Free Prairie Hardball by Alison Gordon

was an apparent inning-by-inning history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, delivered by a sports historian from Winnipeg. Her research was commendable, but her delivery was dismal. When she finally wound down, the applause was delivered more out of gratitude than appreciation.
    Her audience, at least the part of it in my immediate vicinity, was suffering from the torpor that comes after a big meal. We had been fed chicken in a vaguely oriental sauce, with mushroom rice, corn niblets, and several salads, along with dinner rolls. Dessert was strawberry shortcake, with whipped cream from a can. By the time the speech was over, our coffee cups were empty, the dessert plates were sticky, and I was dying for a smoke and a pee, not necessarily in that order. I was about to sneak out when the master of ceremonies went to the podium.
    “Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “In a just a few minutes, the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame will have received twenty new members, twenty new
female
members, into its honoured ranks.”
    “It’s about time, too,” a woman shouted from the back of the room, to the obvious amusement of the head table.
    I apologized to my bladder, and promised not to feed it any more coffee if it would just behave itself for another half-hour.
    “Our first honouree hails from the town of Watrous. For six years, she backed up the plate for the Racine Belles . . .”
    As he introduced her, a grinning Edna Summers stood up and was escorted slowly from the table by a well-set-up young usher in a pale blue tuxedo. He brought her to centre stage in front of the head table, where the video camera was set up.
    “Three times an all-star, she will always be remembered for the home run she hit off Gull Lake’s own Willetta Heising to win the 1946 championship over the Rockford Peaches.”
    Great laughter, as, on the dais, the guilty party put her head down on her folded arms and pretended to cry.
    “Because Edna Summers was Edna Adams during most of her career, she alphabetically qualifies to become the first woman to be inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame. I present Edna Adams Summers.”
    “Way to go Edna,” came the shout from the woman heckler at the back, followed by applause.
    “Please, ladies and gentlemen, hold your applause until all the inductees have been announced,” the radio guy said. “Unless you want to be here all night.”
    Andy leaned over to me.
    “You mean we haven’t already been?”
    The emcee waited for Edna to be photographed receiving her plaque, and then went on to the next player, a catcher for the Peaches, who was, in turn, escorted to the place of honour.
    With applause obediently withheld, the induction moved quickly along, each woman, or the one accepting on her behalf, receiving her plaque and posing for a commemorative two-shot. Some were shy and hesitant, others bold and brassy. When it was my mother’s turn, she stood shyly, but with her head held high. Claire couldn’t restrain herself, and shouted out, “Yay, Gram!” Sheila shushed her. I winked. Virna Wilton was the last, and after she received her plaque, she went to the podium.
    “I have been asked to respond on behalf of all the girls here tonight,” she said. “I am honoured to have been chosen. Of course it’s probably because I’m the last one up.”
    Chuckles all around. Virna was the most famous of them all, the one who made the cover of
Life
magazine the year the league was founded.
    “It’s been quite a day,” she continued. “Meeting with my teammates and our former foes, talking about the good old days, has been a wonderful experience. But above all, to be recognized by the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame Committee as a part of the baseball history of our home province is especially sweet.
    “As most of you know, I don’t live here anymore. With my friend and colleague Wilma Elshaw, I stayed on in Fort Wayne after the league