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kcstengelsr · 12-10-2021, 10:10 PM

As hoped, I did finish the rosters and ratings of Kenosha and South Bend and so I have completed all four of the 1943 AAGPBL teams. Kenosha had 56 regular season wins and went on to lose to Racine in the playoffs. South Bend had 58 wins but did not make the playoffs as it was set for first half versus second half teams. It took some time to finalize my fifteen in number active women's rosters of the four teams (with about four on each team being pitchers) as some players that year moved around as the league wanted balance. I decided to also use balance to properly place those who had been on more than one team.

I do have South Bend hosting Kenosha on Youtube while using Rockford's Beyer Stadium by asrivkin. The game features two of the best AAGBPL 1943 pitching aces, those two being Margaret Berger of South Bend and Helen Nichol Fox of Kenosha. The Youtube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdUF...el=kcstengelsr

I personally learned quite a bit of things I did not know about the AAGPBL while doing this project so it was worth the time and effort. Here are just two:

1. You baseball historians probably are aware of the fact that fifteen year old Joe Nuxhall pitched for the Cincinnati Reds during the ballplayer shortage in 1944, but the 1943 AAGPBL had a surprising number of players under the age of eighteen with the youngest of all being South Bend's Dorothy Schroeder who had only turned fifteen less than two months before the opening of the season. Schroeder was a slick-fielding, light-hitting shortstop who was later in her career with an improved bat skill described by Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm as worth $50K per year, "if she were a boy." Dorothy is also the sole and only one of these women who played through the complete 1943-1954 AAGPBL era. She also happens to be one of the rare AAGPBL players with known height and weight at 5 foot 8 inches and 150 pounds. The movie "A League of Their Own" does not hint that a good number of 1943 AAGPBL players were teenagers.

South Bend manager Bert Niehoff actually had a previous experience before the AAGPBL playing a woman while he managed a game. As skipper of minor league Chattanooga facing the New York Yankees in an 1931 exhibition he called for a relief pitcher and brought in seventeen year old lefty woman Virne Mitchell to face Babe Ruth. Ruth hammed it up with two wild swings and then was struck out looking. Gehrig followed and fanned swinging. Lazzeri tried a bunt and then Niehoff gave Mitchell the rest of the game off. A few days later Baseball Commissioner Landis voided Virne's contract, ending her career. The judge said that baseball for women was "too strenuous." Actually baseball did not formally ban women until 1952. Former major league second baseman and long time minor league manager Bert Niehoff had dealt with women before.

For now I have all four of the 1943 AAGPBL team I created using Beyer Stadium as their home grounds. When asrivkin completes the ballpark for Racine I think I will use the Racine park for the Belles and Kenosha and Beyer Stadium for the Peaches and South Bend.

Good work, asrivkin!

12-10-2021, 10:10 PM	#113
kcstengelsr Minors (Double A) Join Date: May 2021 Posts: 147	As hoped, I did finish the rosters and ratings of Kenosha and South Bend and so I have completed all four of the 1943 AAGPBL teams. Kenosha had 56 regular season wins and went on to lose to Racine in the playoffs. South Bend had 58 wins but did not make the playoffs as it was set for first half versus second half teams. It took some time to finalize my fifteen in number active women's rosters of the four teams (with about four on each team being pitchers) as some players that year moved around as the league wanted balance. I decided to also use balance to properly place those who had been on more than one team. I do have South Bend hosting Kenosha on Youtube while using Rockford's Beyer Stadium by asrivkin. The game features two of the best AAGBPL 1943 pitching aces, those two being Margaret Berger of South Bend and Helen Nichol Fox of Kenosha. The Youtube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdUF...el=kcstengelsr I personally learned quite a bit of things I did not know about the AAGPBL while doing this project so it was worth the time and effort. Here are just two: 1. You baseball historians probably are aware of the fact that fifteen year old Joe Nuxhall pitched for the Cincinnati Reds during the ballplayer shortage in 1944, but the 1943 AAGPBL had a surprising number of players under the age of eighteen with the youngest of all being South Bend's Dorothy Schroeder who had only turned fifteen less than two months before the opening of the season. Schroeder was a slick-fielding, light-hitting shortstop who was later in her career with an improved bat skill described by Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm as worth $50K per year, "if she were a boy." Dorothy is also the sole and only one of these women who played through the complete 1943-1954 AAGPBL era. She also happens to be one of the rare AAGPBL players with known height and weight at 5 foot 8 inches and 150 pounds. The movie "A League of Their Own" does not hint that a good number of 1943 AAGPBL players were teenagers. South Bend manager Bert Niehoff actually had a previous experience before the AAGPBL playing a woman while he managed a game. As skipper of minor league Chattanooga facing the New York Yankees in an 1931 exhibition he called for a relief pitcher and brought in seventeen year old lefty woman Virne Mitchell to face Babe Ruth. Ruth hammed it up with two wild swings and then was struck out looking. Gehrig followed and fanned swinging. Lazzeri tried a bunt and then Niehoff gave Mitchell the rest of the game off. A few days later Baseball Commissioner Landis voided Virne's contract, ending her career. The judge said that baseball for women was "too strenuous." Actually baseball did not formally ban women until 1952. Former major league second baseman and long time minor league manager Bert Niehoff had dealt with women before. For now I have all four of the 1943 AAGPBL team I created using Beyer Stadium as their home grounds. When asrivkin completes the ballpark for Racine I think I will use the Racine park for the Belles and Kenosha and Beyer Stadium for the Peaches and South Bend. Good work, asrivkin! Last edited by kcstengelsr; 12-13-2021 at 05:30 PM.