At Home on the Field
Written by Lindsay Taylor
Mary Baker packed up a suitcase, ready to head south from her home of Saskatchewan to step onto the diamond in South Bend. If Maury got word, he would insist she stay in Canada to mind the house, just like the last opportunity she had to play ball. But Mary was good, and she knew it; she wasn’t about to let this chance pass her by.
With her husband Maury stationed overseas, a final nudge from her mother-in-law was all it took for Mary to make the journey to America and join the team. Maury could find out after. In 1943 Mary “Bonnie” Baker became a player for one of four regional professional women’s baseball teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and made her new home in South Bend.
Bonnie and the other South Bend Blue Sox players lived with host families around town, and played ball at Playland Park southeast of the city. Despite Bonnie and many players’ newfound freedom from rural and domestic life to play the game they loved, local newspaper and media coverage of the players often focused on their activities off the field, emphasizing to their readers that in spite of their athleticism, these women were still perfectly poised, unflinchingly feminine, all-American girls.
“Press releases centered on domesticity at every turn,” writes Lois Browne in Girls of Summer, “The pity is that Wrigley and Co. didn’t highlight the players’ real achievements…The League preferred to feature more ‘womanly’ activities — housework or piano playing, pasting pictures into scrapbooks and writing letters home.”
Even with the lopsided portrayals to help sell the League to American audiences, the ball players were still fearsome athletes who continued to set personal records and mark new heights of achievement for the sport. Former player Betsy Jochum — who still resides in South Bend and just turned 104 in February — reflected on the players’ achievements in her introduction for Jim Sargent & Robert Gorman’s 2012 book The South Bend Blue Sox.
“You might say that we were pioneers in our field of dreams. I hope we helped make a change in women’s sports opportunities. Back in the 1940s, there weren’t too many avenues for women. We were among the few fortunate ones.”
Betsy Jochum, Former South Bend Blue Sox Player
Because of players like Bonnie for the Blue Sox, or Betty Chapman – the first Black woman to play in the rival National Girls Baseball League – who decided to take a chance and step onto the field, we continue to see enthusiasm and growing support for women’s sports. We should likewise continue to acknowledge the expansive ability of women to be so many things at once…beautiful, strong, and dimensional.
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