It is the Monday after the May long weekend, the cusp of summer. With the dirt under their shoes, the powder from the white chalk lines on the players’ hands and the blinding sun in their eyes, the season may as well already be here, summoned, in this moment, by the crack of the bat.
Your author (doing his best Jimmy Dugan impersonation: “There’s no crying in baseball!”) is standing on the field of play watching his young charges taking their places around the diamond. Fifty per cent of the team (of the league as a whole, in fact) is made up of girls ready to swing for the outfield grass and throw out the batter at first.
These young women owe a debt of inspiration to their predecessors from across the Sudbury District who played (and excelled) on both softball and baseball teams in all of the small towns and the city proper since the beginning of the 20th century.
The young players on the diamond today probably haven’t heard of this inspiration, and it’s likely most readers haven’t heard of her either.
One of the best female baseball players ever produced in the Sudbury District was Thelma Jo Walmsley of Copper Cliff. In fact, Walmsley is the only woman from the area to play professional baseball in the United States.
Born in 1918, Walmsley practically grew up on the baseball diamond. Her older brother, Fred (known as “Wiggy”), had been an excellent catcher with the Copper Cliff team of the old Nickel Belt Baseball League. He eventually moved on to put in a stint behind the plate with the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club.
In fact, it was Wiggy who rather inadvertently helped his younger sister's sporting development by occasionally “taking his eye off of” his catching equipment. It was then that Thelma Jo would "borrow" his gear in order to pursue her own baseball ambitions.
With an intense dedication to the game, she developed into one of the best ball players across the entire province. Sportswriters of the day reported that she had the ability to play just about any position on defence with unsurprising dexterity, and as a batter, she excelled as well.
In the 1930s, Walmsley was recorded as having thrown a baseball 237 feet at the British Empire Games in Montreal. The throw was good for the gold medal and shattered the previous record by 29 feet. And, as befits a baseball catcher who was also interested in track and field events, she was also a star in the javelin and discus throw.
In 1943, the owner of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs, Philip K. Wrigley, was facing a dilemma. He feared that the continued conscription of young men into the American war effort would bring about the suspension of Major League Baseball, as had already happened in some minor leagues.
Wrigley (a chewing gum magnate whose name still adorns the Chicago Cubs’ ballpark) wanted to ensure baseball could continue as a business during the Second World War. His solution, you ask? It was to organize a league of women softball players.
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) operated between 1943 and 1954, with franchises in several cities across the American Midwest. It provided a rare chance for female athletes to earn good salaries while playing the game they loved. The league began as an underhand-pitching softball league, but evolved quickly to sidearm pitching and overhand pitching, using various sized balls.
The women’s circuit involved a 120-game schedule, spring training and $100 per week paycheques ($1,745.65 in 2024) for the players. A total of 68 Canadian women from six provinces signed contracts to play on its various teams.
Walmsley’s prowess on the baseball diamond led her to a distinction that few women in Canada were able to achieve and that no female Sudburian, before or since, has been able to match.
In the mid 1940s, Walmsley, a right-handed hitting catcher, was just 26 years old and playing senior baseball professionally for the Montreal Royals. She was scouted and offered a tryout to turn professional by a scout with the Racine (Wisconsin) Belles of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
During her time in the league, Walmsley earned a healthy sum of money per week playing in the professional girls' baseball league.
The league and team she played for was later immortalized in the 1992 Penny Marshall film “A League of Their Own” with actress Geena Davis doing a very passable imitation of a Walmsley-esque catcher. (Though she is not the recorded inspiration for the character)
“I had to go down to Passcagoula, Mississippi, to spring training,” Walmsley recalled in an interview 45 years later. “There were 400 girls there trying out for the team, so you can imagine the competition. The coaches and scouts would sit up in the stands and each day some of the girls would leave. But I made it."
The team then barnstormed throughout the United States as it made its way back to Racine for the start of the regular season. “We (even) trained in Havana, Cuba, one spring as well and that was a lot of tun," Walmsley said.
The Sudburian was one of three catchers with the Belles.
“I'd catch about 60-65 games per season. My batting average was around .350," she added. Walmsley played for Racine for three seasons with the highlight coming in 1946 when her team won the league’s regular season pennant and advanced to the women's version of the World Series where the Belles beat Peoria to win the championship.
Unfortunately, she had to give up her pro career in 1947 when her father became ill, making a return to the Nickel Capital a necessity. However, she returned to play one final season, in 1948, for the Chicago Bluebirds. She then returned to live and work in Sudbury and Copper Cliff after that.
Baseball was not Walmsley’s only game (not by a long shot). She was also a big star in bowling, a game she considered in some ways her best. News clippings from the early 1940s, when Walmsley resided in Montreal, show her consistently cleaning up in various leagues.
"I always competed against men because most of the women didn't take it seriously enough," said Walmsley.
Although she enjoyed five-pin bowling, she didn't restrict her leisure activities to the city bowling alleys throughout the winter months. Curling was another sport that caught her eye and she decided to give it a try as well.
Since she worked during the day as a receptionist at Inco, Walmsley had to find a time and place where women could curl at night. This search led her to the Sudbury Curling Club where, in the 1950s, she was able to get out on the ice every night. Along with other working women at the time, Walmsley formed what was known as the “Business Girls Curling League.”
She also became a member of the Idylwylde Golf and Country Club where she endeavoured to head out for nine holes of golf as much as possible during the summer. Her scores were recorded in the 48/49 range over nine holes at Sudbury’s oldest golf club.
In fact, if you look at the numbers Walmesley put up in her athletic endeavours spanning several decades, they had her often competing with and beating men.
Even into her mid-70s, Walmsley remained very physically active. She would often be found working out at the McClelland Community Centre in Copper Cliff three times per week. She wasn’t one for aerobics, though; Walmsley chose instead to hit the weights.
Aside her other athletic pursuits, Walmsley said at the time, “I like to ski and I walk several miles each day. I also like to skate."
She would laugh when recalling, “Many people tell me, Jo, you don't look 70. Really, I feel the same as I've always felt. I really want to stay in shape … Whenever I get frustrated, I like to get out and go for a walk. In summer, I'll do a little running. It's the best thing in the world for your nerves.”
Walmsley passed away in 1997, just shy of her 80th year.
In a sad twist of fate, the following year, all of the Canadians who played in the AAGPBL were officially inducted (as a group) into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. I’m sure that it would have been something that Walmsley would have been looking forward to participating in. In a scene similar to the ending of the movie “A League of Their Own”, the surviving Canadian members of the league gathered together in St. Mary’s (in southwestern Ontario) to celebrate their past accomplishments together.
Walmsley’s memory (and baseball accomplishments) is honoured to this day here in her hometown. The Copper Cliff museum has in its collection the Racine Belles baseball jacket worn by Walmsley during her time on the championship-winning 1946 team.
It is now the second inning here in Coniston and the ball is floating through the air towards home plate, thrown ever so gracefully by Coach Ashley. With the bases loaded, now is the time. “Crack” goes the bat and the ball is off like a shot, sailing into the outfield. The runners quickly leave their bases, rounding third and heading for home … Sophia, Kenzie, Leah and Aria each, in turn, cross the plate, following in the giant footsteps of Thelma Jo Walmsley.
Jason Marcon is a writer and history enthusiast in Greater Sudbury. He runs the Coniston Historical Group and the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook page. Then & Now is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.