The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League or AAGPBL was founded in 1943 by Phillip K. Wrigley. Wrigley originally decided to start the league as a way to draw crowds to baseball games after a decline in the number of attendees at games. He also founded it to keep baseball games a common, fun, family pastime during World War II.
Wrigley believed that the decline in the number of people attending baseball games was largely because of World War II. In the 1940s, many young men, (men from his professional baseball league), were drafted into the armed forces. This caused a problem for Wrigley because he lost a lot of professional baseball players. In an attempt to increase his profits and to try to attract crowds he needed to try something new. Wrigley decided to gather a group of men who worked with him to come up with ideas that would attract people to the games. At this meeting, they came up with the idea of forming a women's professional baseball team. Wrigley agreed and so he sent out scouts and set up try outs. This is how he managed to get hundreds of women, who already played baseball in minor leagues, to try out for his league, but like all try outs, only a few were chosen while the rest were cut. |
Most women decided to try out and join because of the better pay, which was usually about $45 - $85 per week. After he had enough women to form a league, he finally decided to name it the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, but not before changing the league's name various times. The league's original name was the All American Girl's Softball League.
The All American Girl's Professional Baseball League was disbanded on September 5, 1954. |