Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 26, 1995                   TAG: 9503270077
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHAT A LIFE: ACT LIKE LADIES, PLAY LIKE MEN

Back when she played center field in the All-American Girls Baseball League, Helen "Gig" Smith of Richmond was afforded few of the perks and garnered little of the power pro athletes enjoy today.

The team rode a cramped bus without air conditioning, sometimes overnight, between games in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.

League owner and chewing gum magnate P.K. Wrigley chose skirts as uniforms, sent players to charm school and set a strict behavioral code.

"Mr. Wrigley wanted the players in that league to conduct themselves like ladies at all times - and play like men," Smith said during the first day of a two-day visit to Roanoke. "These ballplayers nowadays wouldn't put up with what we put up with."

The 73-year-old Smith will sign autographs and speak to fans today at the Roanoke Civic Center during a sports card show that opens at 10 a.m. Smith will stay until 3 p.m.; the show closes at 4. Admission is $1.50 and parking is $1.

Oh, the baseball girls were paid for their efforts - $55 per week on top of expenses, a respectable paycheck in the 1940s. They had the public's admiration - the eight-team league drew a million spectators a season until it disbanded in 1954, according to published reports.

But it wasn't an easy life. "We prayed for rain," in hopes of getting a day off, Smith said.

Smith credits the 1992 film, "A League of Their Own," with awakening many to the league's story. It also created in the public an appetite for ex-players such as Smith to make paid public appearances

The film departed little from the basic tale, she said, except for including such fiction as a male coach who uses a urinal in front of his team and a player who dotes on her son in the dugout.

"Hollywood. They were smart. They put things in there that appeal to all types," Smith said.

Still, she said, she did love the league.

America's female pro baseball league was in business from 1943 to 1954 as a way to keep baseball alive during World War II. Initially recruited by scouts who fanned out across the country, players attended spring training in Florida and played exhibition games in Cuba.

Their season was about the same length as that of major league baseball.

The scouts discovered Smith on the softball field, where she averaged one homer a game and earned a spot in that sport's Hall of Fame. She initially declined their offer in 1943, believing she was too old. She joined the army and worked in U.S. intelligence, mapping ship positions for bombers. It was here she earned her nickname, Gig.

After enrolling at Pratt Art Institute in Brooklyn, baseball suddenly appeared more attractive when money ran short. So she contacted the league.

Her career began in 1946 with the Kenosha (Wis.) Comets and ended the next season with the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Chicks.

She batted nearly .300 but never had her face put on a trading card.

She implores questioners to understand that she was not a star. The fate of her glove? "Who knows?"

She quit the sport to care for her ailing mother. She worked most of her life as an art and shop teacher in Richmond public schools, retiring in 1982. She never married.

Through the years, she stayed in touch with star players, such as Sophie Kurys, who stole a record 201 bases in one season and suffered more than her share of skin abrasions, or "strawberries," and Jean Faut, who pitched two perfect games.

"I don't know any man that can do that," Smith said. "It was unbelievable what those girls could do."