“Sticks” Jester: Loretta Bobs Her Hair
LORETTA JASZCZAK was sixteen, restless, and looking for adventure – something she knew could not be found working on her Polish immigrant parents’ farm. Reading through the newspaper one day in 1924, Loretta found the adventure she was looking for: a professional all-women baseball team.
She had been introduced to the National Pastime while attending her local two-room schoolhouse. When there were not enough boys for two teams, Loretta volunteered, and before long, she was as good as any of them.
“There was a women manager looking for players, so I answered the ad and went to a tryout,” she later remembered. It turned out that she would have more adventures and experiences in the next two years than most women would in a lifetime.
All-women baseball teams were nothing new in 1924. The late 19th century saw the formation of many “Bloomer Girls” teams, named after the baggy Turkish-style trousers women athletes wore instead of skirts. Dozens of these teams barnstormed across the country each summer, playing local town teams. Though billed as “all-women,” many bloomer teams fielded a few men dressed in women’s garb to give them an unexpected advantage against the small-town nines they played. Some women ballplayers became well-known names to baseball fans; in the 1890s, Lizzie Arlington pitched on men’s teams and even made a one-inning appearance for a minor league team, while Alta Weiss became nationally famous as a teenage pitcher, fronting her own semipro team in the early 1900s.
After ninety minutes riding a series of streetcars to traverse the 12 miles from the farm to Fairmount Park in Northwest Philadelphia, Loretta learned more about the all-women team she was about to join.
The team was run by Mary O’Gara, who named her club the “Bobbies” after the short hairstyle that was all the rage in the early 1920s. Back then, a bobbed cut on a young lady was about as radical as a punk rock mohawk. It symbolized the carefree lifestyle of the “flappers” of Prohibition-era America. Soon, glamorous movie stars Clara Bow and Louise Brooks bobbed their hair, as did the new genre of “sportswomen,” who were making their mark in formerly men-only sports such as golf and tennis. Now, Mary O’Gara wanted to continue that crossover into baseball.
The Philadelphia Bobbies’ roster was on the younger side, with most players between 15 and 18 years old, and their best player also happened to be their youngest. Just 13, Edith Houghton had to use safety pins to tighten her cap and punch extra holes in her belt to keep her pants up, but she could both hit and play shortstop better than most teenage boys.
Each of the Bobbies had a snappy nickname, with Houghton’s obviously being “The Kid.” Edith “The Original Babe” Ruth was the Bobbies’ ace on the mound, and Florence “Floss” Eakin was her catcher. Then there was Alma “Chick” Nolan at second, Nettie “Wait-a-While” Gans in left field, and Jean “The Uke Kid” Phillips in right. Loretta was given the nickname “Sticks” because of her long commute from the family farm out in the “sticks.”
When she bobbed her hair and Americanized her last name, Loretta Jaszczek, farm girl from the hinterlands, became “Sticks” Jester, center fielder for the Philadelphia Bobbies.
PLAYING AN AVERAGE of three games a week, the Bobbies were each paid between $5 and $10 per game – not a bad payday, especially given that a typical male factory worker took home $7 a day. Their home games were played in the sprawling Fairmount Park, where there was no shortage of other semipro nines to cross bats with. As their reputation grew, the Bobbies took their game on the road. With several Bloomer Girls teams already working the barnstorming circuit, Mary O’Gara carved out a modest territory for the Bobbies to cover. O’Gara contracted with vaudeville booking agent R.H. Cross, and soon the Bobbies were playing games across New Jersey, as far south as Virginia, and deep into western Pennsylvania.
Most of the teams the Bobbies faced were all-male clubs; in fact, in researching this story, I located only one game against an all-female nine. Admittedly, they were often outclassed by the older men’s teams, but the team took pride in the fact that, unlike the more familiar Bloomer teams, the Philadelphia Bobbies did not have male ringers playing key positions. In a 1988 Press of Atlantic City feature, Loretta recalled, “We played mostly men’s teams, but they never took it easy on us. We would have gotten mad at them if they did and they didn’t want us to win. We had to fight for it.”
The heart of the Bobbies’ offensive lineup was “The Four Horsemen,” named after Notre Dame’s unstoppable football backfield. The Bobbies’ equine incarnation consisted of Nettie “Wait-a-While” Gans, Jean “The Uke Kid” Phillips, Alma “Chick” Nolan, and Loretta “Sticks” Jester. The Four Horsemen and the team’s 13-year-old shortstop became the centerpieces of the Bobbies’ promotional material distributed by R.H. Cross. And, like many booking agents, Cross was sometimes over the top in his claims about Bobbie’s success and playing ability.
Various newspaper articles note that the team “have bought a cottage at Blackwood, New Jersey, where their training camp has been established. The lodge contains the many trophies which the team has won on its travels about the country.” And not only were the Bobbies crack ballplayers, but they were also their own orchestra: “Each girl is an accomplished musician, and they give many benefit performances.” Needless to say, there were no trophy-laden training facilities in Jersey, nor were the Bobbies booked to play any philharmonic hall.
