Rose Gacioch
Encyclopedia
Rose M. Gacioch [gay'-sotch] (August 31, 1915 - September 9, 2004) was a right fielder
and pitcher
who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
. Listed at 5' 6", 160 lb., Gacioch batted and threw right-handed. She had one of the most successful career in AAGPBL history and possibly the well-rounded of any female player.
' owner Philip K. Wrigley
, gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball and to play it at a level never before attained. It was a neglected chapter of sports history, at least until 1992
, when filmmaker Penny Marshall
premiered her film A League of Their Own
, which was a fiction
alized account of activities in the AAGPBL. Starring Geena Davis
, Tom Hanks
, Madonna
, Lori Petty
and Rosie O'Donnell
, this film brought a rejuvenated interest to the extinct league. In the film, O'Donnell played the character Rosie, as was nicknamed Gacioch by fellow players and fans. The AAGPBL folded in 1954, but there is now a permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum since November 5, that honors those who were part of this unforgettable experience. Gacioch, along with the rest of the AAGPBL players, is now enshrined in the venerable building at Cooperstown, New York
.
, Gacioch was orphaned at the age of 16. She lied about her age, saying that she was 18 in order to take a job in a corrugating plant in her homeland. She also joined the Little Cardinals, a semi-professional
baseball team in town, being the only girl on the team. What she considered her best pitch was the curveball
which she had learned from her brother Steve, the oldest of four Gacioch children and the only boy.
One afternoon in 1934, the president of the corrugating company came to a Little Cardinals game. He meet Maud Nelson
, the manager of the All-Star Ranger Girls, and asked her if she could swing through Wheeling on her next tour, and give Gacioch a tryout. Gacioch did good, as Nelson signed her for the Rangers, where she alternated between the outfield and pitching. By then, women athletes hurried right into these teams. The trousers she used gave their name to pioneer women's baseball players, who were called Bloomer Girls.
But 1934 was the last year that the Bloomer Girls teams would play. Local companies that had sponsored women's baseball were switching over the less expensive game of softball
, an activity that relied mainly on a strong player, as is the pitcher. So Gacioch, like most other women players, switched to softball, barnstorming around the Midwest on weekends for as much as $50 for two days' play. She was working in a factory during World War II
when she read about the new women's baseball league, the All-American Girls Baseball League, being formed. At 29, she was a bit old to play baseball. Nevertheless, a co-worker said her that his daughter was a chaperone for the South Bend Blue Sox
, and he would ask her to come and look Gacioch up. Her chance came with a tryout at Pulaski Field in South Wheeling, just two blocks from her home.
by Bert Niehoff
, the same man that had sent pitcher Jackie Mitchell
to face Babe Ruth
and Lou Gehrig
a decade earlier in an exhibition game. As it is reported, she struck out
Ruth And Gehrig in succession.
At the end of the 1945 season, Gacioch was one of the ten players on the Blue Sox that Niehoff asked to have protected from being traded at a league meeting in Chicago. But the president of the South Bend club decided that Gacioch's poor English made her a liability for the team, not the ladylike image he was seeking for his organization. And so he traded her to the Rockford Peaches
for the 1945 season.
After the transaction, Gacioch blossomed as one of the most consistent AAGPBL players, starring on three championship teams for the Peaches, and by setting several league records as both a hitter and a pitcher. During her first year in Rockford she set a league record of 31 assists
from outfield, a mark she matched two years later. Then in the 1946 season, she led the league with nine triples
while hitting a hefty .262 of batting average
.
Peaches manager Bill Allington moved Gacioch from the outfield to the pitcher's mound in 1948, and she responded with 14-5 mark. Her most productive season came in 1951, when she posted a 20-7 record to become the league's only 20-game winner. She also pitched a no-hitter
in 1953, and while not pitching played in the outfield, she amaased averages of .294 in 1951, .285 in 1953, and a top-career .304 in 1954 at age of 38, when she was old enough to be the mother of some of her teammates. Also in her final season, she recorded a significant total of 13 home run
s.
A good-contact hitter, Gacioch only struck out 162 times in almost 3,000 career at-bats, and she ranks eight in the AAGPBL All-Time list with 352 runs batted in. As a pitcher, she won 92 games and lost 60 in 174 appearances. Her skill as an overhand pitcher led to the league's changing its rules in 1947 to allow overhand pitching. She achieved four league championships and made the All-Star Team
in 1951, 1952 and 1953. She retired from baseball after the league disbanded in 1954.
Following her baseball career, she worked for 20 years as a press operator with Amerock Corporation in Rockford, Illinois
, retiring in 1978. She then moved to Sterling Heights, Michigan
. Although she never married, she was enchanted by her nieces and nephews and excelled in bowling
. In 1954, she was the national champion in doubles bowling.
Gacioch visited Cooperstown for the AAGPBL exhibition opening in 1988 and reveled in her niche at the Hall of Fame. As she said in the interview reflecting on her career: I always say: 'Now I got something on Pete Rose
. I got there before he did.
She died in Clinton Township, Michigan
, at the age of 89.
