BASEBALL AND BLOOMERS

Right after the national anthem ends, the national pastime begins. Americans love all things baseball. More than 350,000 people each year make the pilgrimage to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Millions of people attend games every year, but few know how it all started.

The question of the origins of baseball has been the subject of debate and controversy for more than a century. Baseball and the other modern bat, ball and running games, cricket and rounders, were developed from earlier folk games.

Americans played a version of the English game rounders in the early 19th century which they called "Town Ball." In fact, early forms of baseball had a number of names, including "Base Ball," "Goal Ball", "Round Ball," "Fletch-catch," "stool ball," and, simply, "Base." In at least one version of the game, teams pitched to themselves, runners went around the bases in the opposite direction of today's game, and players could be put out by being hit with the ball. Like today, a batter was called out after three strikes.

Few details of how the modern games developed from earlier folk games are known. Some think that various folk games resulted in a game called town ball from which baseball was eventually born. Others believe that town ball was independent from baseball.

Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America's "national pastime."

One point undisputed by historians is that the modern professional major leagues that began in the 1870s developed directly from amateur urban clubs of the 1840s and 1850s, not from the pastures of small towns such as Cooperstown.

The first team of professional baseball players, the first to openly pay salaries, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, took the field in 1869. They were all male - the first boys of summer. Other teams saw how great the Red Stockings were with paid athletes, and they followed suit. To raise the money, teams charged admission to see their games and held fundraisers.

The first girls of summer, women who were paid to play baseball competed in their first game in 1875. In the 1870s, an American woman could not vote. A woman's name was to appear in print twice in her lifetime, once when she was born and once when she died. She could not own property in her own name after marriage. But she could play ball, as well as it could be played in an outfit that weighed as much as 30 pounds and included a floor-length skirt, underskirts, a long-sleeved, high-necked blouse, and high button shoes.

Single-sex colleges deserve a lot of credit for encouraging women's sports. In 1866, Vassar College created the first women's baseball team. Within a decade, in 1875, the first public game was held between two women's teams, although it was not truly a serious sporting competition. Instead, this first game was a form of entertainment organized by men. "The Blondes" played "The Brunettes."

Amelia Bloomer, an American women's rights and temperance advocate, was credited with designing, and wore the loose-fitting, Turkish-style trousers that carried her name, and made sports more practical for women athletes. In the 1890s, scores of "Bloomer Girls" baseball teams were formed all over the country. Eventually, many of them would abandon bloomers in favor of standard baseball uniforms.

The teams were integrated when it came to gender and although most of the players were women, each roster had at least one male player. Future St. Louis superstar Rogers Hornsby got his start on a Bloomer Girls team, as did Smokey Joe Wood, who later pitched for the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians. Most of these men wore wigs and dressed as women. Bloomer teams had an average of 3 males on them.

The Bloomer Girls era lasted from the 1890s until 1934. Hundreds of teams -- All Star Ranger Girls, Philadelphia Bobbies, New York Bloomer Girls, Baltimore Black Sox Colored Girls -- offered employment, travel, and adventure for young women who could hit, field, slide, or catch. The Dolly Vardens of Philadelphia were the first recognized women's baseball team and the first women's African-American baseball team. The team formed in 1867, one year after the formation of Philadelphia's first African-American men's team.

The Bloomer Girls teams dwindled as more and more minor league teams -- farm clubs -- were formed to provide experience for young men on their climb up to the majors. A few women like Jackie Mitchell were signed, briefly, to minor league contracts, but they were exceptions.

Lizzie Murphy became the first woman to play for a major league team in an exhibition game; she also became the 1st person, of either gender, to play for both the American League and National League in All-Star games in 1928.

Baseball history is filled with women who like diamonds of the green variety -- Lizzie Arlington (pitched a minor-league game in Pennsylvania in 1898); Jackie Mitchell (struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a 1931 exhibition game); and Julie Coteau (challenged men-only college rules). Bernice Gera and Pam Postema worked as pro umpires, as did the little-known Canadian Shanna Kook, who spent two seasons calling balls and strikes in the Pioneer League.

Even the U.S. baseball national anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," was inspired by and written about a young girl’s love of the game in 1908.

In 1952, baseball commissioner Ford Frick formally banned women from signing professional contracts with men's teams, including the two major leagues and their minor-league affiliates, a move said taken to protect the integrity of the game by preventing the use of women as stunts designed to improve attendance. As far as is known, his ruling has yet to be rescinded.

This did not stop women from playing baseball for sport and competition. A ruling by Sylvia Pressler, hearing examiner for the New Jersey Civil Rights Division on Nov. 7, 1973, was later upheld in the Superior Court, leading to Little League Baseball's admittance of girls into its programs. Until then, Little League regulations had prohibited girls from participating.

"The institution of Little League is as American as the hotdog and apple pie," Ms. Pressler said in part of her ruling. "There is no reason why that part of Americana should be withheld from girls."

So, in 1974, Little League Softball for girls was created, and the baseball rules and regulations were made non-gender specific.

There are over a dozen women's amateur baseball leagues in the United States operating in almost every major region and around the world. All operate independently of one another during their respective seasons. However, national tournaments are held a few times each year to facilitate competition between these regional leagues. The American Women's Baseball Federation is the national organization dedicated to this goal. Go to their website at http://www.awbf.org for more information.