Wrinkled, Out of Time

Eleanor Engle, the first woman to sign a professional baseball contract, has died at the age of 86. Signed in 1952 by the Harrisburg Senators – while the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of A League of Their Own fame was still extant – her contract was immediately voided by minor league president George Trautman and Major League Baseball commissioner Ford Frick, who apparently preferred being on the wrong side of history. Although she was a high school softball standout, the signing by the struggling Senators was strictly a PR ploy. Still, the Senators manager and teammates rejected her, and what passed for the tabloid press of the day stalked her outside church and malt shops to score the shameless hussy’s story.