Right fielder
A right fielder, abbreviated RF, is the outfielder in baseball or softball who plays defense in right field. Right field is the area of the outfield to the right of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound...
and pitcher
Pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throwsthe baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the...
who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was a women's professional baseball league founded by Philip K. Wrigley which existed from 1943 to 1954. During the league's history, over 600 women played ball.-History:...
. Listed at 5' 6", 160 lb., Gacioch batted and threw right-handed. She had one of the most successful career in AAGPBL history and possibly the well-rounded of any female player.
Brief history
During the early 1940s the AAGPBL recruited young women to play baseball to keep the spirit of the game alive while the men fought overseas. The league, created in 1943 by the Chicago CubsChicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...
' owner Philip K. Wrigley
Philip K. Wrigley
Philip Knight Wrigley , sometimes also called P.K. or Phil. Born in Chicago, he was an American chewing gum manufacturer and executive in Major League Baseball, inheriting both those roles as the quiet son of his much more flamboyant father, William Wrigley Jr. After his father died in 1932, Philip...
, gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball and to play it at a level never before attained. It was a neglected chapter of sports history, at least until 1992
1992 in film
The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards...
, when filmmaker Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall
Penny Marshall is an American actress, producer and director.After playing several small roles for television, she was cast as Laverne DeFazio in the sitcom Laverne and Shirley...
premiered her film A League of Their Own
A League of Their Own
A League of Their Own is a 1992 American comedy-drama film that tells a fictionalized account of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League . Directed by Penny Marshall, the film stars Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell...
, which was a fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
alized account of activities in the AAGPBL. Starring Geena Davis
Geena Davis
Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis is an American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist...
, Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
, Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, Lori Petty
Lori Petty
Lori Petty is an American film and television actress best known for playing "Tyler Endicott" in Point Break in 1991, "Kit Keller" in A League of Their Own in 1992, and the title role in Tank Girl in 1995.-Early life:...
and Rosie O'Donnell
Rosie O'Donnell
Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American stand-up comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family...
, this film brought a rejuvenated interest to the extinct league. In the film, O'Donnell played the character Rosie, as was nicknamed Gacioch by fellow players and fans. The AAGPBL folded in 1954, but there is now a permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum since November 5, that honors those who were part of this unforgettable experience. Gacioch, along with the rest of the AAGPBL players, is now enshrined in the venerable building at Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, USA. It is located in the Town of Otsego. The population was estimated to be 1,852 at the 2010 census.The Village of Cooperstown is the county seat of Otsego County, New York...
.
Early life
A native of Wheeling, West VirginiaWheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia; it is the county seat of Ohio County. Wheeling is the principal city of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, Gacioch was orphaned at the age of 16. She lied about her age, saying that she was 18 in order to take a job in a corrugating plant in her homeland. She also joined the Little Cardinals, a semi-professional
Semi-professional
A semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source, thus making the athlete not a full professional...
baseball team in town, being the only girl on the team. What she considered her best pitch was the curveball
Curveball
The curveball is a type of pitch in baseball thrown with a characteristic grip and hand movement that imparts forward spin to the ball causing it to dive in a downward path as it approaches the plate. Its close relatives are the slider and the slurve. The "curve" of the ball varies from pitcher to...
which she had learned from her brother Steve, the oldest of four Gacioch children and the only boy.
One afternoon in 1934, the president of the corrugating company came to a Little Cardinals game. He meet Maud Nelson
Maud Nelson
Maud Nelson was an early professional woman baseball pitcher, scout, manager, and team owner....
, the manager of the All-Star Ranger Girls, and asked her if she could swing through Wheeling on her next tour, and give Gacioch a tryout. Gacioch did good, as Nelson signed her for the Rangers, where she alternated between the outfield and pitching. By then, women athletes hurried right into these teams. The trousers she used gave their name to pioneer women's baseball players, who were called Bloomer Girls.
But 1934 was the last year that the Bloomer Girls teams would play. Local companies that had sponsored women's baseball were switching over the less expensive game of softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
, an activity that relied mainly on a strong player, as is the pitcher. So Gacioch, like most other women players, switched to softball, barnstorming around the Midwest on weekends for as much as $50 for two days' play. She was working in a factory during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
when she read about the new women's baseball league, the All-American Girls Baseball League, being formed. At 29, she was a bit old to play baseball. Nevertheless, a co-worker said her that his daughter was a chaperone for the South Bend Blue Sox
South Bend Blue Sox
The South Bend Blue Sox were a women's professional baseball team who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League...
, and he would ask her to come and look Gacioch up. Her chance came with a tryout at Pulaski Field in South Wheeling, just two blocks from her home.
Professional career
For Gacioch, the result was a return to baseball as a member of the 1944 Blue Sox. The team was managedManager (baseball)
In baseball, the field manager is an individual who is responsible for matters of team strategy on the field and team leadership. Managers are typically assisted by between one and six assistant coaches, whose responsibilities are specialized...
by Bert Niehoff
Bert Niehoff
John Albert Niehoff was a second baseman in Major League Baseball who played for four different clubs between the and seasons...
