The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in West Baden Springs, Indiana

Before Hollywood filmed A League of Their Own in southern Indiana, the real All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was already making history right here in French Lick and West Baden Springs.

In the spring of 1949 and 1950, the Town of West Baden became home to some of the most talented women athletes in America. Teams like the Racine Belles, Kenosha Comets, Grand Rapids Chicks, and Muskegon Lassies arrived by train and bus to prepare for the upcoming season of the All-American Girls Baseball League. The same resort grounds that once hosted presidents, celebrities, and prizefighters suddenly echoed with the sounds of baseballs cracking against bats, players sprinting across muddy fields, and managers barking signals through the valleys.

And according to the newspapers of the day… it was glorious chaos.

Heavy spring rains nearly turned the training fields into swamps. One article joked that the ballpark looked more like “a large pasture” than a professional field. The rains also delayed the incoming Monon train, which carried the players' uniforms. Once on the West Baden park ball field, players dodged gopher holes in the outfield, with two players reporting injuries by stepping into them by accident. They practiced throwing baseballs in hotel hallways, with baseballs whizzing past reporters' heads at high speeds. They even held drills on crushed-stone parking lots behind the power plant. The Kenosha Comets famously discovered a hidden grassy practice field after a curious local little girl asked them, “Why don’t you practice over there?” She then led the players through brush and across railroad tracks to a field belonging to West Baden College. With proper permission received from the priests at the college, the Comets and Belles would use the field for the rest of their 1949 training.

The players themselves became local celebrities almost overnight. Newspapers described them crowding the hotel terraces, laughing between workouts, playing endless games of gin rummy, knitting, and enduring grueling exhibition tours across Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. Despite the muddy conditions and exhausting travel schedules, the women trained relentlessly. Stars like Sophie Kurys, Joanne Winter, Edythe Perlick, Pepper Paire, and Alice Haylett sharpened their skills here in Orange County before heading north for another championship chase.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League itself was groundbreaking. Founded in 1943 during World War II, the league was created to keep professional baseball alive while many male players served overseas. But what started as a wartime experiment quickly became something much larger. These women proved they could play fast, competitive, highly skilled baseball while drawing thousands of fans across the Midwest. They stole bases, threw blazing fastballs, traveled constantly, and played through injuries — all while living under strict league rules about appearance, behavior, and femininity.

Years later, the French Lick and West Baden community would form another unforgettable connection to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League when the beloved 1992 film A League of Their Own was filmed just next door in Huntingburg, Indiana, in neighboring Dubois County. Featuring stars like Tom Hanks, Madonna, and Geena Davis, the movie introduced millions to the story of the women’s league and gave Indiana baseball history a permanent place in American pop culture.

One of the film’s most memorable characters was the mischievous little boy Stillwell Gardner — the child who mocked Tom Hanks’ character with the famous “You’re gonna lose!” taunt while flapping his ears and holding his nose. That role was played by Evansville local Justin Scheller, who later became a football coach and middle school history teacher at Springs Valley Schools in French Lick. Today, historic Leauge Stadium in Huntingburg remains standing, and visitors can still see many of the WWII-era painted advertisements and features left behind from the filming of the movie — including the spirit of the place where the legendary line, “There’s no crying in baseball!” became part of cinematic history.

Today, many people remember A League of Their Own, but fewer realize how deeply the league's real history is connected to French Lick and West Baden Springs. The women of the AAGPBL didn’t just pass through our community — they trained here, laughed here, struggled through rainstorms here, and became part of the living story of the valley.

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