From The Prairie Fields to the Glamor League: Women’s Softball in Canada and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

Abstract

There has been much written about Canadians who played in the All-American Girls ProfessionalBaseball League (AAGPBL). Lost to the footnote of history perhaps, is why so many of the Canadian born play-ers were from the prairie provinces. Of the 53 women who played in the AAGPBL, centralized near Chicagobetween 1943 and 1954, 83% were from the prairie provinces which is statistically significant. This paper ex-plores the reasons why this is the case by looking at the direct link between Women’s Softball (with an emphasison the prairies) in Canada and the recruitment patterns of the AAGPBL. The aim of this research is to reveala little-known fact about the AAGPBL’s geographical composition as well as broaden the understanding of thehistory of Canadian women in baseball.