Read Online Girls of Summer: In Their Own League by Lois Browne - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lois Browne
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always sound like I’ve been vaccinated with a phonograph needle,” she jokes . This very brother was fighting in the South Pacific when Dancer entered the League, but she figures that their mother “got more grey hairs over what I did.”
Dancer was a pretty, freckled-faced blonde gypsy, moving from Minneapolis to subsequent expansion clubs, first Fort Wayne and later Peoria . One of her most notable eccentricities was her collection of glass eyes, which she liberated from blameless taxidermy in bars while her accomplices created a diversion.
She turned cartwheels in the outfield, performed swan dives into mud puddles just because she felt like it, and once called time, either because she wanted a drink of water, or had swallowed a lightning bug, or possibly both . Most people were at a loss to describe her and settled for “colorful.”
Not surprisingly, spectators loved her . Dancer’s theory was that “the fans paid my way. So I always tried to involve myself with them, in every town we went to. I wanted to have fun, and I wanted people to feel like they were getting their money’s worth.” And so they were – especially since Dancer’s eccentricities were founded on real talent.
She won the nickname “Dangerous Dancer” when she helped skunk the Chicks by blasting two home runs into their left-field bleachers, a feat no other player in the League had managed.
Dancer also consorted with doubtful characters.
In Fort Wayne, she befriended a midget, whose lot in life was to bring the players beer .
In Peoria, a “gentleman of no fixed income” – a gangster – took a shine to her: “He and his friends had seats right above the dugout. He drove a blue bulletproof Packard to all our road games.” The suitor attempted to persuade Dancer to stay in Peoria year-round by promising to establish her in business and buy her a palomino horse, but she refused. California beckoned. This didn’t deter her admirer. He threw parties for her at his home, which was guarded by armed henchmen.
When her parents arrived from California to see her play, the hoodlum obligingly laid on a series of entertainments, both at his house and at a local night club.
Dancer was also known to play the field. Another swain, who acted as the team’s groundskeeper, presented her with a diamond ring, but she had the stone removed and mounted in a nicer band. Neither he nor the mobster got, as it were, to first base.
“I wasn’t interested in either of them” she says.
To make time for these activities, Dancer kept late hours. One night, after a particularly intensive celebration, she returned to her hotel well past curfew and spotted Ken Sells sitting in the lobby with a posse of chaperons.
Dancer’s solution was to stack several beer barrels on top of a coal pile, which enabled her to reach the fire escape . She then managed to slice her way in through a screen with a nail file and get cleaned up before anyone could accuse her of the prank.
One of Dancer’s main concerns was the All-American’s uniform . Californians had always played in shorts, “and we kind of resented these dresses. But after half a season, I enjoyed them. I took tucks in the skirt, rolled the socks down and played with the bill of my cap up,” (thus anticipating the Minnesota Twins, who brightened up the 1991 World Series by twisting their hats into shark fins!)
Plainly, Dancer – along with other recruits such a Merle “Pat” Keagle, who was known as “The Blonde Bombshell” and the “People’s Choice” – would bring sparkle to the All-American’s crucial second year of operation.
Wrigley’s high hopes for his new teams, the Minneapolis Millerettes and Milwaukee Chicks, were almost immediately derailed, for several reasons. A glance at the map reveals one problem facing the Minneapolis team; it was 400 miles from Rockford, Illinois, the nearest League town. Minneapolis represented a nightmare for League schedulers and
Dancer was a pretty, freckled-faced blonde gypsy, moving from Minneapolis to subsequent expansion clubs, first Fort Wayne and later Peoria . One of her most notable eccentricities was her collection of glass eyes, which she liberated from blameless taxidermy in bars while her accomplices created a diversion.
She turned cartwheels in the outfield, performed swan dives into mud puddles just because she felt like it, and once called time, either because she wanted a drink of water, or had swallowed a lightning bug, or possibly both . Most people were at a loss to describe her and settled for “colorful.”
Not surprisingly, spectators loved her . Dancer’s theory was that “the fans paid my way. So I always tried to involve myself with them, in every town we went to. I wanted to have fun, and I wanted people to feel like they were getting their money’s worth.” And so they were – especially since Dancer’s eccentricities were founded on real talent.
She won the nickname “Dangerous Dancer” when she helped skunk the Chicks by blasting two home runs into their left-field bleachers, a feat no other player in the League had managed.
Dancer also consorted with doubtful characters.
In Fort Wayne, she befriended a midget, whose lot in life was to bring the players beer .
In Peoria, a “gentleman of no fixed income” – a gangster – took a shine to her: “He and his friends had seats right above the dugout. He drove a blue bulletproof Packard to all our road games.” The suitor attempted to persuade Dancer to stay in Peoria year-round by promising to establish her in business and buy her a palomino horse, but she refused. California beckoned. This didn’t deter her admirer. He threw parties for her at his home, which was guarded by armed henchmen.
When her parents arrived from California to see her play, the hoodlum obligingly laid on a series of entertainments, both at his house and at a local night club.
Dancer was also known to play the field. Another swain, who acted as the team’s groundskeeper, presented her with a diamond ring, but she had the stone removed and mounted in a nicer band. Neither he nor the mobster got, as it were, to first base.
“I wasn’t interested in either of them” she says.
To make time for these activities, Dancer kept late hours. One night, after a particularly intensive celebration, she returned to her hotel well past curfew and spotted Ken Sells sitting in the lobby with a posse of chaperons.
Dancer’s solution was to stack several beer barrels on top of a coal pile, which enabled her to reach the fire escape . She then managed to slice her way in through a screen with a nail file and get cleaned up before anyone could accuse her of the prank.
One of Dancer’s main concerns was the All-American’s uniform . Californians had always played in shorts, “and we kind of resented these dresses. But after half a season, I enjoyed them. I took tucks in the skirt, rolled the socks down and played with the bill of my cap up,” (thus anticipating the Minnesota Twins, who brightened up the 1991 World Series by twisting their hats into shark fins!)
Plainly, Dancer – along with other recruits such a Merle “Pat” Keagle, who was known as “The Blonde Bombshell” and the “People’s Choice” – would bring sparkle to the All-American’s crucial second year of operation.
Wrigley’s high hopes for his new teams, the Minneapolis Millerettes and Milwaukee Chicks, were almost immediately derailed, for several reasons. A glance at the map reveals one problem facing the Minneapolis team; it was 400 miles from Rockford, Illinois, the nearest League town. Minneapolis represented a nightmare for League schedulers and
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