Tag Archives: women’s

ALL AMERICAN WOMEN’s BASEBALL CARDS

Leave a reply

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) Trading Cards

From 1943 to 1954, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) operated as a professional women’s baseball league with teams based in cities across the Midwest. While the league only lasted 12 seasons, it helped popularize women’s baseball during World War II when many male baseball players were serving overseas. The league is best remembered today through the 1992 film A League of Their Own, which told the fictionalized story of two sisters who join the league.

Though the AAGPBL only had a short run, it left behind an important piece of sports card history – AAGPBL trading cards. Produced from 1948 to 1954 by Bowman Gum and Topps Chewing Gum, these cards helped promote the league and individual players while also preserving their legacies on card stock for future generations. Here is an overview of the AAGPBL trading card sets that were issued during the league’s existence:

1948 Bowman Gum Set
The first AAGPBL card set was released in 1948 by Bowman Gum, one of the early leaders in American baseball cards. The set featured 36 players from the AAGPBL presented in a simple black-and-white design on standard size gum cards. Some of the notable stars featured included Sophie Kurys, Joanne Winter, and Doris Sams. This set helped introduce female baseball players to card collectors for the first time. The 1948 cards are now highly sought after by both baseball card collectors and women’s sports memorabilia enthusiasts.

1950-1951 Bowman Gum Sets
Bowman followed up their pioneering 1948 set with new AAGPBL issues in 1950 and 1951. The 1950 set included 60 cards while the 1951 offering contained 72 cards, both showing color portraits of the league’s top players. Notable inclusions were Shirley Jameson, Kathryn Barr, and Jean Faut. These sets continued promoting the league during its peak years while documenting more of the talented women ballplayers. The cards from these sets also remain quite valuable today.

1953-1954 Topps Chewing Gum Sets
In the early 1950s, Topps began challenging Bowman’s dominance in the baseball card market. They gained the AAGPBL license and produced sets focused on the league in 1953 and 1954 – the final two years the league was in operation. The 1953 set included 66 cards while the 1954 set contained 60. Stars like Joanne Weaver, Betty Trezza, and Jean Geissinger received cardboard recognition from Topps. These were the last AAGPBL cards produced, capping over a half-decade of the league being featured on trading cards.

Legacy of the AAGPBL Card Sets

Though short-lived, the AAGPBL trading card sets released from 1948 to 1954 helped promote and commemorate a pioneering all-women’s professional baseball experience during a unique time in American sports history. At a time when few professional women’s sports leagues existed, the cards put the faces and achievements of real ballplayers in the hands of the public. They documented a slice of athletic history that may have otherwise been forgotten.

Today, complete sets of AAGPBL cards are highly prized by vintage sports memorabilia collectors. Prices for the rarer and higher-graded examples can reach thousands of dollars. Individual standout cards like a Sophie Kurys from the 1948 Bowman set in gem mint condition would command an even higher sum. The cards are a tangible link to an important era for women in baseball that still sparks interest decades later. They ensure the accomplishments of these pioneering athletes are preserved and remembered for generations to come.

While the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League may be a footnote in the history books, the trading card sets released during its existence left an indelible mark. They were among the earliest sports cards focused specifically on female athletes and helped promote women’s baseball. Most importantly, they documented the faces and stories of the talented players who took the field during an era when professional opportunities for women in sports were still quite limited. For these reasons, the AAGPBL trading card sets remain a cherished collectible for those fascinated by the unique story of women in American baseball history.

WOMEN’s BASEBALL CARDS

Leave a reply

Women have been involved in baseball for over a century in various roles, yet their contributions have often been overlooked or written out of history. With the rise of the women’s rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a renewed interest in acknowledging and celebrating the accomplishments of women in the national pastime. This led to the production and release of official trading cards featuring professional women baseball players during this era.

Some of the earliest known women’s baseball cards date back to the 1930s and 1940s. These included individual cards of famous “lady baseball stars” like Jackie Mitchell and Philadelphia Bobbysoxer pitcher Peggy Whitson. These were often produced by smaller regional card companies and lacked widespread distribution. It wasn’t until the 1970s that larger national card manufacturers like Topps began acknowledging the emergence of organized women’s professional baseball leagues in the United States.

In 1973, Topps released a 70-card set called “Women of Baseball” as an insert in their main baseball card releases that year. These early women’s cards featured players from the recently formed All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), which operated from 1943 to 1954. Notable stars highlighted included pitchers Cleo Gambino and Joanne Winter, as well as sluggers like Joan Berger and Betty Trezza. While short-lived, this initial Topps set helped put AAGPBL alumni on par with their male MLB counterparts in the collecting hobby during the early 1970s.

Topps followed up their early release with updated women’s baseball sets in 1978 and 1981 focused on new organizations carrying the torch of women’s professional ball. The 1978 82-card “Topps Women of Baseball” set featured players from the Phoenix Jills, Tucson Lizards, and newly formed Ladies Professional Baseball League (LPBL). Cards highlighted standouts like pitcher Mary “Toni” Mason and slugger Marilyn Kneeland. Then in 1981, Topps again showed renewed interest by releasing an 84-card “Topps Women’s Baseball” set featuring numerous LPBL players.

Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, the LPBL gained significant mainstream media attention and popularity, helping establish women’s baseball as a viable spectator sport for the first time since WWII. To capitalize on this new fan interest, numerous regional card companies produced their own LPBL and independent women’s league rookie cards, player sets, and even team/league sets highlighting rising stars. Companies like ProCards, K & W Sports, and Joker Baseball Cards supplemented official national releases from companies like Topps during the sport’s popularity peak.

While the LPBL folded operations in 1982, ushering an end to the first major era of women’s professional ball, card manufacturers continued limited supplemental releases into the mid-1980s. In 1986, Bowman Gum Co. produced a 60-card women’s baseball set highlighting continuing women’s independent semi-pro and amateur leagues. And Fleer produced a 39-card “Fleer Women’s Baseball” set in 1991 focusing on resurgent college women’s programs and Olympic softball breakthroughs.

With the growth of women’s fastpitch softball at the college level through the 1980s-2000s and the rising Olympic profile of the sport internationally, subsequent card sets morphed to primarily highlight notable college and international softball players/teams rather than maintaining focus solely on women’s baseball. Brands like Score, Donruss, and Upper Deck produced occasional women’s fastpitch softball sets highlighting star college players and Olympians like Jessica Mendoza, Jennie Finch, and other notable names.

In 2008, the formation of National Pro Fastpitch, the first modern women’s professional softball league, led to renewed interest by card companies. Manufacturers like Diamond Kings produced specialized sets exclusively highlighting NPF players and teams to capitalize on this new era of professional women’s softball. In recent years, independent artists and small print-to-order companies producing one-off sets often include select women’s baseball alumni and softball stars mixed among their male counterparts, preserving their place in the collecting hobby.

While no women’s baseball cards have been produced by major manufacturers since the early 1990s, the pioneering 1970s and 1980s women’s sets remain highly coveted by collectors today as an important representation of the peak eras of women’s professional baseball and dedication to preserving the accomplishments of these pioneering athletes often excluded from the official history books. With renewed calls for equality and inclusion in sports, there may come a day when the next generation of women blazing trails in baseball once again finds recognition on the trading card fronts alongside their male peers in America’s favorite pastime.