Newspaper reports on the Bobbies’ playing ability varied widely. Once one cuts through the smarmy “bobbed-haired beauties” remarks and mock wonder at how the girls managed to keep their professional gloves “secure on their dainty wrists,” game accounts would call out notable plays. By far, the most ink was dedicated to Edith Houghton. Both her sex and age defied all stereotypes of the time. Edith “Babe” Ruth’s pitching was often singled out for being exemplary, even when she came out on the losing end. Touted as the team’s power hitter, “Sticks” received her share of column space, usually along the lines of “Miss Jester smashed the apple for a lusty ride to right field.”
But the Philadelphia Bobbies’ biggest publicity prevarication was the team’s claim of being champions of one sort or another. Early 1925 press releases proclaimed the Bobbies the “girl baseball champions of Pennsylvania.” The title was later elevated to “Eastern Champion Ladies Baseball Team,” and finally the “female baseball champions of the world,” an honor earned by “having defeated all claimants for the title.” In later years, articles about the team made an even bolder claim to fame; a 1992 News of Cumberland County article reads, “Later, in 1925, the Bobbies played and defeated the New York Bloomer Girls for what amounted to the National Championship for women.” This was a bold proclamation, as the New York Bloomer Girls were a crack outfit of veteran women ballplayers, playing for an organization with roots dating back to the turn of the century.
After seriously diminishing my eyesight searching through many hours of 1925 newspapers attempting to substantiate this claim, I contacted historian Leslie Heaphy, author of the seminal Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball. Heaphy, who coincidentally happened to be researching the New York Bloomer Girls, replied, “I have over 1000 articles and games for every year, and I, too, have not found an article to back the claim.” As far as I’m concerned, Heaphy’s input completely settles the question – there was no championship game against the Bloomer Girls.
Whether they were Champions of the Nation or just Northwest Philly, fans flocked to the ballparks to watch the Bobbies take on their hometown team. 2,500 fans showed up for a doubleheader against the Baltimore White Sox, and a crowd of over 3,500 paid to see the Bobbies drop a close 11-10 game to the South Side Sheiks in Richmond, Virginia. Attendance in the 1,000 to 1,500 range was not uncommon during the 1925 season.
AT THE END of the summer, the Bobbies’ booking agent, R.H. Cross, approached Mary O’Gara with a lucrative and adventurous proposition. The previous winter, former Washington Senators catcher Eddie Ainsmith had taken a team of amateur ballplayers to Japan for an exhibition tour. The endeavor was a wild success, with each player returning with over $800 in their pockets. Seeing first-hand how the curiosity of watching a Caucasian men’s team brought out the Japanese fans, Ainsmith was convinced an all-women team would be an even bigger success. Ainsmith asked his agent if he knew of an all-women team that would be game for such a trip, and Cross suggested the Philadelphia Bobbies.
O’Gara and eleven of her players decided to make the trip. The team planned to barnstorm their way west before boarding a ship to Japan. Eddie Ainsmith worked out all the financials, including arranging for three Japanese businessmen to front the bill for first-class ocean liner tickets and guarantee room and board in Japan. Ainsmith would be accompanied by his wife, Loretta, and pitcher Earl Hamilton, a 14-year major league veteran and his wife. It was agreed that Hamilton and Ainsmith would be the Bobbies battery during the tour, a big change from the team’s proud claim of being strictly an all-women outfit.
While Mary O’Gara chaperoned her ladies west, Ainsmith took a detour to Chicago to recruit a 6-foot, 18-year-old southpaw named Leona Kearns. This increased the team roster to an unlucky thirteen – but whether anyone noted this or heeded the ancient superstition is not known.
THE TWO GROUPS met in Seattle in time for the sailing of the S.S. President Jefferson on October 6. Immediately, friction arose. Eddie Ainsmith made it clear that he was to be the group’s leader and Mary O’Gara a mere chaperone. The team fell into two rival camps; newcomer Leona Kearns and the two older Bobbies, Edith Ruth and Nella Shank, sided with Ainsmith, while the rest of the team stuck with O’Gara.
Things went from awkward to worse once the ship sailed. The O’Gara faction ignored Ainsmith’s 9:30 curfew and enjoyed their first-class amenities well past the midnight hour. While O’Gara and Ainsmith vied for control of the team, the Bobbies had the time of their lives. There was dancing and music, and the rare opportunity to mingle with characters unlike those in their blue-collar neighborhoods back in Philly.
In a 1988 newspaper article, Loretta recalled, “That trip was really something else. I remember the Lord and Lady Gossford (son and mother) got on the ship in British Columbia. The Lord was a young man and he used to come over to a meeting room and teach us how to smoke. It was fun until the Lady found out.” With Ainsmith’s strict training rules abandoned, Loretta got herself into the kind of mischief typical of a seventeen-year-old away from home for the first time: “I’ve only gotten drunk twice in my life, and once was on that boat. We had a party and I made the mistake of taking a sip out of everyone’s glass. Mary (the team manager) had to put me to bed.”
