Margaret Villa, or “Marge” Villa,
was one of only 11 Latinas who played
professional baseball in the
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,
or the AAGPBL.
She was an incredible player.
A record-setting Mexican American catcher,
she also played second base and shortstop
in more than 500 games with the Kenosha Comets in Wisconsin.
And during her professional baseball career
she set records for RBIs,
or runs batted in, and total bases in a game.
This is Marge’s official AAGPBL baseball card.
It was issued in 1995 because the
AAGPBL didn’t actually issue cards while it was in operation.
But the card details Villa’s statistics over her five-year career in the league.
When Marge wore this uniform at age 13,
she could never have known that she was going to be catapulted
just a few years later to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
It was the first and only professional league for women.
Philip K. Wrigley,
Chicago Cubs owner and chewing gum mogul,
began the AAGPBL at the onset of World War II.
Wrigley, like many other major league owners,
was concerned that the draft would interfere with major league baseball.
They wanted to be able to play a regular season,
and instead they created the AAGBL so that women could play.
Only 11 Latinas played baseball
in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
And of them, nine were from Cuba;
one was from Venice, California;
and Marge was from Montebello, California—
just 10 miles away from El Sereno, were I grew up.
So I suppose we both found camaraderie,
whether it was on the field or in the stands.
We were both tomboys growing up
and we both had brothers who were inspirational baseball players as well.
When I started collecting for the Latinos and Baseball project,
now the ¡Pleibol! In the Barrios and the Big Leagues/En los barrios y las grandes ligas
exhibition and book,
I knew that we needed to document and collect and display women’s stories.
But they, or at least the uniforms,
were really hard to find!
Baseball is almost always thought of as a man’s sport,
but we worked really hard to make sure that women's stories
are present throughout,
and Marge’s story is such an emblem of this.
Her story is part of our nation’s heritage;
it’s part of the national collection.
Her words,
her shared insights and artifacts and pictures
will live on long after we’ve gone.
Our Latina history is American history.