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South Bend, 1943–1950
Mary Geraldine Baker — Bonnie — was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, on July 10, 1918 (the Canadian references give 1919; the register's 1918 is printed here and the variant carried in this history's note), and she was recruited out of Canadian softball by the scout Hub Bishop for the league's first tryout camp at Wrigley Field in May 1943. Assigned to South Bend, she caught the club's first game, against Rockford on May 30, 1943, and became at once what the league needed most: its most publicized player, "Pretty Bonnie Baker," the woman whose picture, in mask and chest protector, opened Life magazine's 1945 essay on the league. She was an All-Star in 1943 and again in 1946 — a Saskatchewan source says three selections; the league record gives two — and her best season was 1946: .286 with a league-leading 94 stolen bases.
Her career ran to 930 games and 506 stolen bases. In June 1950 came the trade and the experiment recorded above: player-manager of Muskegon, then of Kalamazoo when the franchise moved, the only woman to manage a league club full-time, until the league banned women from the job. One review of the team history says she "guided them to fourth place"; the league table puts the 1950 Kalamazoo club last, and the table governs. She sat out 1951 for the birth of her daughter, returned with Kalamazoo in 1952, and after baseball became the first woman sportscaster in Canada, calling games on CKRM in Regina in 1964–65. She appeared, at the height of the league's fame, on What's My Line? on August 17, 1952 — while South Bend was playing out the season that ended in the walkout and the protest. Canada put her in its Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. She died in Regina on December 17, 2003.
Sources
- Jim Sargent, SABR biography of Bonnie Baker — the scouting, the tryout camp, the first game, the Life essay, the All-Star selections, the 1946 season, the trade and managership, the broadcasting career.
- The Canadian Encyclopedia and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame — the 1919 birth year against the register's 1918; the Canadian honors.
- Baseball-Reference Register and league tables — the 930 games, 506 stolen bases; Kalamazoo's last-place 1950 finish against the book review's "fourth place."