by Browne, Lois
This was intolerable. Carey and Meyerhoff had planned on hot pennant races in both east and west divisions, capped by a three-week round of play-offs that would enable the All-Americans to reach its long-predicted one-million attendance mark.
Instead, the pennant race was confined to the same three or four teams. Chicago was on life-support and Springfield was roaming the back roads; neither club would affect the eventual outcome.
Players dropped out for various reasons. By mid-June, one player had been released for the murky catch-all “disciplinary action.” A couple more – both married women – bailed out of their own accord. And, as usual, there were a handful of players who simply didn’t measure up.
What would really affect the championship, however, was injuries – the wild card that sent experienced players to the bench, rookies to fill their places and teams to the League’s doorstep, crying aloud for replacements.
In the course of 1948, Marge Stefani, Rockford’s second baseman, was out with a sore leg. Muskegon’s outfield lost two first-stringers in a row. South Bend’s pitching staff was hurting badly. Bonnie Baker, its star catcher, had arm troubles of her own. Her replacement, Norma Metrolis, had a bad knee. Fort Wayne lost the capable pitcher Annabelle Lee. Then Dottie Collins, its best hope on the mound, announced that she intended to resign at season’s end.
All this came at the worst possible time, as managers scrambled desperately to find overhand pitchers who could carry a four-or five-game series. No one could foresee how even the old reliables would perform in clutch situations.
As if that weren’t enough, the All-American was blindsided at this critical juncture by none other than its old nemesis, the Chicago League. The two bodies had reached an uneasy truce in 1946. This détente was shattered by the All-American’s expansion into Chicago itself. The Colleens weren’t the violation. It was two minor farm teams set up by the League that the Chicago organization objected to.
The two leagues had met in the spring of 1948 in attempts to resolve their difficulties. Carey wanted to formalize the working agreement because clashes were inevitable; the leagues had butted heads over the same player on a number of occasions.
Doris Satterfield had been spotted by the All-American in 1945. While she was still a nursing student, the League offered her a contract. She’d signed. But, before graduation rolled around, a representative of the Chicago League offered yet another contract.
“It was a better contract, so I signed it, too,” she says. “Oh, sure, I realized what I was doing. I figured sooner or later it’d work its way out, and it did.”
Having made this double-booking, Satterfield reported to the Chicago League and played with one of its teams at a salary of $185 a week. The All-American maximum was still $100.
This exposure, she says, gave the All-American a chance to see what she could do without having to pay for the privilege. And Satterfield was hot: “I couldn’t do anything wrong, I was just literally on fire. I was leading the [Chicago] League in hitting, in fielding, and all of a sudden the All-American is interested again.”
When Satterfield refused to honor her original League contract, the All-American applied heavy pressure on the Chicago owners and succeeded in getting Satterfield barred from play. She was reduced to taking a factory job – not for $185 a week. She therefore phoned Carey: “And he couldn’t have been nicer. He picked me up, brought me to Grand Rapids, introduced me to the team and I loved it there.”
Carey won that round. But he didn’t always gain the upper hand.
When Bonnie Baker was approached by the Chicago League, she didn’t try to hide the fact. When she met with one of the Chicago League officials, she made a point of phoning Carey, to let him know. Carey countered with a lunch date, and dragged along the then-eminent major-league player Rogers Hornsby. Baker was underwhelmed. Carey told her how disappointed he was that she’d even consider leaving the All-American.
“Well Max,” she said, “what would you do? Would you leave your team if another offered you twice as much?” Carey allowed as he might “consider it.”
“You wouldn’t consider it,” said Baker. “You’d make a deal.”
And so – by the time lunch ended – had Carey and Baker. She was free to negotiate a higher salary with the South Bend club – a contravention of the rules, since she was already making more than the maximum, but that was the price you paid to keep a star catcher and prototypical All-American girl in the fold.
