Milwaukee Women’s Baseball: The Evolution of First Hits to Home Runs

As men go to war and sports become popular entertainment, the girls and women take their chance at the plate and begin the game of women’s baseball.

When people think about baseball in Milwaukee their first thought directs towards the huge Brewers Stadium/American Family Field in the middle of the city where the famously know Milwaukee Brewers play, yet there is much more to this game and its history in Milwaukee.

Women have been playing baseball from its earliest days. During a virtual event hosted by the Milwaukee County Historical Society, baseball historian Mary Shea explored the history of women in baseball, from the Bloomer Girls of the late 1800’s to the championship team of the 1944 Milwaukee Chicks, and how women continue to play today.

Shea is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League – Players Association.

Baseball first became slowly introduced in the early 1800’s on the East coast and spread all over the U.S. during the Civil War and again during World War II. The game began to evolve from ball and stick games, like rounders and crickets, which is a British version of the game, and were very much children’s games.

“Women and girls were playing the various versions of baseball since it was first introduced, just as many men and boys did,” said Shea.

Women kept the sport alive during the wars as many teams had trouble with trying to keep men’s baseball going, so Philip Wrigley developed a women’s baseball league with four original teams in 1943: Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches, and South Bend Blue Sox.

The league started off as a softball league with underhand pitching and short distant throws until 1947 when the side arm throw was introduced and shortly after the next year overhand pitching took its place with an almost regular sized baseball.

In 1944, the Milwaukee chicks or “Schnitts” were introduced to the league. Their unofficial name originated from newspapers like the Journal and Sentinel calling them the “schnitts,” which is German for a little beer, which in Milwaukee little beers are popularly served with a bloody marry drink.

The Milwaukee Chicks were a part of this league for only one year in 1944, yet many of the major city teams didn’t last long because of other minor league teams in the area. In this case it was the Milwaukee Brewers.

According to Shea, what made it really tough for the Chicks was that they had to play day games while the Milwaukee Brewers played at night. They averaged 200-300 people and some people thought that the 95-cent ticket price was a little too high. Even though they had a great team it was hard to draw fans because of those circumstances.

In 1945, the chicks moved to Grand Rapids and stayed until 1954 where the league eventually folded.

Jenna Witt, 20, grew up in Milwaukee and started playing women’s softball as early as 5-years-old. Witt began to play when she was inspired by her older brothers playing baseball.

“Women’s baseball has the potential to become what men’s baseball is today,” said Witt. “I have no doubt.”

Women became vastly interested in playing the sport, and in the late 1800’s women developed the game into professional baseball team, yet the women’s teams, unlike men, were more of a novelty act than anything, with their brightly colored and dress like uniforms.

In Vassar, the first two baseball clubs were formed in 1866 for women who wanted to play baseball just as much as men, but still they had to keep it on the down low and only play against other women because they were considered too delicate to play a “mans” sport, according to Shea.

Eventually the bloomer teams were developed. The bloomers, a term used to describe big flouncy pants, were invented by Amelia Bloomer so that women could play sports without tripping over their long dresses.

Bloomer girls were Barnstorming teams that played men’s pro and armature teams, and they often used 2-3 male players.

“One of the most important bloomer girls was Maud Nelson, she pitched, played 3rd base, scouted other bloomer girl teams, etc.,” said Shea. “This went on for over 40 years.”

Something unique about women’s baseball is that the teams played in uniforms that were dress like, and it made it hard for the players to play in. Many of the players got “strawberries” while wearing this uniform, which was caused by the women sliding into the dirt and getting large open scrapes on their legs.

Star players in the league: Dottie “Kammie” Kamenshek: first base, power hitter, a lot of men coaches who saw her play thought she was a major league caliber first baseman.

Sophie Kurys: base stealer for the Racine Belles, 1946 player of the year, stole 201 bases and only got thrown out two times.

Jean Faut: played for the South Bend Blue Sox, pitched four no-hitters, and had two perfect games.

The event wrapped up with Shea tying in a final quote said by a former major league baseball player, Henry Aaron, “There is no logical reason why [women] shouldn’t play baseball.”