Crim: Northeast Missouri native still celebrating, promoting baseball as sport for young girls and women

QUINCY — Gloria McCloskey Rogers doesn’t act like a woman who will celebrate her 90^th birthday in less than four months.

When she’s not watching over two great-grandchildren, ages 1 and 3, at a home she shares with her daughter in Plano, Texas, you may find Rogers jetting around the country, appearing on podcasts and panel discussions, conducting interviews or speaking with junior high and high school students.

Rogers, who grew up in Edina, Mo., is eager to share her experiences as a member of the Rockford Peaches in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) — made famous by the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own” — and to promote baseball as a sport for young girls and women.

“I just did a program for 150 girls at a school in Fort Worth,” she said in a telephone interview last week. “I don’t think any of this would have happened without the movie.”

Major League Baseball executives, including Philip Wrigley and Branch Rickey, partnered with some businessmen to start what became the AAGPBL in 1943. The original idea was for teams to play in major league parks to maximize revenue on open dates during World War II, but too many owners balked.

So, four non-MLB cities near league headquarters in Chicago were selected — Racine and Kenosha in Wisconsin, Rockford in Illinois and South Bend in Indiana. The league eventually grew to 10 teams before disbanding after the 1954 season as interest waned.

Rogers, a high school softball pitcher who says she only lost two games in four years, saw an advertisement in a St. Louis newspaper about AAGPBL tryouts. She wrote a letter to Carl Gaines, a scout, asking about the tryouts and later received an invitation.

Her mother and sister drove her 300 miles from Edina to Rockford. She impressed scouts with her arm by throwing the ball 197 feet from center field to home plate and by clocking the fastest time from the batter’s box to first base. She was one of six players chosen from about 30 at the tryouts to immediately join the Peaches.

Her playing stint in 1953 was short-lived, however. Her father decided Rockford was too far away for his 17-year-old daughter, who already had enrolled for the fall semester at Christian College (now Columbia College) in Columbia, Mo., and brought her home.

“I didn’t play much,” Rogers said. “I got a uniform (which she still has) and got my name in the program. I rode the bus and dressed for games. I wanted to go to school, but I wish I could have played at least that summer.”

Christian College, then an all-girls school, did not have a softball program at the time, so Rogers competed in the equestrian, tennis, field hockey and synchronized swimming programs. She was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2005.

She also played for the Goetz Country Club Beer fast-pitch softball team based in St. Joseph, Mo., that reached the national tournament in 1955. She later earned a degree in physical education and theater from Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State).

She married Kelley Rogers, who served as school superintendent at Knox County, Macon and other districts in Missouri and Iowa; taught physical education and coached girls basketball and track; and set out raising their two children, Traci and Trent.

She rarely mentioned her association with the AAGPBL until “A League of Their Own” was released.

“I was just teaching school and raising kids,” she said. “I had girls at school coming up to me asking, ‘Mrs. Rogers, why didn’t you tell us you did that?’ I didn’t think anything about it. It wasn’t a big deal until Penny Marshall did the movie.”

It became even bigger for Rogers in 2003 when AAGPBL officials learned she was living in Macon and called to invite her to a league reunion in New York.

It was there that she first saw her name included in “Women in Baseball,” a permanent display unveiled in 1988 in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown to honor the AAGPBL. The exhibit was re-curated and renamed “Diamond Dreams” in 2006.

“I was talking with one of the former players and Kelley was walking around, looking,” Rogers said. “All of a sudden, I hear him say, ‘Gloria Lee, come here. Your name is on the wall.’ It was just a thrill to see my name in bronze on the wall in the Baseball Hall of Fame.”

Rogers has since become involved in keeping alive the history of the AAGPBL and promoting American Girls Baseball (AGB), an organization with the goal of creating a professional baseball league for women who want to have a future in that sport.

She was recognized for her exemplary service in 2020 with the June Peppas Award, named for a player from 1948-54 who was instrumental in organizing the first AAGPBL player reunion in 1982 in Chicago and establishing the AAGPBL Players Association in 1987.

“I do almost anything I can,” Rogers said.

Rogers usually attends annual AAGPBL reunions across the country, where former players mingle with fans, sign autographs and answer questions about the league. The number of players continues to dwindle, however. She said only 29 of the league’s 650 players are living.

She has attended girls baseball tournaments at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Fla., and the multi-field Cal Ripken baseball experience complex in Aberdeen, Md. She also appeared at a Boston Red Sox fantasy camp in Fort Myers, Fla.

She has been among the former players feted at several MLB ballparks over the years. She was invited to the MLB All-Star Game at nearby Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, last summer, where she participated in a panel discussion on women and baseball. She plans to be in Atlanta for the All-Star Game this July.

“I met a lot of people and had my picture taken with Fergie Jenkins,” Rogers said, referring to the Hall of Fame pitcher.

Last October, she accompanied an Arlington high school baseball player she has befriended, Abigail Moore, to the third All-American Women’s Baseball Classic in Durham, N.C. The Classic is a four-team tournament where 60 of the nation’s elite women athletes — many of them members of the Women’s Baseball World Cup — showcase their talents.

The Classic pays homage to the AAGPBL by using the nicknames of the original four teams — Peaches, Blue Sox, Belles and Comets.

“There are thousands of girls who want to play baseball,” Rogers said, noting baseball is now a women’s Olympic sport. “If girls want to play baseball, there should be girls teams. They shouldn’t have to play with the boys or only play softball. The opportunities are there. You just have to find them.”

The AAGPBL Players Association, a non-profit organization established, in part, to preserve and promote the history of the league, pays Rogers and other players an appearance fee and covers their travel expenses, as well as those of a caretaker, if one is needed.

“When you get to be 90 years old, it can be hard for some to get around,” Rogers said. “I’m mobile, and I fly by myself a lot. People ask Traci, ‘You let your mother fly alone?’ She tells them, ‘You don’t know my mother.’ ”

Kelley Rogers, who Gloria describes as her “biggest fan,” passed away in January 2011. She says she has beaten breast cancer twice and hopes to receive a clean bill of health next month after undergoing five rounds of radiation treatments to treat a spot discovered last year on her right lung.

She’s planning a visit to Northeast Missouri, where her daughter has a cabin near Baring Lake. Her sister lives in Canton.

Her home is filled with memorabilia, awards, photos and newspaper clippings, some her mother saved more than 70 years ago. She has her own baseball card, which she autographs and mails to fans when requested, and a personalized bat presented to her by Louisville Slugger. She has the letter she received from Gaines.

Much of that collection may one day be donated to The History Museum in South Bend to accompany AAGPBL exhibits housed there.

“We’re trying to keep the legacy going,” Rogers said. “Younger ones will have to take over. I hope they keep it alive.”

To learn more about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, visit AAGPBL Players Association

To learn more about American Girls Baseball, visit American Girls Baseball