So it was that, in early 1948, Meyerhoff, Carey and several All-American team presidents (including Nate Harkness of Grand Rapids, Judge Edward Ruetz of Kenosha, Bill Wadewitz of Racine and Dr. Harold Dailey of South Bend) sat down with Archie Wolf, president of the Chicago League.
They discussed a formal contract that would regulate recruitment and trade. The All-American pledged not to introduce more than two expansion clubs into Chicago during the next five years. Nor would a second club be established without prior notification to Wolf and the Chicago League owners.
This meeting ended on an uncertain note. Dr. Dailey later wrote that Harkness, who acted as chairman, was the worse for drink, which Dailey suggested had shocked the Chicago League’s representatives. This was silly. These men were tough customers; even stumbling drunkenness would not have shocked them.
In any case, matters remained unresolved until May, when the All-American chose to alleviate its chronic player shortage by setting up two farm teams, bang in the middle of Chicago.
Fred Leo remembers that these enterprises were glorified tryout sessions, held irregularly at best. But the Chicago League, eager perhaps for an excuse to declare open season, revoked the gentleman’s agreement, thus raising the specter of widespread raiding one more time.
Here, the All-American was vulnerable. It had been trying to reduce costs, and had already imposed salary limits. The Chicago League owners had the edge, because they had more to offer.
There wasn’t a wholesale desertion from the All-American, but a few more players opted for greener pastures. Added to the League’s other woes, it was simply another problem in a season that had seen more than its share.
By June 1948, the All-American’s east and west divisions were headed by the Grand Rapids Chicks and the Rockford Peaches. The Chicks in particular looked well-nigh unbeatable. Their closest competition was the Fort Wayne Daisies, who were struggling to play .500 ball. In the west, the Peaches had a smaller lead over the team on its tail, the Kenosha Comets.
As June ticked away, circumstances changed. The Daisies began to creep up on Grand Rapids, winning almost entirely on the strength of their pitching, led by Dottie Collins.
The Daisies’ good fortune was augmented by a Grand Rapids slump. When the Chicks and Daisies met for a three-game series, Grand Rapids took the first game, aided by Pat Keagle’s speed on the base paths, but Fort Wayne won the remaining two. The Chicks might have split these contests, but Rawlings handed the pitching chores to rookies who needed the exposure; they also needed more practice; one game was lost 10-1.
This brought the Daisies to within two games of the division leaders going into a series with the much weaker Colleens. But luck took a hand. Soon after, injuries struck half the team, including the invaluable Collins.
By mid-July, Grand Rapids was six games ahead of Fort Wayne and the Chicks’ lead grew. Any hope the Daisies had of launching another challenge to the Chicks was smashed in late July when Collins announced her immediate retirement.
In fact, the Daisies were in danger of losing their play-off berth to the cellar-dwelling Colleens.
In the western division, it was a livelier story. Rockford topped the standings in mid-June, led by the fielding skills of Snooky Harrell and by Dottie Kamenshek’s power at the plate. But the Peaches were overtaken by the Peoria Redwings.
Within a couple of weeks, both clubs had been displaced by the Racine Belles, whose savvy manager, Leo Murphy, had husbanded his resources and fielded a team of healthy veterans. Murphy and th
e Racine directors had taken the long view, building a solid roster and resisting the temptation of seemingly advantageous quick-fix trades.
As the League entered the final week of the season, everyone expected Grand Rapids to top the standings, but no one was sure who it would end up battling for the championship.
Nor were things quiet on the financial front. By 1948, those players who had enlisted in their early 20s, beset now by aches and pains that signal advancing age, had begun to take stock of their future, They loved to play, but they saw that events were catching up to them. They knew their careers weren’t forever. Many had begun to cast a wary eye on their bank balance.
Individual players were reluctant to discuss salaries with their teammates. They knew that certain star players – those with proven fan appeal and drawing power – were getting sometimes huge under-the-table supplements to the supposed weekly maximum of $100.
The amounts involved depended on their bargaining position, on how assertive they could be and on the resources of their individual clubs. Negotiations were very private. To this day, players refuse to confirm or deny exactly what they got.
