The arrival of the Young Ladies’ Base Ball Club of New York in Cumberland was a bigger news event in the city than the actual game they played in October 1890.
The Young Ladies’ Base Ball Club of New York was a semi-professional women’s team in the 1880s.
Despite the popularity of baseball among men in the late 19th century, the sport also proved to be popular among women.
Females playing baseball was controversial in some places. Some doctors warned that such strenuous exercise could damage a woman’s reproductive organs and affect their ability to have children. Luckily, other doctors and physical fitness educators countered the fallacy.
Then there was the debate over what was the appropriate type of uniform for a woman to wear on the ballfield. Skirts? Bloomers? Pants?
Women’s teams also created other darker problems. Debra A. Shattuck wrote in “The National Pastime: Baseball in the Big Apple,” “The earliest of the New York City-based female ball clubs was Sylvester F. Wilson’s short-lived American Brunettes and English Blondes, organized in late March 1879. The team was short-lived because Wilson and his business partner, William Powell, were both arrested for ‘engaging girls under 16 for immoral purposes’ and for having sexual relations with girls under 16.”
Still, the sport appealed to young women who enjoyed being outdoors. As its popularity grew, the team began traveling for interstate games.
That is what brought the Young Ladies’ Base Ball Club of New York to play the Cambria Iron Co.’s women’s baseball team. Cambria Iron’s team met them at the B&O Railroad station and took the New Yorkers to the American House where they were staying.
“After supper the young ladies received strict orders that they should receive no visitors, and young men were barred out from the parlor,” The (Cumberland) Daily Times reported.
Unlike male baseball teams, the newspaper noted that half of the 10 members were blondes, and the rest were brunettes.
“Many of the damsels have been in the business before, and showing their skirts to several thousand base ball enthusiasts comes easy to them,” according to the newspaper.
Not much is known about May Howard, the team captain and pitcher. The Daily Times said she had been with the team four years at that point and was “the champion female twirler of the country.”
The team had been traveling the country and even into Canada to play other female teams.
Team manager Roberts told the newspaper that the female team was harder to manage than a male team because “they are struck on themselves, and cause heaps of trouble to the old man’s mind.”
The players had to follow a set of rules governing their conduct on and off the field. Violations could lead to fines of 50 cents to $2. For instance, staying out past 10 p.m. or failing to keep their uniforms tidy cost 50 cents.
The players wore flesh-colored tights under a short flannel skirt that reached just below the knee.
The skirt and blouses were made of fabric in the team’s colors.
Roberts seemed to have no trouble finding recruits for his team or others. The women said they had learned the game in school, and some had grown up playing on empty lots as part of neighborhood teams. However, they also had to be attractive to be considered for the teams.
Players made $8 to $15 a week plus expenses. This would be worth $280 to $530 today. Experienced players could make more than a typical worker at the time, $9 to $10 a week.
“Very often they become discouraged at the jeers and sarcastic remarks of the spectators and leave, but there are always a dozen ready to take their places,” the newspaper reported.
At 2 p.m. the following day, the Western Maryland band led a parade of the players through Cumberland and out to Association Park.
The parade reached the park and took the field before a crowd estimated to be at least 1,000 people.
The Daily Times reported that Howard, who was the pitcher of the New York team, “surprised the audience very much by her twirling of the sphere, at the bat she did effective work.”
It wasn’t enough, though. Cambria Iron scored eight runs in the first inning, which was just too much for New York to come back from. Cambria Iron won the game 11-8 after it was called at the end of the seventh inning on account of heavy rain.