45. There's No Crying in Baseball, But There Are Lesbians! Queer History of the AAGPBL
History is Gay
Leigh Pfeffer
4.6 • 536 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2023
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An episode Leigh has been dreaming of since the start of the pod is finally here! In this ep, Leigh is joined by guest host Frankie de la Cretaz, sports journalist, queer history buff, and certified Gaylor Swiftie, to discuss the queer history of women's baseball & softball, in particular the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, aka the inspiration behind A League of Their Own! We discuss all the extreme "no-homo"ing that was happening in the League's rules and regulations, and all the YES HOMO-ing that happened in spite of it, making the sport into an important site of queer community. We also introduce you to the wonderful world of AAGBPL's rival for women's baseball at the time, the National Girls' Baseball League, and the contrasts between the two leagues.
Thank you to Averie Severs for editing this episode.
Our guest host for this episode, Frankie de la Cretaz, can be found online @thefrankiedlc on Twitter and Instagram. You can check out their Linktree for links to purchase their book, Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League and see more of their writing.
Support filmmaker Adam Chu's efforts to create Their Turn at Bat: The Story of the National Girls Baseball League, a documentary film about Chicago's forgotten women's baseball league at www.nationalgirlsbaseballleague.com!
Also, don't forget to check out our bonus episode discussing A League of their Own, with co-creator Will Graham!
Outline
0:00 Introduction
5:26 Socio-Historic Context
12:12 The Leagues: AAGPBL
27:42 Why Do We Think They're Gay?: Queerness and Women's Sports
31:48-34:44 Word of the Week: Muscle Moll
34:44 Back to why do we think they're gay
47:07 The Leagues: NGBL
53:19 Who Were They? Queer ball players of note
1:24:00 -1:24:53 Content Warning: Homophobic violence
1:27:50 Pop Culture Tie In
1:34:15 How Gay Were They?
1:39:50 Closing and Where to Find Us Online
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, folks, Lee here up at the top just for a little intro to thank you for your patience |
| 0:05.7 | while we worked on getting this episode out to you. I recorded this back in March with my guest |
| 0:11.1 | host Frankie, and it was a really wonderful conversation, had a lot of fun talking about this topic |
| 0:17.0 | as well as researching it, and I'm very excited to finally bring it to you. |
| 0:22.1 | I just recently moved house, so that's been part of the delay. I also want to thank |
| 0:27.9 | Avery Severs, who edited this episode for me while a bunch of other things were going on. |
| 0:34.4 | I hope that you enjoy, and I look forward to chatting with you all in our next |
| 0:41.2 | fun thing to come. |
| 0:45.6 | Hello, and welcome to History is Gay, a podcast that examines the underappreciated and overlooked |
| 0:51.6 | queer ladies, gents, and gentle envies that have always been there in the unexplored corners of history, because history has never been as straight as you think. Hello, everyone. |
| 1:17.3 | This is Lee Feffer, your host of History is Gay in your podcast feeds with a new wonderful episode that honestly I've been like planning to do since we started this show back |
| 1:29.5 | in 2018. Oh God, I've been doing this for a while now. I am joined by a wonderful guest host that |
| 1:37.8 | I think I messaged them back in 2018 when I read an article of theirs. and now we have finally both gotten our stuff together |
| 1:46.2 | to bring you a wonderful episode all about the queer history of women's baseball and softball, |
| 1:52.8 | and particularly the queer history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, |
| 1:58.0 | since my brain has gone completely into a league of their own brain rot. |
| 2:02.7 | So I'm very excited to bring to the podcast, Frankie De La Cretta. They are a sports journalist and |
| 2:09.9 | writer. They have a wonderful book about the history of women playing football in the |
| 2:14.9 | 70s and is basically the reason why I'm doing this episode at all |
| 2:20.2 | because they brought me into the wonderful queer world of a league of their own. |
| 2:24.2 | Hi, Frankie. |
| 2:25.1 | How are you? |
... |
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