Women In Sports

[vintagesportscollector]

Babe Didrikson Zaharias may unquestionably be the greatest female athlete of all time. I have always been fascinated by her. Unparalleled accomplishments in Golf, Track and Field, Basketball and a slew of other sports. An amazing person to read up on if you have the chance.

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[Duluth Eskimo]

I agree with Babe Didrickson, but I will throw a vote out for Patty Berg who is also an athlete I collect. Much like Didrickson, they excelled at sports they were allowed to participate in. Jason

The Babe and Patty Berg are both cornerstones of women's athletics without question. Any images of Patty Berg you'd like to share Jason? IMO any woman who was an officer during WW2 gets my vote.

[Duluth Eskimo]

I have lots of golf photos of Berg as I have a large collection of Minnesota related golf memorabilia, but nothing war related.

[vintagesportscollector]

+1 Berg

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Great Berg cards!

I found this article about a 1927 Roslyn Yippers versus Wenatchee Apple Knockers game amusing; “the umpire was surrounded by a gesticulating group including a few women who were not backward in expressing their opinions of umpires who were either blind or paid by the other team, and so forth.” (June 20, 1927 Wenatchee Daily World)

Plenty of Pre-War bloomer girl baseball teams...

After the US Women's impressive World Cup victory thought I'd revisit this thread with a story of a female manager in semi-pro baseball shortly after women's suffrage.

The 1925 Edmonds baseball club was managed by Emma A. Hough (1877-1940). Born in Nebraska, she moved with her family to Edmonds/Everett/Snohomish, Washington shortly after 1920. She was never referred to by her name in newsprint in reference to the team, just by her husbands' "Mrs. Frank Hough". The only employment info of Frank Hough (1871-1946) I could find was as a "Clothes Presser" on his WW1 draft registration, yet he and Emma had been married since 1894. How she started to manage a town baseball team is a mystery.

She knew baseball, after the team lost to Snohomish County League champions Granite Falls she proposed, "Mrs. Frank Hough, manager of the local team, challenged Nevins, manager of the Granite Falls team, for another game on the Everett grounds, with a Seattle Umpire, but Nevins refused unless he could have his same umpires he had at Granite Falls. Our boys have done excellent work this summer.... and the loss of Sunday's game was not entirely their fault." (9-25-25, Tribune Review) 5 to 4 loss in ten innings to Granite Falls. The Edmonds team finished their 1925 campaign with 18 wins and 4 losses, to capture the Snohomish County Independent Championship.