WORCESTER—Thanks to “A League of Their Own,” women’s baseball took on a life of its own.
Maybelle Blair has been a driving force through the years in bringing the history of women’s baseball back into into focus and promoting its revival from the days of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Blair played in the league and served as an advisor during the production of “A League of Their Own” in 1992. At 98, she has entered the literary major leagues with her biography “All the Way.”
Blair has been a regular visitor to Polar Park during its existence and made her most recent appearance here Saturday as part of the Great Polar Park Writers Series.
Always a monument to candor, Blair described former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee as “nutty” and recalled giving a ride to future president Ronald Reagan, saying “he wasn’t too bright then.”
The presentation was hosted by WooSox president Dr. Charles Steinberg. He told the capacity crowd at the DCU Club that professional women’s baseball will be back in 2026.
The new league, which is holding tryouts next month in Washington, D.C., will be called the Women’s Professional Baseball League. How the teams and schedule play out is yet to be determined but Worcester is hoping to part of the mix in some way.
“We would love to be the host,” Steinberg said. “They may not do a Worcester team or a New York team. They may do barnstorming. So if they barnstorm, I would love for us to host the Women’s Professional Baseball League.”
Blair has seen “A League of Their Own” more times than she can count and never gets tired of watching it. Her favorite character is second baseman Marla Hooch, played by Megan Cavanagh. Unlike some of the actors, Cavanagh was a good player and did her own batting in the movie.
One of the performers who was not a gifted player, although she could dance, was Madonna.
“Couldn’t play a lick,” was Blair’s scouting report. She added, “I’ll tell you what happened. When you saw her leap up against the fence, catch that ball, how wonderful it was…there was a man standing right above her and dropped it in her glove.”
While manager Tom Hanks was not Blair’s favorite character, she said it was his favorite movie role.
“He didn’t have to shave,” Blair said, “and he could eat as much as he wanted.”
She grew up in Southern California and worked in the transportation department at the Northrup Corporation for years, which is how she met Reagan. Playing ball was not how Blair made her living, save for the All-American years, but it was always a huge part of her life.
“I grew up in a baseball family,” she said. “If I didn’t play baseball I would have been drowned in the Pacific Ocean…. that’s all we knew.”
Blair’s entry into the world of professional baseball was not unlike how the Geena Davis and Lori Petty characters were signed in the film. She was playing softball and, “It was just like in the movie when they went out to the cow farm, I was playing and this guy comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, Maybelle, how would you like to play professional baseball?’”
After politely questioning the scout’s sanity, Blair took him back to her home where her mother said there was no way this baseball thing was doing to happen.
That is, until the scout mentioned she would be paid $55 a week.
Mrs. Blair looked at her husband and said, “Go crank up the car.”
Maybelle Blair’s biography was written by Kat D. Williams and was available Saturday. It sold out quickly and is on backorder at the Tidepool Bookshop on Chandler Street.
Not suprisingly, Blair’s look at baseball is old-school.
She talked about how primitive the equipment was in the All-American league compared to today’s in Major League Baseball.
“We had no sliding pads,” Blair said. “You’d go sliding into second base and come up with the biggest strawberry. You can still feel gravel in my rear end if you feel really deep enough.
“Today, if a man breaks his fingernail he’s on the (injured list) for about two months.”
She also has a simple guideline for measuring a person’s emotional health.
“People who don’t like baseball,” Blair said, “I think there’s something wrong with them.”
She was a pitcher in her playing days. Blair threw out the ceremonial first pitch on Saturday with Rich Gedman as the catcher, two former major leaguers with decades of baseball history, and a Worcester connection, between them.
Bill Ballou covered the Red Sox for the Worcester Telegram from 1997 through 2018. He has covered pro hockey in Worcester since 1994 and currently does a weekly column for the Worcester Red Sox. Ballou can be reached at vetgoalie@aol.com
