Ashes to Ashland: Ann “Pee Wee” Petrovic
On December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy, bringing the United States into the Second World War. At its peak, the U.S. Armed Forces had over 16 million men in the service. Nearly all of these men were the young and able bodied. An unprecedented side effect from this is where our story begins. During times of war, public morale is essential to maintaining the war effort. An unhappy populous is unwilling to fight or support a war. America’s entertainment industry became threatened by the absence of its young men, particularly in sports. Sports teams began to resort to alternative methods of maintaining rosters, such as making temporary combinations as seen in the case of the Steagles in Pennsylvania. Football resorted to mergers or playing secondaries, etc. Baseball went a different route, starting the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL).
The AAGPBL was founded in 1943 by Phillip K. Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who was worried about the MLB losing teams to the draft and enlistments. The AAGPBL was formed by scouting softball players and recruiting into new teams that were managed by men to make it appear more “professional” for audiences. During spring training, the girls were required to go to a “charm school”, after the day of practices, for public image training and etiquette. There were several teams, all local to the Midwest area. They were not able to play in the stadiums of the professional men’s teams due to backlash from some team owners and fans, so played in surrounding areas.
The second season of play is when our star enters the scene. Ann “Pee Wee” Meyer Petrovic joined the league as one of the youngest players ever signed as a 15-year-old high school freshman at only 5’3 and 100 pounds. She played shortstop for the Kenosha Comets as well as the Minneapolis Millerettes in the 1944 season. In 1945, she switched to the National Girls Baseball League (a sister league to the AAPGBL) to play closer to her home in Chicago. She eventually graduated high school and went to college at Nyack Bible College in Nyak NY, where she met her husband, George. When she got married in 1950, she quit baseball and moved to Ashland with her new family.
Although she stopped playing baseball, her athletic talents were not left by the wayside. She used them to lead a phenomenal women’s volleyball team for the YWCA. She played for 15 years, bringing home numerous championships and titles. She also played one baseball game for Cresco’s industrial team, but stopped playing after injuring another player with a ball thrown to home plate that hit the player in the chest. In an interview she participated in with Grand Valley State University, she explained her competitive spirit. She was a professional player, and that extended into her drive for other sports in the amateur and recreational leagues and her skill and drive led to a massively successful career in women’s baseball and in local volleyball. After living in Ashland from 1952-1978, and participating in local sports, she eventually moved with her husband and two children to Tucson, Arizona, where she now lives.
Ann was a pioneer of women’s sports. Circumstance gave her and many other women the opportunity to play, but when those circumstances changed, her athletic career continued. She is a member of the Ashland County Hall of Fame for her accomplishments in pioneering women’s sports. Despite the end of the war in 1945 and the return of many of the men from war, the women’s leagues continued until 1954. The league only began to fall apart with the advent of televised games, the decentralization of management, and lack of talent due to rule changes shifting closer and closer to baseball from softball. Most of the players were experienced with softball and needed training to switch over to baseball and that became too much of an effort to maintain. Despite the end of the league itself, the memory of their efforts and the publicity of the league helped pave the way for women’s sports and women athletes throughout the United States. Professional baseball is just one area where WWII provided many women with more opportunities.
For more information regarding Ann check out her biography page:
Ann (Meyer) Petrovic (“Pee Wee”) AAGPBL Profile
And her oral history:
Petrovic, Ann (Interview transcript and video), 2010 · Digital Collections (gvsu.edu)
And to read more on the AAGPBL check out their website full of articles and histories