Josephine Lenard

Who was Josephine Lenard?

Veronica Josephine Lenard [″Bubblegum″] was a center fielder who played from 1944 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5' 4", 130 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Jo Lenard grew up playing baseball with her brother and the other boys in the streets of her neighborhood. Playground ball was the next step, then into the high school league and on to a Chicago amateur girls softball team. Lenard was in school when she learned that there was a nation-wide effort to recruit women to play in a new Midwest professional softball/baseball league.

By the fall of 1942, many Minor league teams disbanded due to World War II conflict, when young ballplayers were being drafted into the armed services. The fear that this pattern would continue prompted Philip K. Wrigley, a chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team, to search for a possible solution to this dilemma. When President Roosevelt gave the order to continue baseball for the morale of the nation, Wrigley decided that it was time to do it. With the dedication of a group of Midwestern businessmen, and the financial support of Wrigley, the new league emerged in the spring of 1943.