, the same man that had sent pitcher Jackie Mitchell
Jackie Mitchell (baseball)
Virne Beatrice "Jackie" Mitchell Gilbert was one of the first female pitchers in professional baseball history...
to face Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
and Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig
Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig , nicknamed "The Iron Horse" for his durability, was an American Major League Baseball first baseman. He played his entire 17-year baseball career for the New York Yankees . Gehrig set several major league records. He holds the record for most career grand slams...
a decade earlier in an exhibition game. As it is reported, she struck out
Strikeout
In baseball or softball, a strikeout or strike-out occurs when a batter receives three strikes during his time at bat. A strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters....
Ruth And Gehrig in succession.
At the end of the 1945 season, Gacioch was one of the ten players on the Blue Sox that Niehoff asked to have protected from being traded at a league meeting in Chicago. But the president of the South Bend club decided that Gacioch's poor English made her a liability for the team, not the ladylike image he was seeking for his organization. And so he traded her to the Rockford Peaches
Rockford Peaches
The Rockford Peaches were a team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League playing out of Rockford, Illinois for the entire existence of the league from 1943 to 1954....
for the 1945 season.
After the transaction, Gacioch blossomed as one of the most consistent AAGPBL players, starring on three championship teams for the Peaches, and by setting several league records as both a hitter and a pitcher. During her first year in Rockford she set a league record of 31 assists
Assist (baseball)
In baseball, an assist is a defensive statistic, baseball being one of the few sports in which the defensive team controls the ball. An assist is awarded to every defensive player who fields or touches the ball prior to the recording of a putout, even if the contact was unintentional...
from outfield, a mark she matched two years later. Then in the 1946 season, she led the league with nine triples
Triple (baseball)
In baseball, a triple is the act of a batter safely reaching third base after hitting the ball, with neither the benefit of a fielder's misplay nor another runner being put out on a fielder's choice....
while hitting a hefty .262 of batting average
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...
.
Peaches manager Bill Allington moved Gacioch from the outfield to the pitcher's mound in 1948, and she responded with 14-5 mark. Her most productive season came in 1951, when she posted a 20-7 record to become the league's only 20-game winner. She also pitched a no-hitter
No-hitter
A no-hitter is a baseball game in which one team has no hits. In Major League Baseball, the team must be without hits during the entire game, and the game must be at least nine innings. A pitcher who prevents the opposing team from achieving a hit is said to have "thrown a no-hitter"...
in 1953, and while not pitching played in the outfield, she amaased averages of .294 in 1951, .285 in 1953, and a top-career .304 in 1954 at age of 38, when she was old enough to be the mother of some of her teammates. Also in her final season, she recorded a significant total of 13 home run
Home run
In baseball, a home run is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to reach home safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team in the process...
s.
A good-contact hitter, Gacioch only struck out 162 times in almost 3,000 career at-bats, and she ranks eight in the AAGPBL All-Time list with 352 runs batted in. As a pitcher, she won 92 games and lost 60 in 174 appearances. Her skill as an overhand pitcher led to the league's changing its rules in 1947 to allow overhand pitching. She achieved four league championships and made the All-Star Team
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League All-Star Team
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was a women's professional baseball circuit which existed for twelve seasons from through ....
in 1951, 1952 and 1953. She retired from baseball after the league disbanded in 1954.
Personal life
Between AAGPBL seasons, Gacioch took whatever job she could find in Rockford. She worked at bowling alleys, peeled potatoes and even made cigars.Following her baseball career, she worked for 20 years as a press operator with Amerock Corporation in Rockford, Illinois
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated...
, retiring in 1978. She then moved to Sterling Heights, Michigan
Sterling Heights, Michigan
Sterling Heights is a city in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan, and one of Detroit's core suburbs. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 129,699...
. Although she never married, she was enchanted by her nieces and nephews and excelled in bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
. In 1954, she was the national champion in doubles bowling.
Gacioch visited Cooperstown for the AAGPBL exhibition opening in 1988 and reveled in her niche at the Hall of Fame. As she said in the interview reflecting on her career: I always say: 'Now I got something on Pete Rose
Pete Rose
Peter Edward Rose , nicknamed "Charlie Hustle", is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. Rose played from 1963 to 1986, and managed from 1984 to 1989....
. I got there before he did.
She died in Clinton Township, Michigan
Clinton Charter Township, Michigan
The Charter Township of Clinton, usually referred to as Clinton Township, is a charter township of Macomb County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a part of Metro Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the township had a total population of 96,796, and is Michigan's most populous township...
, at the age of 89.
Sources
- All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book – W. C. Madden. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2000. Format: Paperback, 294pp. Language: English. ISBN 978-0-7864-3747-4
- Girls of Summer: The Real Story of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League - Lois Browne. Publisher: HarperCollins, 1992. Format: Paperback, 213 pp. Language: English. ISBN 0006379028
- Women in Baseball - Gai Ingham Berlage. Publisher: Praeger Trade, 1994. Format: Hardcover, 224pp. Language: English. ISBN 978-0-275-94735-4