#women's baseball

[usnatarchives]

⚾ Before #WWII, women played #baseball in junior and minor leagues throughout the United States. In 1930, Universal News highlighted a "All-Girls Teams in Slug-fest," a game played between Niles and Oakland. ⚾

[luxshine]

#Baseballhistory Wednesday! Professional #Womensbaseball started on September 11, 1875 between the Blondes and the Brunettes in Springfield, Illinois, and ever since then, there have been women's leagues, officially and unofficially all over the world. But they only played in skirts when they were the #AllamericanGirlsProfessionalBaseballleague to bring in viewers while the men players were in world war II. Because seriously, you don't want to slide in home with a skirt!

[mudwerks]

Mrs Garrity's Second Sight, Cosmopolitan: February 1953

Illustration by Fredric Varady

[jhsgf82]

Six Sentence Sunday-There’s No Crying in Baseball

Snippet of one of my @ouateverlark​ submissions. Coming VERY soon. 

Dearest Peeta, 

You have no idea how much I already miss you. And how proud I am of you. I know how eager you were to go and serve your country, and I understand how important that is. I’m sorry about our argument. I was being selfish in not wanting you to go, but I know you needed to. And I know you will come back to me, and we can be deliriously happy again. I will be here waiting for you.  

You said your only qualm about going off to war was that you didn’t want them to change you. But how could they possibly? You will always be my sweet, kind, and gentle husband who believes in the good of humankind and that peace and love generally triumphs over war and evil. 

All my love, your wife,

Katniss 

*** 

Dearest Peeta,

Something has happened. Most would say it’s a good thing, and Prim is certainly excited, but I’m not sure how to feel about it yet. I will do my best to tell you the entire story from the beginning, but you know I’m not good at saying things. I will try to channel your ability with words to convey the story accurately, though.

I’ll start from the beginning. It all began when a scout showed up at the farm…

[down-in-dixie]

[lucyllawless]

#xena definitely owns multiple "happy wife, happy life" t-shirts

[cannibalovers]

I just personally think that Will has a collection of hats like these for any situation ever just hidden away somewhere

[queerasfact]

Women’s baseball in the 1940s and 50s

Check out some of the photos we came across while researching the history of women’s baseball for our podcast on A League of Their Own!

Members of the Rockford Peaches in uniform, 1943

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player Marg Callaghan sliding into home plate, 1948

Toni Stone, an African-American woman who played mostly in the men’s leagues in the 1940s and 1950s

Learn more about the history behind the TV show!

[theresonly1u]

There's Only One You 2024: a sports rpf short fanworks prompt meme is live!

262 fanworks in 12 different sports rpf fandoms. Check out the works and the fandoms and grab a cup of coffee 'cause it's just banger after banger across fandoms!

Thank you everyone for your hard work in making this another wonderful year! It is a joy to do this with you again. Your enthusiasm and joie de vivre make all the logistical stuff worthwhile.

Creators - make sure you update the posting date on your works to today so it appears at the top of the tag, especially if you posted weeks ago! Your names will be revealed on Monday, April 8 between 9am-10am pt (unless your work is also in anonymous collection.)

Everyone - if you enjoyed a work, slam that kudos button and leave a comment! Short works do not get nearly enough attention in fandom and these creators worked hard - let them know what you loved about their work! And I'll emphasize that doubly for the podficcers, artists, and fanmixers here, because those are also creators that don't see a lot of praise even beyond short fics. tl;dr: kudos + comment if you liked it!

Thank you all!! Settle in for a good weekend because we've got a lot to enjoy here 🌞

[newyorkthegoldenage]

19-year-old southpaw Jackie Mitchell, of the House of David baseball team, speaks to her teammates while in New York, July 14, 1933. Mitchell was the first and only woman to have a contract in Major League baseball, with the Chattanooga Lookouts. Two years earlier, in an exhibition game during spring training, she had struck out both Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth―in six pitches.

There is some controversy about that―not that it didn’t happen, because there is a film of it―but as to whether the Yankee aces were doing it just for show. Mitchell always maintained that it was genuine. “Why, hell, they were trying, damn right,” she said. “Hell, better hitters than them couldn’t hit me. Why should they’ve been any different?”