Bonnie Baker was supposed to have received at least one $2,500 signing bonus. She denies it was that much, but refuses to name the figure. Dottie Kamenshek, probably the League’s most valuable player, confirms that she got $500. Harrell got $100, not as much as she’d been promised.
Such piecemeal special treatment led to wounded feelings, especially since salary increases were subjective in the extreme, based not on performance measured by statistics but on intangible star quality.
Betsy Jochum, who’d proven herself a talented outfielder and hitter, was being groomed in 1948 as a pitcher for the South Band Blue Sox because of her strong arm. Manager Marty McManus told her she deserved more money, and should ask for it. Jochum went to Dr. Dailey, who said that he wasn’t allowed to pay her more than the $100 maximum – a blatant lie.
Why didn’t Jochum get her well-merited raise? “Because I wasn’t the personality kid,” she says. And it was true. Jochum, an accomplished athlete and well-liked by her peers, lacked the showboat pizzazz of Pat Keagle, Faye Dancer or – above all – Bonnie Baker.
“When we’d sign autographs or talk to the fans, Bonnie’s name would always come up,” says Lou Arnold. This holds true 50 years later. Today, when people recall the Blue Sox, one name is repeated over and over, like a mantra. The refrain is always the same: “Remember Bonnie Baker…”
Nor was dissatisfaction confined to the balance sheet. Players had begun to look upon their managers with a more jaundiced eye. Some of the managers were more or less immune.
Allington and Rawlings, despite their foibles, were men of undeniable achievement. They merited respect. Others, however did not. As well, players could see that the League was failing to keep its promises on every front. The new recruits weren’t up to snuff.
More and more stories began to circulate – some true, some wishful thinking – of players lobbying club directors, the manager or local fans.
When Leo Murphy, manager of the Racine Belles (who was highly regarded by most of his players), talked about trading Joanne Winter, Sophie Kurys – the team’s most valuable player – told him that if Winter went, she would too. Murphy relented, but the moral was not lost. This was not the sort of power players ought to have.
But in spite of rumors, these revolts, whether individual or organized, were rare. Even though Dr. Dailey left notes to the effect that Tiby Eisen and Mary Rountree had engineered Johnny Gottselig’s ouster from Peoria in 1947, the truth is that they’d both been traded well before Gottselig got the boot.
Given these mutterings in the ranks, it’s not surprising that the League once again asserted its authority on familiar ground, raising the issue of the players’ image. Players who stood up for their rights were plainly not the All-American Girl.
In 1948, Chet Grant, then managing the Kenosha Comets, composed a players’ manual intended to reassert the principles that had inspired and nurtured the League, and to provide a blueprint for its continued success. In it, Grant lists several problems he saw as posing a threat – particularly “disloyal” behavior, which he further categorized as “tale-bearing, nagging, cliquing” and nursing grudges. These, he said, should be punished, and players’ conduct should be beyond reproach year-round, not only during the season.
As the final stretch began, baseball fans witnessed the passing of a legend. George Herman Ruth, a.k.a. Babe, died on August16. That evening, the All-American’s teams stood to attention, their heads bared and bowed, as the mournful strains of “Taps” issued metallically from the loudspeakers.
The season’s pace was quickening. In theory (and according to one of the founding premises invoked by Chet Grant), it mattered not who won or lost, as long as the League provided wholesome entertainment for the community and its young people.
In reality, winning meant money, and the All-American was counting every penny
Unfortunately, although overall attendance had grown, profits had not. Moreover, both Chicago and Springfield had been a terrific drain. Some teams had drawn well. Others had not; their balance sheets were gloomier than ever.
As usual, new and even rosier projections were pinned on the play-offs – which would be longer than ever before – as a means to boost attendance figures and inject last-minute cash. At least, since players received a share of these revenues, it might quiet the malcontents.
As the days shortened and kids began to twitch at the prospect of a return to the classroom, every game began to matter. Tempers flared.
