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.
