Elgin woman helped put girls baseball on the map
Alice Kolski Lundgren ~ 1922-2011
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Alice Kolski Lundgren played fast pitch softball in a women's professional league for nearly a dozen years, the kind of baseball memorialized in the film, “A League of Their Own.”
Mrs. Lundgren never appeared in the film, and family members do not believe any of the characters were based on her. However, she knew most of the players the film was based on from her days in the National Girls Baseball League.
“She played against all of them,” says her son, James Lundgren, of Bartlett.
The movie depicted a team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the first women's professional baseball league formed in 1943. Mrs. Lundgren played in the National Girls Baseball League, which emerged in 1944.
The two leagues were rivals. They both began by playing fast pitch softball, until the All-American League switched to overhand baseball in 1948.
Mrs. Lundgren passed away on Friday in Elgin. She was 88.
After the movie came out, Mrs. Lundgren was asked for interviews and appearances. She threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Bandits game in 2009.
“Players and women like Alice helped put female athletes on the map,” says Bandits General Manager Aaron Moore. “It is because of these legends that we're able to do what we're doing today.”
Mrs. Lundgren grew up as the youngest of seven children on the near Northwest side of Chicago. When she was 6, her mother was killed in a hit and run auto accident.
Consequently, while her older sisters ran the household it fell to her brother, Ed, to watch her. Naturally, he took her with him to the neighborhood baseball games.
By the time she was a young teen, Mrs. Lundgren found girls' softball leagues to compete in through the Chicago Park District. They played in parks throughout the city and passed a tin can to cover their expenses.
When the National Girls Baseball League formed in 1944, her brother, Ed, served as manager for their team, sponsored by Brach's Candy. They called themselves the Brach's Kandy Kids.
“We played all over Chicago and the suburbs,” Mrs. Lundgren wrote in a short biography she penned about her career. “The starting salary was $25 a week.”
That first year, Mrs. Lundgren was named MVP of the league. Though she primarily was a catcher, with a strong arm developed from playing baseball, she played all the positions and often had multiple roles in a single game.
In 1945, the team took on a new sponsor and became the Match Corporation Queens. According to her biography, Mrs. Lundgren says they played seven nights a week, and eventually the games on Tuesday and Thursday were televised.
In all, they played 110 games a season, and in their 10 years of playing, the Queens won the World Series, four times.
They even had a form of spring training. Her brother, Ed, arranged for the team to drive to Arizona, playing men's teams along the way to sharpen their skills.
“These small towns always enjoyed seeing something different,” she wrote, “and these games really tested us royally.”
By 1954, the league folded, though Mrs. Lundgren played two more years in California before retiring.
When she returned to Chicago she worked at the Chicago Post Office, and eventually married a co-worker who had been one of her fans. Eric Lundgren was a widower, who had taken his two children to stadiums to see her play.
They married in 1961 and moved to Elgin when they retired in 1973.
Mrs. Lundgren was preceded in death by her husband, who passed away in 2001. Besides her son, she is survived by her daughter, Patricia (Allen) Frank, four grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
Visitation will be held Tuesday at Laird Funeral Home, 310 S. State St., Elgin, before a 10:30 a.m. Mass on Wednesday at St. Thomas More Catholic Church, 215 Thomas More Drive, Elgin.