In August, Snooky Harrell exchanged words with Gadget Ward, the long-suffering chief umpire. For this she was fined $25. Harrell considered it a bit much for what she said was a “two-bit argument,” but Carey was on the case.
He had recently mediated a dispute between Chet Grant and yet another official. The two had repaired to the locker room so they could express themselves more frankly. The argument had turned personal, and Grant, usually a mild-mannered personality, had punched the umpire. Word of this got around, and Carey figured it was time to take Grant at his rule-book word, cracking down both on and off the field.
The season’s countless rain delays came back to haunt the schedule, as planners scrambled to make up for canceled games. At one point, South Bend played four double-headers (against two formidable opponents, the Chicks and the Peaches) in as many days, straining its already weakened pitching staff.
Harried officials put up a barrage of gate prizes and organized special nights of all descriptions – anything to entice the fans through the turnstiles.
By mid-August, the Racine Belles were leading the western division, and Peoria, inspired perhaps by overflow crowds, were right behind them.
Allington’s Peaches, for their part, where in third place. It had not been Rockford’s most auspicious season. Harrell and Kamenshek had both hit well during the early stages but had fallen in the later season.
Very few players managed to consistently bat .300, but Kamenshek almost always did. When she faltered, it spread unease and consternation. Allington benched her for a rest and fiddled with the lineup in search of different combinations that might restore his team’s power at the plate.
He and Harrell continued to be at odds. When Allington made her captain, he said that she shouldn’t mind if he was a little hard on her, to avoid charges of favoritism. Harrell was unconvinced.
Allington was not without a sense of humor. In August, during a game with the Blue Sox, South Bend’s second baseman worked the old hidden ball trick, luring Kamenshek into making a run for third, where she was promptly thrown out – directly under Allington’s nose in the coaching box.
The press reported that after the game, Allington issued a bulletin announcing “he had fined himself $25 for going to sleep on that moth-eaten trick and allowing one of his players to be caught. He also gave himself a beautiful bawling out at the end of the inning, and wasn’t
speaking to himself for hours after the game.”
And then Rockford began a comeback. In the course of a week-long road trip, they moved up a notch by beating Kenosha and splitting a two-game stand at Peoria, then blew the chance to move into first place by losing to the Redwings on the same day as Racine lost to the Muskegon Lassies.
The Lassies, embarking on one of their periodic but ultimately fruitless winning streaks, went on to beat Racine twice more, only to watch Rockford sweep by them and into first place in the western standings.
Then the Fort Wayne Daisies took a hand. Despite their shaky record, they put an end to the Lassies’ winning ways, and Racine, faced with easier pickings, moved into first place again, with Rockford half a game back.
The two teams were scheduled to wrap up the season with a three-game series. Just before the Peaches left Rockford to begin the series in Racine, loyal fans rewarded Allington with a pre-game testimonial, in the course of which he received some luggage and a watch, while a 28-piece band played a medley of his favorite tunes. Better yet, the Peaches won their game against visiting Muskegon 6-0.
In Racine, the Belles, inspired by home-field advantage, won the first game. To finish in first place, Rockford would have to win both halves of the next night’s double header. Over 5,000 fans saw the attempt. Both teams scored one run early in the first game, but Racine broke the tie in the fourth and went on to a decisive 6-1 victory. Allington got to keep his watch.
In Fort Wayne, the Daisies had finished a miserable eighth, and manager Dick Bass’s head was on the block.
A somewhat romantic aura had surrounded Bass when he became Fort Wayne’s manager in 1948, his first year with the League. It was helped by the fact that he was good-looking and, at 39, still relatively young. His minor-league baseball career had been interrupted in 1942 when he nearly lost his life in a defense plant explosion. Later, a playing injury that led to blood poisoning had ended his playing career.
As a manager Bass was likeable, but he didn’t win games. The Daisies had just missed the championship in 1945 and had been hungering for the League crown ever since.
