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Helen Smith (baseball)
Helen "Gig" Smith (January 5, 1922 – January 17, 2019) was a utility infielder who played briefly in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She batted and threw right-handed. Smith was born and grew up in Richmond, Virginia. An all-around athlete in college, both in basketball and softball, she served in the Army during World War II, just after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Smith joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, where she drew illustrations for the WAAC newspaper based at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia, and also played as a catcher on a women’s fast-pitch softball team. She was transferred to the Pentagon in 1944 to work in Army Military Intelligence, working in cartography. She was discharged in 1945 and made her debut in the AAGPBL in its 1947 season, playing for the Kenosha Comets before joining the Grand Rapids Chicks in 1948. Following her baseball career, Smith attended and graduated from Pratt Art Institute in New York City. She sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was a professional women's baseball league founded by Philip K. Wrigley which existed from 1943 to 1954. The AAGPBL is the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States. Over 600 women played in the league, which consisted of eventually 10 teams located in the American Midwest. In 1948, league attendance peaked at over 900,000 spectators. The most successful team, the Rockford Peaches, won a league-best four championships. The 1992 film ''A League of Their Own'' is a mostly fictionalized account of the early days of the league and its stars. Founding and play With the entry of the United States into World War II, several major league baseball executives started a new professional league with women players in order to maintain baseball in the public eye while the majority of able men were away. The founders included Philip K. Wrigley, Branch Rickey, and Paul V. Harper. They feared that Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Women’s Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States as the WAC on 1 July 1943. Its first director was Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby. The WAC was disbanded in 1978, and all units were integrated with male units. History The WAAC's organization was designed by numerous Army bureaus coordinated by Lt. Col. Gillman C. Mudgett, the first WAAC Pre-Planner; however, nearly all of his plans were discarded or greatly modified before going into operation because he expected a corps of only 11,000 women. Without the support of the War Department, Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill on 28 May 1941, providing for a Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The bill was held up for months by the Bureau of the Budget but was resurrected after the United States entered the war. The senate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
