BEWLEY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-07-23 published
She was a Toronto softball slugger who starred in a league of
her own
Gifted infielder, endowed with glamour and a smattering of experience
on stage, became a key player for the Chicago Chicks of the National
Girls Baseball League
By Tom HAWTHORN,
Special to The Globe and Mail, Page S9
Victoria -- Peggy
WILSON's hitting prowess made her a terror
on Toronto's softball sandlots. At age 16, the slugging infielder
helped lead her team to the finals of the 1945 world softball
championships and went on to play professionally in the United
States.
At a time when women had few opportunities to earn pay for their
athletic skills, she won a roster spot as two competing leagues
battled for supremacy in the American Midwest. As it turned out,
television killed attendance at minor-league sporting events
and those few jobs for professional female athletes all but disappeared.
The infielder brought an athletic grace and a certain glamour
to the diamond. Her flowing hair, full lips and deep-set eyes
could just as easily have won her a spot on a Hollywood backlot
as on a softball sandlot.
Though fortunate to be an athletic pioneer, she would suffer
more than her share of heartbreak and tragedy.
Margaret
Merla
Eleanor
WILSON was born in Toronto to a father
who was an engineer and a sergeant in the Grenadier Guards. Francis
Cyril (Frank)
WILSON married Dorothy (Dolly) Catherine
WATSON
five days before Valentine's Day in 1928. Their daughter arrived
11 months later. Mr.
WILSON led an apparent life of propriety
for many years before suddenly abandoning the family. In seeking
financial support, his wife took him to court, where, to her
surprise, he was exposed as a bigamist. Their marriage licence
was entered into proceedings under the tag "Exhibit A."
Dolly WILSON was the oldest of 10 children. The boys worked for
the family business, Watson Movers, out of the family home at
281 Rhodes Ave., while the girls worked on stage, though the
traditional theatre was not their milieu. The Watson Sisters
crisscrossed the continent in the 1920s with such travelling
revues as Plunkett Productions. Dolly was also an acclaimed snake
dancer. By age 10, Peggy
WILSON was accompanying her mother onstage
as a bongo player.
The public performances perhaps made it easier for her to handle
the pressure of playing softball as a young girl. Her photograph
appeared in a Toronto newspaper in 1941, when the 12-year-old
led her team to a championship in a league for under-18 girls.
She played for Areadians of the Danforth league and Malverns
of the Beaches league, often at the old Sunnyside stadium near
Broadview Avenue and Queen Street. She was a star by age 14 playing
against older women as a second baseman for the Staffords.
While mature on the diamond, she possessed an innocence away
from it. Globe sports columnist Bobbie
ROSENFELD recounted an
incident when riding a bus back from a game at Malton, Ontario,
when young Peggy engaged a gentleman beside her in conversation.
"Are you interested in softball?" the girl asked.
"Oh, yes, quite a bit," he replied.
"Do you go to Sunnyside often?"
"Yes, every night."
"Why? Are you connected with any team?"
"Yes, in a way," Ed
BEWLEY said. "I happen to be the league president."
In the spring of 1945, she joined the Crofton Athletic Club.
The powerhouse team boasted Alma
WILSON (no relation) as an ace
pitcher known as the Crofton Comet. The team dominated all comers
in the Olympic girls' softball league, an amateur circuit based
in Toronto.
In one game at Sunnyside, the Croftons embarrassed the Fuels
22-5, with Alma
WILSON getting the win and Peggy
WILSON banging
a double and a home run.
After disposing of local challengers, the Croftons travelled
to Cleveland for a world championship tournament. They downed
the dogged Utah Lassies 5-2, slipped past the Gastonia (N.C.)
Rex Hanovers 1-0 and then shut out a team from Stamford, Connecticut.,
2-0. The victories earned a berth in the finals against a favoured
New Orleans team.
The Jax Maids were led by Nina (Tiger) Korgan, a Nebraskan known
as the Babe Didrikson of softball. She surrendered just two singles
to the Toronto batters, as the Maids won 5-0 to claim their third
world title in four years.
The Croftons' exposure in the United States caught the attention
of scouts from competing leagues of women baseball players. A bird
dog from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
- a circuit portrayed in the 1992 Hollywood movie A League of
Their Own - came to Toronto armed with professional contracts.
Instead, Peggy
WILSON and the pitcher Alma
WILSON ended up signing
with the Chicago Chicks of the rival National Girls Baseball
League.
The Chicago-based loop maintained softball's shorter base paths
and underhanded pitching, even while playing with a smaller ball
than a regulation softball. (The All-American league adopted
baseball rules for a circuit based in mid-sized Midwestern cities.)
The novelty of pro female athletes attracted good crowds in the
years following the end of the Second World War. A photo of Peggy
WILSON appeared in one publication with the headline: "Snappy
flysnatchers and shapely eye-catchers, gal softballers draw fans."
The infielder returned to Toronto at the end of the season, later
playing for the Sherrins of the East Toronto league. After marrying
a tool-and-dye man named George
JOHNSTONE, the local daily newspapers
began carrying accounts of a now-veteran player named Peggy
JOHNSTONE.
In 1952, she moved to Bayview, New York outside Rochester, where
she earned $125 a week to play for a team called Van's TNT
Girls. The coach was Roy Van Graflan, a former umpire who was
behind the plate when Babe Ruth made his famous "called shot"
gesture in the 1932 World Series.
The coach was an expert at spotting female sporting talent. His
own baseball career began as a pitcher on a team known as the
Van Graflans, which featured his seven brothers and father. In
the baseball off-season, the moonlighting umpire coached women's
basketball teams, with his barnstorming Filaret side winning
553 games of 565 played from 1933 through 1949.
In July, 1953, the TNT Girls came to Toronto to play a televised
exhibition against Mrs.
JOHNSTONE's old rivals, the Gartens of
the East Toronto league. On his way to the ball park, the car
in which the coach was a passenger rear-ended a truck on Gerrard
Street. The coach's head cracked the windshield, yet he refused
to be taken to hospital. He managed just two innings at the game
before calling it a night. He was driven home to Rochester and
died some weeks later. He was 59.
Sadly, the unexpected death of a beloved coach in an automobile
accident was but one of several tragedies to be endured by Peggy
WILSON.
Her aunt, Eleanor
(WATSON)
HENDERSON, a circus trouper,
was killed with four others in a fiery collision on the Trans-Canada
Highway outside Hearst, Ontario A son, aged 16, was killed by
a drunk driver. She would also outlive two husbands, including
one who died of a brain tumour only a few years after they married.
After hanging up her glove and cleats, she lived in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, spending more than 30 years aiding the ladies auxiliary
of a fraternal organization. She rarely spoke of her time on
the diamond, although her obvious talent at the plate - on display
during pickup games at family picnics - never failed to surprise
male observers.
Margaret DOUCETTE (née
WILSON, formerly
JOHNSTONE and
CAESAR)
was born on January 10, 1929, in Toronto. She died of lung cancer
on May 17 in Palm Bay, Florida She was 78. She leaves a daughter,
three grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. She was predeceased
by two husbands and two sons. A first marriage ended in divorce.
B... Names BE... Names BEW... Names Welcome Home
BEWLEY - All Categories in OGSPI