Well, I’ll be doggoned.
As I write this, the Minnesota Twins..given little or no chance of being anything but an also-ran..kind of embarrassing..Major League team again this season, has caused fan’s jaws to drop as new Skipper and former Twins’ player, Paul Molitor, has lived up to his old nickname “The Ignitor” and lit a fire on the early slumping team to where they now have the best record in the American League and top of their division.
Of course, I and all Twins’ fans know they’re likely to crumble into obscurity before long..but we can dream can’t we? Dream that God will smile down upon us with another miracle season and World Series Championship like 1987 and 1991.
Nay..Methinks the prayerful pleadings from Chicagoland are much too strong and wouldst there be another Divine intervention it would surly fall down upon the field of Wrigley before re-Targeting the land of ten thousand lakes.
Speaking of baseball.
Isn’t there something in the rule book about uniform uniformity?
Let’s start with baseball caps.
On the left..that is wrong.
On the right..that is right.
Questions?
For heaven’s sake; the baseball diamond is a place for players to represent their TEAM..not to express their individuality with a personal fashion statement.
Stop it, I say.
Put your cap on straight. Bend the bill like God intended and find those colored stirrups to go with the pants half or all the way up the calf.
This is the correct way to wear baseball pants and socks.
This is as if you have something to hide..like a police ankle bracelet.
Here endeth the lesson
Now just a minute..I’ll be right back, there are some kids on the yard that need a talking to.
I did lots of stories on baseball during my time at Keloland TV.
My favorite, I think, was when the movie “A League Of Their Own” came out in 1992 about a league of women professional baseball players formed to take up the slack when so many Major League men players got called up to World War II. The film starred Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosey O’Donnell and directed by Penny Marshall. I thought it was very good except for the whiny younger sister to Davis’ character. Lord she was annoying.
Anyway, it came to my attention that a woman who played in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League was living in Sioux Falls.
And that’s how I met Agnes Allen.
Agnes Allen holding an official All American Girls Professional Baseball league ball during our interview in 1992.
Aggie grew up on an Alvord, Iowa farm..just a few miles east of the South Dakota border. Sadly, her mother died when Aggie was just 11 so she was greatly influenced by her dad and older brothers who were baseball players. It turns out Aggie was a natural. She had a blistering fast ball and wicked curve. Her dad spent hours and hours teaching her the basics of the game but when Aggie turned 19 in 1950, and they heard about the All American Girl’s Professional Baseball League tryouts in Rockford, Illinois, he had reservations about letting his little girl go. He finally relented..deciding the experience would be a positive one and urged his daughter to calm her nerves..even providing a “Hoosiers” like pep talk with a reminder that the game is the same; it’s all about throwing and hitting and catching..nothing she’s not used to. It turns out he was right. After screening about 100 players, the scouts were impressed enough with Aggie’s arm during the three day tryout and she was called up to play for the “Springfield Sallies.” 
Although, Aggie held her own on the ball field, she recalled feeling inferior to the other girls when the games were over.
Here’s Aggie (top left) after she joined the Kalamazoo Lassies were she spent most of her four year career.
I was pretty shy, not very worldly and certainly not much to look at, she said. But, it turns out the other players were having pretty much the same feelings..especially being homesick. It wasn’t long before they made the most of those long grueling bus rides from town to town by singing songs and enjoying the fix they all shared.
No doubt the biggest thrill of Aggie’s professional baseball career was the chance to play a three inning exhibition game against the Chicago Colleens at Yankee Stadium in New York to help promote the league. Can you imagine, this Northwest, Iowa farm girl strutting out to the mound of the most famous Major League ball park in the country to pitch in actual competition? She confessed to me that she was so nervous she hardly remembers the experience. Especially disconcerting was the fact she was going to have to throw five and a half feet farther..the difference from the rubber to home plate in a Major League park. But she settled in and even though the Colleens won the game, she got to meet the likes of Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio and a bunch of other New York Yankees who she remembered as being, “really nice.”
Aggie later signed with the Kalamazoo Lassies where she stayed for most of the next three seasons..including her best in 1953 when she went 10 and 9 with a 3.7 earned run average.
Aggie (far left middle row) in her final year with the Lassies and the league.
But she could see the future of the league wasn’t looking too bright which is why she’d been going to college during the off seasons and by the time she’d hung up her cleats for the last time at the end of ’53, she had enough credits to start teaching physical education and later a life long career in physical therapy; retiring at the age of 69.
It was clear that Agnes Allen was tickled to be giving interviews in connection with the movie “A League Of Their Own” not so much for her own glorification but to share how the experience brought her and so many other post war young women out of their shell; giving them a can-do attitude..a life filled with the desire to push their limits, face all kinds of challenges, enjoy the rewards and just plain have fun..without a man.
Aggie Allen Died in 2012 at the age of 81.
Too bad there’s no mention of her baseball career on her headstone at Alvord’s St. Mary’s Cemetery.
There IS, however, a pretty nice tribute at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
