The Forgotten League

By Adam Chu

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In early 2009, while researching a documentary film project, I came across a brief mention of the National Girls Softball League (NGSL), later renamed the National Girls Baseball League (NGBL), on the Encyclopedia of Chicago website. At the time, I knew very little about the league, but the discovery immediately sparked my curiosity. I began searching for more information, hoping to uncover the story behind this Chicago-based organization.

 

What I found was surprising: almost nothing existed. Beyond a few scattered newspaper articles and brief references to individual players, very little information about the NGBL was readily available. Although the league operated for eleven seasons in the Chicagoland area (1944–1954), featuring talented ballplayers and teams that helped shape the landscape of women’s sports in the mid-20th century, its complete history had never been documented.

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I put my other projects on hold and began a journey to uncover the story of the National Girls Baseball League. Through years of archival research, newspaper searches, and connections with former players and their families, I have worked to piece together the history of the league and the women who made it possible. While much has been uncovered, many parts of the NGBL’s story remain unknown, and the research continues.

 

This website exists to preserve and share the history of the National Girls Softball League/National Girls Baseball League with a new generation. The NGBL competed alongside the better-known All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), but the spotlight has largely remained on the All-Americans. While the AAGPBL has become an important part of baseball history, the NGBL represents another important chapter in the history of women’s diamond sports.

 

The National Girls Baseball League was a professional women’s fastpitch softball league founded in 1944 with four clubs from the Chicagoland area, along with one ballclub that relocated from Cleveland to join the league. A sixth team was added the following year. For more than a decade, the league provided women with the opportunity to compete at a high level and helped sustain fastpitch softball in the Windy City during the postwar era.

 

This is the story of the National Girls Baseball League — and the women who helped build it.