Rockford Peaches

One of the more successful teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the Peaches won the league championship in 1945, 1948, 1949, and 1950 and had its share of star players.

Rockford Peaches was a team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) whose team name and colors were picked by Mr. Philip K. Wrigley, according the location proximity of the cities that did not have a major league male baseball team. Mrs. Helen Blanche (née Atwater) Wrigley; Wrigley's Art Designer Otis Shepard; and Chicago softball star Ann Harnett the first girl to sign a contract with the league; together, worked to design special uniforms for the League. The one-piece short-skirted flared tunic resembled the figure skating, tennis skirt, and field hockey uniforms of this time period. All uniforms were based on pastel colors. Satin shorts (a darker color than the tunic), knee-high baseball socks and baseball hat the uniform. Each city had a different colored uniform and its own symbolic patch decorated the front of the uniform. Femininity, was a high priority for Mrs. Wrigley and she employed Helena Rubenstein's Beauty Salon to teach personal hygiene, makeup, hair and mannerisms to make each Rockford Peach and all AAGPBL players the most attractive they could be. Part of the uniform was a makeup kit and instructions on how to use makeup to be part of the overall look for each team in the league.^[1] Rockford Peach player, Dorothy "Kammie" Kamenshek, recalled, "The first year was very difficult because [the skirts] were too flaring and too long. You'd go to stoop for a ground ball and the skirt would be there. But we accepted it." Ballplayers also accepted the wounds from sliding called 'strawberries' due to the shortness of the skirt and shorts.^[2]

Olive Little threw the first no-hitter in team and league history, on June 10, 1943.^[3]

Peaches players who were named to the All-Star teams from 1946 to 1954 included Dorothy Kamenshek, Lois Florreich, Dorothy Harrell, Carolyn Morris, Alice Pollitt, Ruth Richard, Rose Gacioch, Eleanor Callow, and Joan Berger. Pitcher Olive Little hurled the first no-hitter both in team and league history.^[4] In addition, Florreich was the pitching champion in 1949 during the league's overhand era, and Gladys Davis won the league batting crown in the 1943 inaugural season, while Kamenshek earned the honors in the 1946 and 1947 seasons.

The last living player of the first Peaches roster in AAGPBL, pitcher Mary Pratt, died on May 6, 2020, at the age of 101.^[5]

The 1992 film A League of Their Own by Penny Marshall features the Rockford Peaches. However, all of the characters in the film are fictional. The team did not play in the 1943 league championship, as depicted in the film. In real life, the Racine Belles faced the Kenosha Comets in 1943; the Peaches won their first title in 1945.

The 2022 TV series A League of Their Own centers on the formation of the AAGPBL and the Rockford Peaches.

Source:^[6]

Bold denotes members of the inaugural roster

• Women's baseball
• Women in baseball