Lundgren writes own story: ‘We played seven nights a week’

Alice Kolski Lundgren once penned her baseball story in her own words.

You#146;ve all heard of the movie #147;A League of Their Own.#148; I played baseball then in the National Girls Baseball League.

I was the youngest of seven children. My mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver when I was 6. My three older sisters were in charge of the household chores and didn#146;t want me #147;getting in the way.#148; My brother, Ed, was not allowed to leave the house unless he took little Alice with him. All my brothers played a lot of ball, so I was raised on a ball field. I was always the only girl in the neighborhood games.

One day when I was about 10, we were playing a game and several girls started to watch. They wanted to play too, but the boys said, #147;No girls can play.#148;

The girls said, #147;But Alice is playing,#148; and the boys said, #147;Yeah, but she#146;s different, she plays like a boy.#148;

Later I discovered older girls playing for the (Chicago) Park District. I tried out and made the team. My baseball career started at age 12, playing 14-inch slow pitch softball on an organized team.

Soon after, my brother Ed took over managing the team and we started to travel to parks all over the city to play. We would pass a tin can around for donations to cover expenses. In 1936 we got a sponsor and became the Hedstrom Coals. As time went on, Ed had us learn to play 12-inch fast pitch.

For a while we would play a slow pitch game at 6:30 then drive to another park and play a fast pitch game under the lights. Soon we only played fast pitch.

In 1943 the owners of each team decided to form a league. We became known as Brach#146;s Kandy Kids. We played all over Chicago and the suburbs. The starting salary was $25 a week.

In 1944, I was voted the most valuable player in the league. I played a lot of positions and had a great year at the plate. I received a gold watch along with the award.

The next year we became the Match Corporation Queens. We played seven nights a week, and eventually games on Tuesday and Thursday were televised. We were considered one of the top teams in the country and were playing 110 games a season.

For a few years, we would drive to Arizona to get in shape before the season. Ed would arrange games against men#146;s teams along the way. These small towns always enjoyed seeing something different, and these games really tested us royally.

I remember staying at the brand new courthouse in Tucumcari, sleeping in the beds used by juries.

In the 1950s things changed and the league disbanded in 1954. I played for two more years in California and retired.