Women’s Baseball

Leslie Heaphy explores the heritage representations of women in baseball. Heaphy argues that because there is limited nostalgia about women’s baseball—save for, perhaps, representations in popular culture such as the film A League of Their Own—as such, there are few heritage representations of women in baseball. Heaphy finds that those heritage representations of women in baseball which do exist—such as in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and at other heritage sites and museums across the United States—are scattershot and haphazard at best, provide a limited unifying story or narrative, and give very little indication of the significant involvement of women in baseball throughout the game’s history. Heaphy suggests that much of the marginalization of women’s baseball heritage has to do with broader cultural constructions of baseball and masculinity, which therefore marginalizes and excludes women’s involvement. Ultimately, Heaphy suggests some ways in which this heritage could be represented, including the construction of a dedicated museum about women in baseball and the creation of more public events celebrating women’s baseball heritage.