All-American Girls Professional Baseball League ®Left to Right: Isadora Castillo, Norma Whitney, Lois Bellman, Barbara Berger, Toni Palermo, Shirley Danz, Betty Francis, Isabel Alvarez, Florence Hay, Arlene Kotil, Beverly Hatzell, Patricia Barringer, Joan Sindelar, Anna Mae O'Dowd, Helen Walulik, Francis Janssen.
Absent from photo: Mitch Skupien (Manager)
During the 1949 and 1950 seasons, the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies were Rookie Touring Teams which played exhibition games against each other as they travelled primarily through the South and East.
Part of the league's innovation to recruit new players (which was repeated in 1950): two teams of "Rookies" would travel together over much of the eastern half of the United States playing exhibitions against each other. The “Rookie teams, The Springfield Sallies and the Chicago Coleens, made up one of the tours.
The tour gave these new recruits and opportunity to play and gave the league the opportunity to develop new players and let the cities all across America know about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. And showcase that women were playing baseball in America.
Fran Janssen stated in her interview with Jim Sargent, ”We traveled more than 10,000 miles in 1949 from Illinois to Texas, across the Gulf states and up to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We played in minor league parks in Tulsa and Baltimore, as well as in city parks, and we drew good crowds. We rarely spent more than two nights in a town. We had to make fast trips”.
Fran calculated the team played in 50 cities spread over 16 states from New York south through Florida throughout the midwest and south into Texas playing in over 75 games from June into September of 1949.
