The Colorado Silver Bullets were an all-female professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team that played in the United States from 1994 to 1997. The Bullets were the first such team since the folding of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1954.

History

Founding

The team was owned by Hope Beckham Inc. a partnership consisting of Paul Beckham and Bob Hope in Atlanta, Georgia. Back in the 1980s, Bob Hope, a former

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The Braves were founded in Bos ...

executive and the owner of an Atlanta public relations firm, had tried to field a women's minor league team called the Sun Sox. He organized and held tryouts for the team, but the minor league system would not allow them into any league. Hope then decided to put together a team outside of professionally organized baseball and secured about $2 million dollars in sponsorship from

Coors Brewing Company The Coors Brewing Company started as an American brewery and beer company in Golden, Colorado. In 2005, Adolph Coors Company, the holding company that owned Coors Brewing, merged with Molson, Inc. to become Molson Coors. The first Coors b ...

. (The team was named after its sponsor as

Coors Light Coors Light is a 4.2% (US) ABV light beer brewed in Golden, Colorado; Albany, Georgia; Elkton, Virginia; Fort Worth, Texas; Irwindale, California; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was first produced in 1978 by the Coors Brewing Company. The Ca ...

calls itself the "silver bullet" of

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

s.) With future Hall-of-Famer

Phil Niekro Philip Henry Niekro ( ; April 1, 1939 – December 26, 2020), nicknamed "Knucksie", was an American baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball, 20 of them with the Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves. Niekro's 318 career victor ...

on board as the manager, the Silver Bullets held tryouts across the country. Most of the players were top college softball players. Many had played some baseball as young girls, but most had been excluded from playing past the age of twelve. Lee Ann Ketcham played baseball right through high school in Alabama but switched to softball for college. Julie Croteau went to court to play baseball at her high school in Virginia and lost, but went on to become the first woman to play and eventually to coach baseball at the college level. Their coaches were former major leaguers, including

Joe Pignatano Joseph Benjamin Pignatano (August 4, 1929 – May 23, 2022) was an American professional baseball player and coach (baseball), coach. As a catcher, Pignatano played in Major League Baseball during all or part of six seasons (1957–1962) for th ...

Joe Niekro Joseph Franklin Niekro ( ; November 7, 1944 – October 27, 2006) was an American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He was the younger brother of pitcher Phil Niekro, and the father of former Major League first baseman Lance Niekro. Niekr ...

Johnny Grubb John Maywood Grubb, Jr. (born August 4, 1948 in Richmond, Virginia) is a former Major League Baseball outfielder and designated hitter, who also occasionally played at first base. He played with the San Diego Padres (1972–1976), Cleveland In ...

Al Bumbry Alonza Benjamin Bumbry (born Alonza Benjamin Bumbrey; April 21, 1947) is a former Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder who played for the Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres from 1972 through 1985. Bumbry was the 1973 American League Rookie o ...

and their manager, Phil Niekro, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, surrounded by his new team.{{cn, date=June 2022

Play

The Silver Bullets played 44 games during their first season, and 195 games over a four-year period from 1994-1997 by

barnstorming Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in ...

the country playing men's all-star amateur and semi-pro teams. Among their opponents were the Navy Mariners, an all-star team of players stationed at

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

bases, and the Hollywood Star Sox, a team of actors and other entertainment industry professionals captained by

Jonathan Silverman Jonathan Elihu Silverman (born August 5, 1966) is an American actor, known for his roles in the comedy films ''Brighton Beach Memoirs'', ''Weekend at Bernie's'', and its sequel ''Weekend at Bernie's II''. Early life and education Silverman was ...

. (Those games were played at, respectively,

Robert F. Kennedy Stadium Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, commonly known as RFK Stadium and originally known as District of Columbia Stadium, is a defunct multi-purpose stadium in Washington, D.C. It is located about due east of the U.S. Capitol building, near the ...

in Washington, D.C., and the Epicenter in Rancho Cucamonga, California.) Some of the team's games were televised live across the U.S. on Prime Sports, now

Fox Sports Net Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

. In their first two seasons, the Bullets didn't win a lot of games, though their record did improve; it was not until their fourth and final season that they managed a winning record. The team established a base in

Albany, Georgia Albany ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Georgia. Located on the Flint River, it is the seat of Dougherty County, and is the sole incorporated city in that county. Located in southwest Georgia, it is the principal city of the Albany, Georgia m ...

, and played about 20 games a year at Paul Eames Sports Complex for two seasons, starting in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

. After four seasons, the Bullets folded in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

when Coors Brewing Company decided not to continue with their sponsorship. Despite much effort the team was unable to secure alternate funding and had to disband.

Legacy

The Silver Bullets broke a lot of new ground and have been recognized by Cooperstown. After the 1994 season, Lee Anne Ketcham and Julie Croteau became the first women to sign with the Class A and AA men's

Hawaii Winter Baseball Hawaii Winter Baseball (HWB), based in Honolulu, Hawaii, was a professional baseball league in the Hawaiian islands. It was loosely affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB). History The HWB league first began play in 1993. Funded by Major ...

league. In 1996, four players hit home runs and Pam Davis, in a guest appearance with the AA

Jacksonville Suns The Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League (IL) and the Triple-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins. They are located in Jacksonville, Florida, and are named for shrimp caught in the area. The team pla ...

, pitched a scoreless inning of relief against the Australian Olympic men's team. In 1997, Jenny Dalton, Toni Heisler and Tamara Holmes hit over .300 and the team dramatically won their final game to finish with a record of 23-22, for their first winning season. Phil Niekro described that final game as being as exciting as a

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

game.

References

External links