When Jacque Barzun wrote those words in 1954 he may have been thinking only of the complexity of Americans and their values, as mirrored in the game of baseball, but this quote also reflects on the struggle for equal rights and equal opportunity that took place within baseball, since its inception in the late 19th century and in American society particularly in regards to Women and African Americans.

Barbara Gregorich's Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball and Gail Ingham Berlage's Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History are two recent additions to Niagara University Library that explore some of the lesser know aspects of women's struggle for equal rights in the world of professional baseball.

Women at Play and Women in Baseball are two books that tell the complete history of women and baseball. Though baseball fans may be familiar with the Rockford Peaches and the Racine Belles, two women's professional baseball teams popularized in the movie A League of Their Own, few would be aware that women have been playing hardball baseball since the 1860's, fielding teams at Vassar and Smith College, and that as early as 1875, women started playing professionally. Some of the early stars were pitchers Maude Nelson and Alta Weiss. Early teams such as The Boston Bloomer Girls and Philadelphia Bobbies drew large crowds with their exciting play. Readers will also read about pitcher Jakie Mitchell who, in a 1931 exhibition game between the New York Yankees and a minor league team the Chattanooga Lookouts, struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a single inning.

However, women didn't just play; they also were umpires, managers and team owners. Amanda Clement was umpiring professional baseball games between men some 64 years before Pam Postema was given the opportunity to umpire in the major leagues in 1988. In 1911 Helene Britton became the first woman to own a major league baseball team, the National League's St. Louis Cardinals.

While the two books are similar in regards to subject matter, Women at Play is written as a history for a general audience, while Women in Baseball explores it from a socio-cultural perspective. Both books are successful in bringing to life a history that has been ignored or simply forgotten.

Both books can be found on the library's basement level. The call number for Women at Play:The Story of Women in Baseball is GV880.7.G74 and for Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History it is GV880.7.B47.