May 30, 1943: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Begins Play

That's right: They had to slide wearing skirts and bare legs.

Not tights, and certainly not pants.

Those would have been "unladylike."

May 30, 1943: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League begins play. Intended to fill in the gaps provided by the male players lost to World War II, it kept going after the war, all the way until 1954.

Its 1st season had 108 games, with 4 teams, all in the Midwest: The Rockford Peaches in Illinois, the Kenosha Comets and the Racine Belles in Wisconsin, and the South Bend Blue Sox in Indiana. The idea was to provide an alternative, a novelty, to the war-weakened major league games. In the Opening Game, South Bend defeated Rockford, 4-3 in 14 innings, at Beyer Stadium in Rockford. The league's total attendance for the year was be 176,612.

Pennants would be won by the Racine Belles in 1943 and 1946; the Milwaukee Chicks of Wisconsin in 1944; the Rockford Peaches in 1945, 1948, 1949 and 1950; the Grand Rapids Chicks of Michigan in 1947 and 1953; the South Bend Blue Sox in 1951 and 1952; and the Kalamazoo Lassies of Michigan in 1954.

The league's story was be depicted, with a few liberties taken with the truth, in the 1992 film A League of Their Own.

UPDATE: As of May 30, 2025, there are believed to be 29 former AAGPBL players still alive.

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May 30, 1943 was a  Sunday. It was Memorial Day, which was observed on May 30, regardless of its day of the week, through 1970. Since then, it's been observed on the last Monday in May.

Traditionally, Memorial Day was a day for the major league teams to schedule doubleheaders, and so 7 of the 8 matchups on the day were doubleheaders:

* The New York Yankees swept the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 and 3-2 at Yankee Stadium. Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler won the opener, with Joe Gordon hitting a home run. Charles "Butch" Wensloff won the nightcap, outpitching eventual Yankee Allie Reynolds, supported by a home run from Roy Weatherly.

* A doubleheader was split at the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants won the 1st game, 7-6. The St. Louis Cardinals won the 2nd game, 3-2. Over the 2 games, Mel Ott went 0-for-5 -- with 2 walks. And Stan Musial went 2-for-6 with 3 walks and an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers swept the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0 and 10-6 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. In the 1st game, Whitlow Wyatt pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox swept the Detroit Tigers, 3-0 and 5-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dick Newsome pitched a 6-hit shutout in the 1st game.

* The Philadelphia Athletics swept the St. Louis Browns, 3-0 and 4-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. In the 1st game, Don Black allowed just 1 hit, although he walked 7 batters. This sweep was unusual for the A's, who went 49-105 that season. And the Browns, at the time, were not as bad as usual: They went 72-80.

* The Chicago White Sox swept the Washington Senators, 5-2 and 5-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates swept the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 and 2-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In the 2nd game, Vince DiMaggio -- unlike his brothers Joe and Dom, he was too old to be drafted unless he enlisted first -- singled Tommy O'Brien home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* And in the only single game of the day, the Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 5-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.