Peggy Wilson, softball infielder
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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
TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
July 23, 2007
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.
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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, Ont., 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, Conn., 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, N.Y., 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, Ont. 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,
Fla., 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.
PEGGY WILSON JOHNSTONE
Margaret Doucette (nee Wilson, formerly Johnstone and Caesar) was born
on Jan. 10, 1929, in Toronto. She died of lung cancer on May 17 in
Palm Bay, Fla. 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.