Dolly Vardens was a recurring name used for a number of baseball teams throughout the United States in the early decades of baseball (1860s-1880s). Most were white, male squads, though there was an all-female, African-American team from Chester PA, assembled by barber-turned-sports entrepreneur John Lang in the 1880s.
According to 19th century reports, in May 1883 in Chester's Lamokin Woods, a team of Black female players led by shortstop Ella Harris played against an unnamed team in a contest that was considered "a failure."
Apparently, there were two different semi-professional Dolly Varden teams, and one of them played a third club known as "Captain Jinks" in a game declared a draw after 15 innings. A newspaper report of the game included a long description about the opening coin toss plus a "lengthy discussion about a player getting a thorn stuck in her foot after chasing a foul ball into the woods, but not a ton of attention was paid to the quality of play."
Overall, these teams of Black women players were considered to be only a novelty, rather than a competitive organization, who played for the entertainment of spectators. (MLB official historian John Thorn notes, "Lang’s Dolly Vardens, created in the 1880s, are sometimes confused with several Philadelphia-area all-male clubs bearing that name as early as 1867.")
The name was taken from a character in the 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens. Dolly Varden is also the name of a Hell's Kitchen, NYC restaurant as well as the moniker of the last passenger train locomotive to run up Manhattan's West Side.
See also
References
- "Baseball In Skirts, 19th-Century Style," NPR.org
- ^ March, Lochlahn. "The story of the Dolly Vardens, a 19th-century baseball team made up of Black women". inquirer.com. The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
- Thorn, John, "Strangest of All Baseball Attractions!," Our Game, MLB.com, May 2, 2016
- Thorn, ibid.
- "The Inspiration". www.dollyvardennyc.com/. Retrieved 17 February 2024.