Seventy-Five Years Ago, Women’s Baseball Players Took the Field
An Indiana slugger was one of the athletes who “hit the dirt in the skirt†and changed Americans’ view of women
By Sally Jenkins, Photograph by Andrea Modica
June 2018
Betsy Jochum’s 1940s baseball tunic was tailor-made for the American woman’s transition from the decorative to the active. With a short, flared, kicky hem disguising the athletic undershorts that were the real purpose of the rig, it was designed for a ballplayer who had to look like a girl but throw like a guy, who wore her hair in an upsweep but “hit the dirt in the skirt,†as Jochum and her teammates liked to say of sliding into home plate.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/seventy-five-years-ago-womens-baseball-players-took-field-180969009/#f7b3gfw2k0wMJRiX.99