[2] During the early 1940s, the AAGPBL recruited young women to play baseball to keep the spirit of the game alive while men fought overseas.

It was a neglected chapter of sports history, at least until 1992, when filmmaker Penny Marshall premiered her film A League of Their Own, which was a fictionalized account of activities in the AAGPBL.

Starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell, this film brought a rejuvenated interest to the extinct league.

The AAGPBL folded in 1954, but there is now a permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum since November 5, 1988 that honors those who were part of this unforgettable experience.

He meet Maud Nelson, the manager of the All-Star Ranger Girls, and asked her if she could swing through Wheeling on her next tour, and give Gacioch a tryout.

Local companies that had sponsored women's baseball were switching over the less expensive game of softball, an activity that relied mainly on a strong player, as is the pitcher.

The team was managed by Bert Niehoff, the same man that had sent pitcher Jackie Mitchell to face Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig a decade earlier in an exhibition game.

At the end of the 1945 season, Gacioch was one of the ten players on the Blue Sox that Niehoff asked to have protected from being traded at a league meeting in Chicago.

But the president of the South Bend club decided that Gacioch's poor English made her a liability for the team, not the ladylike image he was seeking for his organization.

After the transaction, Gacioch blossomed as one of the most consistent AAGPBL players, starring on three championship teams for the Peaches, and by setting several league records as both a hitter and a pitcher.

A good-contact hitter, Gacioch only struck out 162 times in almost 3,000 career at-bats, and she ranks eight in the AAGPBL All-Time list with 352 runs batted in.