One and Done: How the Milwaukee Chicks Brought Professional Women’s Baseball and a Championship to the City During their Brief Stay

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Photo courtesy of Picryl

Milwaukee Chicks Uniform

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They didn’t last long and not many people saw them, but the Milwaukee Chicks of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) made a lasting impact on the city. In their lone year of operation, 1944, the Chicks won the league championship, giving the city one of its first national sports titles.

The AAGPBL, the first women’s professional baseball league, was depicted memorably in the 1992 film, A League of Their Own. The film focused on the Rockford Peaches club during the league’s inaugural season, 1943. A League of Their Own remains a beloved period piece and the first frame of reference for the AAGPBL even decades after the film’s initial release.

The AAGPBL was the brainchild of chewing gum magnate Phil Wrigley, who also owned the Chicago Cubs. Wrigley envisioned the league as a way to fill up empty dates at ballparks amid the domestic doldrums of World War II. The league was thoroughly Midwestern in orientation. The clubs were placed initially in smaller cities around the Chicago orbit. Most of the players came from softball leagues around the Midwest.

Players received good salaries, earning typically between $45 and $85 per week (comparable to $870 to $1640 per week in 2025 dollars), significantly more than the average laborer of the day. Wrigley put in place stringent rules about personal appearance as well, requiring players to make use of beauty kits the league provided and take classes on personal comportment.

The AAGPBL completed its inaugural season as a four-team loop, featuring clubs in Kenosha; Racine; Rockford, Illinois; and South Bend, Indiana. League president and founder Phil Wrigley expanded the AAGPBL by two teams for 1944, adding clubs in larger cities that were existing minor league baseball hotbeds. The Milwaukee Chicks and the Minneapolis Millerettes joined the now six-team league that spring.

Manager Max Carey

Future Baseball Hall of Famer Max Carey served as Milwaukee’s manager. The 54-year-old Carey was a baseball lifer. He played in 20 Major League seasons, primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Carey was the best base stealer of his generation. He led the National League (NL) in steals on 10 occasions and held the NL’s career stolen base record until Lou Brock surpassed him in 1974. During the 1930s, Carey managed the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he had finished his storied MLB career.

Apparently, Carey came up with the team’s moniker, a play on the children’s book, Mother Carey’s Chickens (1911) by Kate Douglas Wiggin and the already commonplace use of “chick” as slang for a woman.

The Chicks were often referred to in the press as the “Schnitts,” a then-commonplace German word in Milwaukee parlance for a short beer—the idea being that the Chicks were the “little Brewers.” Similarly, some publications referred to the team as the “Brewerettes.”

The team played well during the first half of the 1944 season, posting a 30-26 record. The club caught fire in the second half, winning 40 of 59 games. They finished the regular season with a 70-45 mark, the best record in the AAGPBL.

Aggressive ‘Small Ball’

Carey built the team in his own image. The team played aggressive “small ball,” manufacturing runs by placing continuous pressure on opposing pitchers. They led the league in stolen bases and moved runners along the base paths consistently. The team also boasted the AAGPBL’s best power hitter, Merle Keagle, who was near the top of almost every offensive category in the league. Second baseman Alma Ziegler led the league in stolen bases. The Chicks led the league in total runs scored.

The Chicks benefitted from great pitching as well. Starters Jo Kabick and Connie Wisniewski won 26 and 23 games respectively. As the season progressed, Wisniewski, also a star outfielder, emerged as the team’s pitching ace.

On July 18, 1944, the Chicks played in the second night baseball game ever held at Wrigley Field. The game was a tribute to the efforts of the American Red Cross during the war. More than 16,000 spectators watched Milwaukee pummel the South Bend Blue Sox, 20-11. Typically, AAGPBL games were much lower scoring, but an ineffective portable lighting system used for the game made it difficult for fielders to see the ball.

During the season, the Chicks contributed further to war morale by playing several games at military hospitals for wounded soldiers.

Poor Attendance

Despite their success, the Chicks drew poorly at Borchert Field, the ballpark they shared with the Milwaukee Brewers of the minor league American Association. Wrigley had added teams to Milwaukee and Minneapolis, hoping the larger cities would draw large crowds. This did not happen, particularly in the case of Milwaukee.

Unlike the teams in smaller cities such as Rockford and Kenosha, the Chicks were far from the only game in town. The Brewers had decades of history in Milwaukee and a loyal fanbase. Moreover, the Brewers were enjoying an excellent season in 1944 and ended up winning the American Association championship. A further contributing factor may have been ticket prices. Apparently, attending a game played by the established Brewers franchise cost the same as seeing the city’s fledgling AAGPBL team play, further discouraging fans to give the Chicks a try.

Contemporary press accounts indicate that the team drew a couple of hundred fans to most of their games, hardly enough to support a professional sports franchise, even by the relatively bare bones standards of the day.

The Chicks faced the Kenosha Comets for the league championship in September 1944. Wrigley decided to host the entire series in Kenosha, which drew much larger crowds than Milwaukee.

Wisniewski put the team on her shoulders during the series. She won four games and posted two shutouts, leading the Chicks to a championship in the seven-game series.

Off to Grand Rapids

After the 1944 season, the franchise relocated to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they remained for the duration of the league’s history. In Grand Rapids, the team won two more league titles (1947, 1953 before the AAGPBL’s 1954 demise.

The history of the AAGPBL remained below the radar until the release of A League of Their Own. In subsequent decades, there have been numerous local tributes to the Chicks.

In 2000, the Brewers held a gathering of surviving Chicks players. In 2018, the Milwaukee County Historical Society featured the Chicks in an exhibit entitled “Back Yards and Big Leagues: Milwaukee’s Sports and Recreation History.” 

Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett declared June 29, 2019, to be “Milwaukee Chicks Day.” The Brewers prompted that proclamation by holding a special event at the stadium that night honoring the 75th anniversary of the Chicks, which included a giveaway of replica hats of the city’s AAGPBL team.

A brand-new league, the Women’s Pro Baseball League, will begin play in summer 2026. This will be the first professional women’s baseball league since the AAGPBL’s demise. Initially, the franchises will be based in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hopefully, the league considers expanding to Milwaukee, which was once the home of the best women’s baseball team in the world.