1943 AAGPBL Recap
I just finished watching the A League of Their Own series on Amazon Prime Video, and I thoroughly enjoyed this new take on a classic story. It’s got a combination of some of my favorite things: Baseball! Queers! Comedy! Heartfelt personal stories that don’t shy away from exploring the racism and homophobia of the times! But it also provides a historical backdrop to a whole new avenue to extend my Astrology Baseball research: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League!
I found two great online resources that compile statistics from the AAGPBL: aagpbl.org and statscrew.com (that’s Stats Crew, not Stat Screw, at least according to their logo). Much like the 1992 film of the same name, this A League of Their Own reboot follows the league’s inaugural 1943 season, so that will be the scope of this post. As far as astrology, I only caught one reference in the series: slugging third baseman Jo De Luca proudly announces that she’s a Leo in episode 105 – so let’s start there.
While De Luca is not based on a real historical player (none of the characters from the show or the movie are), the four teams are historically accurate. Naturally, with only four teams, there are not nearly enough players to populate the rosters of 12 astrology teams – case in point, there were only three Leos who played in the 1943 AAGPBL. Tops among them was Irene Hickson, All-Star catcher for the Racine Belles. In 1943, Hickson hit .280 with just one home run, but 68 stolen bases, earning her the nickname “Choo Choo,” which was also a reference to her hometown of Chattanooga, TN.
Hickson’s performance in 1943 earned her 1,402 fantasy points, with an average of 20.6 points-per-game. One important thing to keep in mind about these numbers: while stolen bases were recorded, we don’t know how many times each player was caught stealing. In the fantasy point system, steals are worth ten points each, while being thrown out (or picked off) deducts five points from your score. So beyond not knowing a player’s stolen base success rate, we also get some inflated point totals. But since the stats are the same for everybody, at least we’re on a level playing field.
But the omission of “caught stealings” is nothing compared to what we see (or don’t see) in the pitching statistics, where a key category is missing: hits allowed. Pitchers receive five points for every batter they retire (which works out to 15 points per full inning pitched), but they are docked five points for every base hit allowed. They get an additional negative-five points per walk, and negative-ten per earned run allowed, both of which were recorded. But without the balancing factor of hits allowed, coupled with the drastically different way pitchers were used in the 1940s, we see some truly astronomical point totals.
The highest of the bunch is Helen Nicol, a Taurus, and ace pitcher of the Kenosha Comets. However, determining fantasy points for pitchers is tricky, because my two online sources disagree on innings pitched totals. They’re in agreement on all of Nicol’s other categories: her 31-8 won-loss record, 47 games pitched, and 220 strikeouts. But AAGPBL.org gives “Nickie” credit for 348 IP, while Stats Crew says she threw 464 frames. I’m inclined to go with AAGPBL.org here: their numbers work out to an average of 7.4 innings per game, while Stats Crew’s totals have her pitching 9.87 innings per game… a statistical oddity to say the least, considering that baseball games only last nine innings!
Given her lower (and more reasonable) innings total in 1943, Nicol still scored a whopping 5,450 fantasy points, with an average of 116.0 points-per-game. (If you take her unrealistic higher innings total, her points/PPG line jumps to 7,190 / 153.0, numbers unheard of in baseball history.) Incidentally, if you’re curious why she’s listed as “Helen Fox” on her official page, that’s because she changed her name when she got married in 1945. That’s the patriarchy in action, folks.
Taking a big-picture astrological view, Sagittarius was the best-represented sign with 11 players who put up a combined 13,237 fantasy points in 1943. Next, we’ve got a pair of Earth signs: Virgo had the lead over Taurus in terms of players (6 to 5), but the Bulls had the edge in total points (10,858 to 9,820). Complicating matters is that five players had unknown birthdays, which means we can’t calculate their astrological signs. So while it probably will never be possible to calculate full fantasy astrology lineups from the AAGPBL stats, it’s still fascinating to see how the stars impacted these groundbreaking, revolutionary athletes!