1947 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League season | |
---|---|
League | All-American Girls Professional Baseball League |
Sport | Baseball |
Number of teams | Eight |
Regular season | |
Season champions | Muskegon Lassies |
Shaugnessy playoffs | |
Champions | Grand Rapids Chicks |
The 1947 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League season marked the fifth season of the circuit. The teams Fort Wayne Daisies, Grand Rapids Chicks, Kenosha Comets, Muskegon Lassies, Peoria Redwings, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox competed through a 112-game schedule. The final Shaugnessy playoffs faced second place Grand Rapids against third place Racine in a Best of Seven Series.
By April 1947, all of the league's players were flown to Havana, Cuba for spring training. At the time, the Brooklyn Dodgers trained in the Cuban capital because Jackie Robinson, who would be the first Afro-American to play in the Major Leagues, was training with the Dodgers for the first time. By then, city ordinances in Vero Beach, Florida, where the Dodgers normally trained, prevented blacks and whites players from competing on the same field against each other. Notably, newspaper stories from Havana indicate that the All-American girls drew larger crowds for their exhibition games at Estadio Latinoamericano than did the Dodgers.
In addition to the eight team practices, early 55.000 Cuban fans attended a round-robin tournament which took place at Estadio Latinoamericano at the end of the training. The Racine Belles won the tournament and received a commemorative trophy from Esther Williams, American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.