Remembering Rockford Peach Betty Dunn
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League has called another one up.
Betty Dunn (nee Carveth), recently enshrined in the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, died at age 93 on Jan. 27, and the funeral was held Wednesday at St. Paul’s United, across the street from the house she lived in for 70 years.
She was a member of the Rockford Peaches of Phil Wrigley’s baseball league, created during the Second World War to fill a void left by major-leaguers who departed to fight for their country. The league was the inspiration for the blockbuster movie League of Their Own, starring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks.
“We were astounded by the number of people from the Edmonton baseball community who attended,” said Joan Melvin, a member of the extended family.
At 92, Dunn became the oldest person at the time of her induction to ever enter the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame.
She was already in baseball’s hallowed hall in Cooperstown, along with the rest of the women from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
And she’s in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame with the 64 Canadian players who played in the league from 1943-54.
Dunn became the first female Little League coach in Edmonton and has a long list of involvements in sports, including her selection as an ambassador for the inaugural IBAF Women’s World Baseball Championships held in Edmonton in 2004. She threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
But receiving the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame honour tickled her as pink as her Peaches uniform.
The Peaches and the women’s league were forgotten, but the movie brought it all back to life again.
“Some of it was very true and some of it was a little Hollywood,” she said of the film.
“I thought the movie did a really good job portraying that it was wartime. A lot of that was true. The girls lived in fear of telegraphs coming.
“I loved playing ball. I just loved it. And to get paid for something you loved to do, you had to go and do it.”
Dunn came to Edmonton from Grande Prairie to play for the allgirls Walk-Rite team. At age 20, she was scouted and recruited to play in Wrigley’s league. In the spring of 1945, she climbed on a train to Chicago.
From the 150 invited to try out, she was one of 96 to make it. She earned $75 a week, more than four times what she had been paid as a secretary in Edmonton.
“We were told we all had to look like ladies and play like men,” she said. “They took us to Helena Rubinstein’s beauty school, where we learned how to apply makeup properly and handle cutlery when dining out.
“Our uniforms were the same throughout the league, except for their colour. They consisted of short dresses and knee socks, as well as baseball caps. There was no protection for our thighs when sliding into base.
“I was in the first years, and we weren’t allowed to party, or anything like that. You couldn’t even wear slacks. If you were caught wearing slacks, you were sent home.”
So, why did she play only one season?
“Well, I came home and married Jim Dunn, my boyfriend, and we started our family,” she said of sons Jerry, Bill and Patrick.