Pride’.

^52.Greater Muskegon Girls Professional Ball Club Directors, ‘A Word of Appreciation’; and ‘All-American Girls’ Baseball League: Its History in Brief - 1943 to 1946'.

^53.Kenosha Comets Ball Club, ‘Financial Support’.

^54. Community Service Program, ‘The Story Behind the Community Service Program’ [advertisement], The Racine Journal Times, May 11, 1948, 15.

^55.The Racine Journal Times, ‘Home Town Team Fails to Adequately Support Victorious Belles’, August 20, 1948, 1–2.

^56. A Booster, ‘Another Version’, The Racine Journal Times, August 25, 1948, 24.

^57. A True Booster, ‘Booster Corrected’, The Racine Journal Times, August 28, 1948, 4.

^58. A Baseball Fan, ‘A Challenge to Booster’, The Racine Journal Times, August 28, 1948, 4.

^59.Kenosha Evening News, ‘Lassie Davis Comes Home – To Interior Decorate It’, July 13, 1946, 6.

^60.Greater Muskegon Girls Professional Ball Club, 1948 Muskegon Lassies Yearbook.

^61.Carey, ‘Muskegon “Lassies”’.

^62.The Racine Journal Times, ‘Belles Open 4 Game Series with Lassies Here Tonight’, June 25, 1948, 11; and Kalamazoo Gazette, ‘Junior Lassie Squad Grows’, March 29, 1953, 42.

^63.Berlage, ‘Women, Baseball, and the American Dream’, 245.