1945 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League season
{{Infobox sports season
| title=1945 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League season
| league=All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
| sport=Baseball
| logo=Logo of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.svg
| pixels=90px
| no_of_teams=Six
| season=Regular season
| season_champs=Rockford Peaches
| finals=Shaugnessy playoffs
| finals_champ=Rockford Peaches
| seasonslistnames=AAGPBL
| prevseason_year=1944
| nextseason_year =1946
}}
The 1945 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League season marked the third season of the circuit. The action began with six teams, like the previous season. But the Milwaukee Chicks and the Minneapolis Millerettes franchises were renamed the Grand Rapids Chicks and Fort Wayne Daisies respectively. The measure took effect for poor attendances in the cities of these teams the year before. At this point, the new clubs joined the Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox, all founding members of the league. The six teams competed through a 110-game schedule, while the split season was dropped in favor of a longer playoff format with the Shaugnessy format: the one seed facing the three seed and the two seed against the four seed.{{cite web |url=http://www.aagpbl.org/league/history.cfm |title= All-American Girls Professional Baseball League History}} In addition, the pitching distance increased from 40 to 42 feet during the midseason.[http://www.aagpbl.org/index.cfm/pages/league/20/rules-of-play AAGPBL Rules of Play]
Nevertheless, the pitchers continued to dominate the league as an all-time record eight no-hitters were recorded in the season. Rockford's Carolyn Morris hurled a perfect game against Fort Wayne, while South Bend's Betty Luna threw four shutouts in a stretch, including her first career no-hitter. Grand Rapids' Connie Wisniewski led all pitchers with her 32 victories and a 0.81 earned run average, rivalizing with Fort Wayne's Dorothy Wiltse who recorded 29 wins and a 0.83 ERA. But the other side, Mary Nesbitt of Racine was the only hitter to top the .300 mark (.319) while Fort Wayne teammates Helen Callaghan and Faye Dancer tied for the home run title with three a piece. Wisniewski was honored with the AAGPBL Player of the Year Award.All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book – W. C. Madden. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2000. Format: Softcover, 294pp. Language: English. {{ISBN|978-0-7864-3747-4}}
In the playoffs, champion Rockford played third place Grand Rapids and second place Fort Wayne took Racine. Rockford and Fort Wayne ended up facing each other in the finals, with Rockford becoming the first team to win both the season title and the championship in league history. Morris, who went 28–12 with a 1.08 ERA in the season, defeated the Chicks three times in the first round and repeated her feat against the Daisies in the finals, proving that good pitching is most important that hitting during a short series.The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary – W. C. Madden. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2005. Format: Softcover, 295pp. Language: English. {{ISBN|0-7864-3747-2}}All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book
The AAGPBL drew 450,000 fans during the 1945 season, which represented a 19 percent raise over the previous year.
Teams
class="wikitable" style="width:auto" | ||
bgcolor="#0000FF" align="center" colspan="6"|1945 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Teams | ||
| Team | City | Stadium |
Fort Wayne Daisies | ||
Grand Rapids Chicks | ||
Kenosha Comets | ||
Racine Belles | ||
Rockford Peaches | ||
South Bend Blue Sox |
Map of teams
{{CSS crop
|Location=left
|Description=10px All-American Girls Professional Baseball League teams
|bSize=950
|cWidth=450
|cHeight=300
|oLeft=425
|oTop=145
|Content=
{{Location map+ | USA Midwest
| width = 900
| caption =
| places =
{{Location map~ | USA Midwest
| lat_deg = 41.10
| lon_deg = -85.14
| mark = Black pog.svg
| label_size = 80
| position = bottom
| label = Daisies}}
{{Location map~ | USA Midwest
| lat_deg = 42.96
| lon_deg = -85.66
| mark = Black pog.svg
| label_size = 80
| position = bottom
| label = Chicks}}
{{Location map~ | USA Midwest
| lat_deg = 42.58
| lon_deg = -87.85
| mark = Black pog.svg
| label_size = 80
| position = bottom
| label = Comets}}
{{Location map~ | USA Midwest
| lat_deg = 42.74
| lon_deg = -87.80
| mark = Black pog.svg
| label_size = 80
| position = right
| label = Belles}}
{{Location map~ | USA Midwest
| lat_deg = 42.25
| lon_deg = -89.09
| mark = Black pog.svg
| label_size = 80
| position = bottom
| label = Peaches}}
{{Location map~ | USA Midwest
| lat_deg = 41.67
| lon_deg = -86.27
| mark = Black pog.svg
| label_size = 80
| position = bottom
| label = Blue Sox}}
}}
}}
{{Clear}}
Final standings
class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
!Rank!!Team!!W!!L!!W-L%!!GB | |||||
1 | Rockford Peaches | 67 | 43 | .609 | – |
2 | Fort Wayne Daisies | 62 | 47 | .569 | 4½ |
3 | Grand Rapids Chicks | 60 | 50 | .545 | 7 |
4 | Racine Belles | 50 | 60 | .455 | 17 |
5 | South Bend Blue Sox | 49 | 60 | .450 | 17½ |
6 | Kenosha Comets | 41 | 69 | .372 | 26 |
Postseason
{{4TeamBracket|RD1=First round
Best of five series|RD2=Second round
Best of seven series
|RD1-seed1=1|RD1-team1=Rockford Peaches|RD1-score1=3|RD1-seed2=3|RD1-team2=Grand Rapids Chicks|RD1-score2=1
|RD1-seed3=2|RD1-team3=Fort Wayne Daisies|RD1-score3=3|RD1-seed4=4|RD1-team4=Racine Belles|RD1-score4=1
|RD2-seed1=1|RD2-team1=Rockford Peaches|RD2-score1=4|RD2-seed2=2|RD2-team2=Fort Wayne Daisies|RD2-score2=1
}}
Batting statistics
Pitching statistics
All-Star Game
{{main|All-American Girls Professional Baseball League All-Star Team}}
See also
Sources
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.aagpbl.org/ AAGPBL Official Website]
- [http://www.aagpbl.org/index.cfm/pages/league/19/league-records AAGPBL Records]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110927145209/http://www.baseballhistorian.com/html/american_heroes.cfm?page=123 Baseball Historian files]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20120204072121/http://www.thediamondangle.com/archive/aagpbl.html The Diamond Angle profiles and interviews]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110806021110/http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=w&w=v&biogID=5 SABR Projects – Jim Sargent articles]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4v7dd2KB-k YouTube videos]
{{All-American Girls Professional Baseball League}}
Category:All-American Girls Professional Baseball League seasons
Category:1940s in women's baseball