Ladies' Vintage Base Ball

New York Bloomer Girls, circa 1920

More vintage "base ball" info! I have been striving to learn more about the ladies who played the game, and came across this image of the New York Bloomer Girls, a team which was founded shortly after men started forming professional teams in the 1860's. Curiously, it was a small group of men who originally formed the NYBGs in 1910: Dan Whalen, Joe Manning and Eddie Manning, all of whom were ballplayers themselves. In 1920 managment was given over to a woman, Margaret Nabel, a candy store owner who had made the team previously as a pitcher (that's Nabel pictured above on the right). Like many other base ball clubs during the Great Depression, the Bloomers folded under the economic strain of the times. The team dissolved at the end of the 1933 season.