All American girls baseball League
The United States entered World War 2 in 1941 it ended in 1945, because of this men were drafted into the military and forced to participate in the war. This took a high population of the men away from professional baseball. Major league baseball, being a part of America’s past time, was struggling with the decline of men in the league. In 1942 minor league teams were being disbanded due to the war and men 18 years and older were being drafted into the military services. Philip K. Wrigley, famous for Wrigley chewing gum and inheriting the Chicago Cubs major league baseball team from his father, didn’t want baseball to come to a collapse and sought after solutions to this dilemma (Lesko, 2013). Wrigley asked his committee to help come up with ideas. The committee recommended a girls softball league that would be established in the major league parks to help the decline in attendance due to losing quality players to attract crowds.
Mr. Wrigley and the All American softball league emerged in the spring of 1943. The league was a non-profit organization and a board was formed which included Philip Wrigley, Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager; Paul Harper, Chicago attorney and trustee for the University of Chicago and Cubs attorney; and Ken Sells, who was named President of the League. This allowed a base structure for the league (Lesko, 2013). Jim Hamilton was a player, manager, owner and Chicago Cubs Scout was hired as head of Procurement to locate and sign women from all over the United States and Canada. Johnny Gottselig was more primary focused on the scouting in Canada. These Scouts would set up try outs in dozens of major cities, Wrigley attracted many women from the United States and Canada to come play for this new professional league. Of the dozens and dozens of the major city try outs only