AAGPBL League Play - 1944

The two new teams were excited to be playing in American Association League parks. However, when compared to teams playing in smaller parks in the medium-sized cities of Racine, Kenosha, Rockford, and South Bend, the differences were obvious. Media coverage was a big difference. The smaller cities received extensive media support. Like the men's teams, all the games were reported with articles and box scores and sometimes the papers even ran photographs. In the large cities, the games were often not even mentioned or received negative publicity. The fans sat very close to the field and the dugouts and became friendly with the players as individuals in the smaller cities. In the large stadiums, the distances between the fans and the player did not give the women this advantage. Even the size of the field itself was a handicap to the women who could not hit the ball over the fences for homeruns.

This sharp contrast between the men playing faster regulation baseball on certain nights, and the women basically playing a modified softball fast pitch on others, did not favor the women. Even though the larger cities offered a greater population base, there was also a much greater diversity of entertainment opportunities from which people could choose to spend their leisure time. Attempts to add pre-game entertainment of all kinds, including novel symphony performances, failed to increase attendance. Another factor in the failure of the Minneapolis and Milwaukee teams may have been Wrigley's decision to "go it alone" in these cities or his inability to recruit local guarantors to subsidize teams there. In any case, he didn't have the nucleus of leading businessmen in Minneapolis and Milwaukee to support and promote their AAGPBL teams as had been accomplished in the smaller cities.

Early in the 1944 season, it became evident that the war would not force major league baseball to disband, and Wrigley lost interest in the girls' league. Despite poor attendance in the two American Association parks, overall AAGPBL attendance increased. After the season, Wrigley sold the League to his Chicago advertising executive, Arthur Meyerhoff. It was under Meyerhoff that expansion and publicity of the League reached its peak. On Nov. 15, 1944, Meyerhoff met with representatives from the four original cities and re-organized the League so that each franchise would be governed through a League Board of Directors with representatives from each franchise. Each club now had a voice in the adoption of rules and regulations and the direction of the sport. All assets were turned over to the new directors and Wrigley was no longer involved with the league. Ken Sells resigned as league president and Max Carey was named the new president.