Eddie Stumpf

Who was Eddie Stumpf?

Edward Stumpf was an American player, manager and executive in Minor league baseball.

Stumpf began his professional baseball career as a catcher in the American Association, playing from 1916 through 1919 for the Milwaukee Brewers and Columbus Senators. After that he coached and scouted for the Brewers for several years, before becoming a manager in 1939 with the Tarboro Serpents in the Class-D Coastal Plain League. From 1941 to 1942, Stumpf managed and eventually caught for the Janesville Cubs of the Wisconsin State League, until he heard about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, an innovative circuit conceived by Philip K. Wrigley, a chewing-gum magnate who had inherited the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball franchise from his father. Stumpf took the opportunity to get news at first hand, because Wrigley was his employer at the time.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League play officially began on May 30, 1943 with four teams, the Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox. Stumpf became one of the first four managers hired by Wrigley, being assigned to the Rockford club. The other managers selected were Johnny Gottselig, an experimented ice hockey left winger who played 17 seasons for the Chicago Black Hawks, and former big leaguers Josh Billings and Bert Niehoff.