The Girls of Summer
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, June 8th 2020
It simply couldn’t be true. The Girls
weren’t coming. They had turned around.
The male population was justifiably
heartbroken. What would have been a “fine exhibition of lower limbs,” was now
just a pipedream. Something had to be done!
Early the next morning, on the
southbound train to Redding, two of Medford’s best talkers prepared to
negotiate. Their wives had laughed at them and called their “mission”
ridiculous, but male friends had not so jokingly warned them, “Don’t come home
without the Girls!”
The Girls were the Boston Bloomer
Girls, a barnstorming bunch of baseball exhibitionists who claimed to be “World
Champions of the National Pastime.” Since women of the Victorian Era seldom
played baseball in public, the scandalous thought of females in uniforms
challenging the men of America was incredibly exotic.
The uniform was much like a baggy
softball suit of today. There were no bloomers, but the calf-high trousers they
wore were just as controversial. To see a woman’s ankle in 1897, even covered
by stockings, was unheard of.
Newspapers, anxious to see the women
perform, assured readers there was nothing to fear. “The Girls not only play
exceptional baseball,” they said, but were also “blessed with ladylike
behavior.”
Perhaps not all of the Girls were
women. Losing teams often said some of the Girls were actually men in disguise.
Medford was desperate for a major
attraction, and sending their frantic negotiators to meet the Girls in person
seemed to be their last chance for success. When the men returned with contract
in hand, the male population of the valley went bonkers.
Every evening for the next two months,
on the town’s dusty ball field, balding businessmen slid in the dirt,
perfecting their baseball technique.
With temperatures in the 90s, everyone
from middle-aged bankers to youthful laborers struggled to make the team. Overweight
husbands ran themselves to exhaustion, fragrant cigars still clutched in their
teeth.
Amused wives shook their heads in
disbelief, but secretly enjoyed watching their “old fools” pretend to be 16
again. Inevitably, it was the town’s younger men and boys who would challenge
the Girls.
The Girls arrived in style aboard their
personal and private Pullman “Palace” car, a symbol of prosperity. They brought
with them everything necessary for a first-class and profitable exhibition — a
portable 2,000-seat grandstand and a seven-foot-high canvas wall that
surrounded the game and kept freeloaders out.
In October 1897, the Girls stepped off
the train, elegantly dressed in long skirts and double-breasted blazers. With
simple hats on their heads and soft scarves tied at their necks, no one would
have believed that they were talented athletes.
The crowd gladly paid 25¢ to see
Medford’s “Boys” beat the “Girls” in a slow game, 17-16.
The next day, the Bloomer Girls
traveled to Ashland to face the town’s semipro team. It was a closely contested
game until the second inning, when the local boys “chivalrously fell all to
pieces,” allowing the “cultivated ladies to take the game 11-8.”
While Medford’s citizens loved every
minute of their rival’s pain, the humiliated Ashlanders were furious with their
team.
The Bloomer Girls could care less.
Winning was the last thing on their mind. They hopped aboard their “Palace” car
and headed to California — world championship intact — and nearly $200 richer.
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
five books, including“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history
columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