Timothy Wiles, who served as the Baseball Hall of Fame Research Director for about 20 years, said, “If she did this today, it would become a permanent part of the consciousness because of the media we have. If ESPN was around, it certainly would be their lead story.”

Mitchell was quoted at the time saying she learned to throw from her neighbor, MLB's Charles Arthur “Dazzy” Vance, who was later inducted into the Hall of Fame. Her contract was cancelled by baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after he heard about her spring training feat in 1931.

Photo: Associated Press via the Washington Post

[lalaloobzy]

Boy oh boy do I love being an asexual aromantic with intense aesthetic attraction (or perhaps gender jealousy??) for both Roberta Colindrez and Kelly McCormack

[suchacomet]

sorry not to flex my jock privilege but some of the tags y’all are leaving on my aloto posts are making me laugh. wdym y’all don’t know anything about baseball do you realize how much you’re missing? did you get that dove’s forkball was never gonna work for lupe? did you miss the beautiful moment of lupe asking carson for a sign in the final game and carson giving a one? do you get how fucking much it reveals about lupe that she’s a phenomenal pitcher AND a good hitter?

[down-in-dixie]

[detroitlib]

Cover art for 1953 Grand Rapids Chicks baseball program depicting a woman baseball player preparing to throw a baseball. Printed on front: "Grand Rapids Chicks, major league girls baseball, 1953 official program and scorebook, 15 [cents], tops in summer sports."

Ernie Harwell Sports Collection, Detroit Public Library

[pucktrek]

honestly the one of the things that makes me the most sad about this hockey romance / booktok drama is that now so many hockey fans have a negative impression of hockey romances and sports romances. There are so, so many wonderful, queer romances out there that are doing wonderful, nuanced, and intentional things within the sports romance genre, and I hate that now people are looking down on them.

Here's some reasons that I love sports romances:

It’s a celebrity romance, but more of a niche celebrity romance. This isn’t a Hollywood super star that everyone in the world knows their name, BUT they often do have a dedicated fan base and are still in the public eye. It brings up really interesting discussions of fame and power and how much of yourself you keep private. So you get a lot of the good celebrity romance tropes and settings (like secret relationship, having to do interviews, traveling to new cities) but on a more niche and interesting scale

And bouncing off of that, with queer sports romances you get a lot of really interesting discussions of coming out, how you present your queerness to the world, how much of yourself is “owed” to the people around you vs yourself, which is very interesting when explored through a sports culture lense and I really enjoy the discussions of queer identity, culture, and community that come out of it. And particularly if it a romance between two players, there's a lot of really interesting queer nuances to explore

There are so many different pairings that can happen, but most of them kind of boil down to player/player, player/sports professional, player/normie, and each of these dynamics are interesting to me every time, especially when exploring teammate dynamics! And exploring how fame affects each of these things!

Found family! Your team is your family! And everyone has silly nicknames and rituals with each other and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy

With every romance, you pretty much know that it’s gonna end with a Happily Ever After, which is why we love the genre. But sometimes that can take the “surprise” out of a romance and its structure. Within sports romances, you don’t know how the game is going to go! They could win! They could lose! That affects the characters either way! And there’s been several sports romances that had me on the edge of my seat cause I genuinely had no idea which way the championship game was gonna go! I like that extra plot element to keep things interesting 

I also like it when you can tell the author is a big fan of their sport, and even if EYE don’t know anything about the sport, they’re generally good at writing things in a makes sense and makes the action interesting and keeps me hooked. It’s also just nice to step into the world the author loves!

Genuinely I just think that queer sports romances are doing so many interesting things, and have such interesting niches and nuances to the stories they’re telling! And they should not be looked down upon by hockey fans OR romance fans who have witnessed this booktok drama go down and now don’t want to touch hockey romances with a ten foot pole.

Here are some of the queer sports romances I recommend for anyone who wants to get into the genre:

[lovesickdevilart]

Some Steven universe art I did recently :3