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Description of the Book:
"This is an in-depth treatment of the organization and operation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Referencing primary documents from league owner Arthur Meyerhoff and others, the book offers a unique perspective inside the AAGPBL and examines its rise and fall, with an emphasis on league and team administration. The study begins with a brief history of women’s softball, noting its importance as a precursor to, and talent pool for, women’s professional baseball. Next the book investigates changing league administration and organization. Publicity and promotional philosophy and practices receive particular attention. Later chapters cover team administrative structure, team managers, and chaperones, player backgrounds and league policies and regulations for the players, including salaries, trades, waivers, and allocation procedures and problems. Finally, discussion focuses on the history of the AAGPBL Players' Association, including its objectives and accomplishments from 1986 to 2004. The book includes a foreword by AAGPBL all-star Jean Cione; four appendices with valuable information about the AAGPBL Players’ Association and league highlights; numerous photographs; and an extensive bibliography."
Merrie A. Fidler grew up in Redding, California (about 90 miles south of the Oregon border). She was raised in a sports minded family and competed in interscholastic volleyball, basketball, and softball from Jr. High through high school. During the summer months she played in recreation softball leagues until age 15 when she joined the Redding Comets, the city's women's softball team. During her four years with the Comets she played left field, catcher, or third base.
Merrie continued to compete in sports intercollegiately, first at Shasta Jr. College in Redding, at Biola College in La Mirada, California, and at Sacramento State University in Sacramento, California. She completed her B.A. in Physical Education with a minor in Speech at Sacramento State in 1969.
During her years at Sacramento State, Merrie worked as a women's Intramural Sports Assistant at nearby U.C. Davis. This experience led to her employment, in 1971, as an Assistant Intramural Sports Director at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. There she pursued a Master's Degree in Sport History. Between the summer of 1972 and the fall of 1975, Merrie continued her study of sport history and worked in Intramurals at the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses. In the fall of 1975 she transferred to Penn State University to pursue a doctorate in Sport History and serve as a teaching assistant. She completed her Master's Thesis for the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in the fall of 1976. Her thesis was entitled "The Development and Declineof the All-American Girls Baseball League, 1943-1954." It comprises the core of her book about the AAGPBL. During her years at UMass, Amherst and the University of Minnesota, Merrie published several articles on the history of women in sport.
In 1977, Merrie returned to California to assist her foster parents and began teaching Physical Education and English for the Anderson Union High School District, just a few miles south of her Redding hometown. Besides teaching for 27 years, Merrie also coached volleyball, basketball, and softball at both the J.V. and Varsity levels of play. During her last 16 years of coaching just JV volleyball, Merrie's teams won 15 league championships and had one second place finish. Retiring at the end of the 2003 school year, Merrie and her foster mother moved to the oceanside near Trinidad, California, where she enjoys walking the beach, reading, writing, traveling, and watching as many of the major TV sports broadcasts as possible!
. . . as a Redding, CA city softball team member, circa 1959;
. . . celebrating the opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame "Women in Baseball" Exhibit, Nov. 5, 1988;
. . . today, with Lou-Lou.
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© 2005 Merrie Fidler
