The Bendix Field ballpark question

1943 — 1945

One question from the Sports section is answered here at the size the airport record supports — which is to say, it is not settled: The South Bend Blue Sox of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League played their first three seasons, 1943–45, at a ground the record calls Bendix Field, drawing 40,000 to 50,000 spectators a season by the Indiana Historical Bureau marker's annotation, before moving to Playland Park, which the State Historical Marker (71.2021.1, placed 2021) describes as "more centrally located and better-equipped." Whether the Blue Sox' Bendix Field stood on the airport's ground — the field Vincent Bendix's name was on — or on a Bendix company recreation ground elsewhere in the city is a question the airport record reached for this section does not answer: the airport's histories, the authority's records, and the airfield sources used here carry no ballpark, and the marker itself names no location beyond the name. The name was the company's, and the company put it on more ground than the airport. This record therefore prints the question open: the Blue Sox played at Bendix Field from 1943 to 1945; where that diamond stood is not established in the sources reached, and no location is guessed. The team's own history is in its team-history section, and the seasons are in the Sports section.

Sources:

1. Indiana Historical Bureau, State Historical Marker 71.2021.1 (2021) and its annotation — the Blue Sox at Bendix Field 1943–45, attendance of 40,000–50,000 per season, and Playland Park described as "more centrally located and better-equipped."
2. The airport sources used throughout this section — the Airport Authority's history and financial reports, the Tribune's airport retrospectives, and the airfield record — searched for the ballpark: no location for the diamond appears in them.