BALLAD OF THE BOBBIES
The Philadelphia Bobbies might not have had their own orchestra, as contemporary newspapers reported, but they did have their own theme song.
Left fielder Nettie “Wait-a-While” Gans wrote this little ditty aboard the S.S. President Jefferson as they steamed across the Pacific to Japan. As Gans wrote in her diary, “We sang our song called “Bobbies.” It is sung to the tune of “Collegiate.” I made up the words and the girls liked it. Here it is:”
Bobbies, Bobbies, yes we are the Bobbies
No one but the Bobbies no ma’m
Baseball, Baseball, Oh we sure do love it
Nothing goes above it yah!
And when we play, we sure do hit the ball
For we haven’t any time for slow hitting
Bobbies, Bobbies, yes we are the Bobbies
Girls with Bobbies
Bobbies rah, rah, rah.
The team really did like it because, on October 30, 1925, the Bobbies performed it on a radio show in Osaka.
Oh, and for anyone wondering, the tune “Collegiate” was a runaway smash hit during 1925. It was a lively jazz novelty song made popular by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, a dance band from Penn State University.
The Bobbies arrived in Yokohama on October 19. A throng of fans and press met them at the dock. At first, the tour was a stunning success. The team stayed in first-class hotels and fêted at the American embassy. The mayor of Tokyo threw out the first pitch before their first game in the capital, and crowds of more than 20,000 (some estimates were as high as 100,000!) were reported. Even after losing their three games in Tokyo, the press praised the Bobbies.
The losses continued as the tour moved through Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. Though Japanese newspapers still raved about the visiting ballplayers, fan interest dropped precipitously as word of their subpar play spread. Then, two of the three Japanese financial backers disappeared, while the third declared bankruptcy. Trying to get the promised money, Ainsmith went so far as to involve the police, but nothing could be done. Meanwhile, hotel bills weren’t getting paid, and the team’s personal funds dried up.
Mary O’Gara and most of the Bobbies demanded that the team cut its losses and return home. The problem was that there was no money to do that. Eddie Ainsmith had neglected to secure any guarantees for their return passage, naively believing the tour would be flush with money when the time came to leave. Doubling down, Ainsmith argued that, instead of going home, the tour should be extended into Western Japan and into the Japanese-occupied territories of Formosa (now Taiwan) and Korea. No longer willing to trust Ainsmith, most of the team decided to remain with their original manager, O’Gara.
Only three of the Bobbies, Edith Ruth, Nella Shank, and Leona Kearns, sided with Ainsmith. With the line clearly drawn, he quickly recruited a handful of male Japanese ballplayers, and the bootleg Bobbies sailed for Formosa, abandoning the rest of the team in Kobe.
MARY O’GARA and her charges were now completely stranded in Japan, with no money for either passage home or lodging. An appeal to the American consulate in Kobe yielded no help. The Japanese press pulled a 180 on the Bobbies, blaming their poor play and 2-11-1 record for the tour’s failure. American newspapers picked up on the story and steadily reported on their plight, but no funds were forthcoming. The Bobbies’ players came from working-class families, so they could not rely on any help from home.
Fortunately, a pair of benevolent strangers stepped in to help. The first was Henry Francis Sanborn, an American who ran the Pleasanton Hotel in Kobe. Sanborn provided the women with free rooms and meals while he solicited donations to help fund their return trip.
One might think that the women would have been in full-blown panic mode – however, this does not seem to be the case. Nettie Gans’ diary, a copy of which resides in the Hall of Fame library in Cooperstown, reveals neither desperation nor dread in her entries from this period. And in Loretta Jester’s many interviews, she recalls the interesting people and things she encountered, mentioning Ainsmith’s abandonment of the team only as an afterthought. In fact, the Bobbies were given free use of Sanborn’s touring cars to sightsee, hike in the Rokko mountains, attend the theatre, and appear at social functions organized by members of Kobe’s foreign colony.
The second benevolent stranger to come to the Bobbies’ aid was a wealthy British-Indian banker named N.H.N. Mody. He contributed $6,000 and made it clear that the money was not a loan but a gift not to be repaid. On November 18, 1925, O’Gara and the nine remaining Bobbies boarded the S.S. Empress of Russia for their return home. Loretta Jester and her teammates were home in time to spend Christmas with their families.
TWO MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTORS
Born in California in 1872, Henry Francis Sanborn spent more than forty years in Japan. Since first arriving in 1899, Sanborn had a front-row seat as Japan evolved from a reclusive feudal state to a world power. Settling in the port city of Kobe in 1902, Sanborn ran the Pleasanton Hotel, catering to American and European travelers. He became a collector of Japanese art, focusing on miniature ivory figural pieces. With the coming of war with Japan inevitable, Sanborn returned to America in January 1941 and embarked on a speaking tour to introduce Americans to the nation they would soon be at war with. Sanborn spoke of how he looked forward to the day peace would return to Japan, but he would not live to see it. He passed away in San Francisco on August 21, 1944, at age 72.
N.H.N. Mody was Naoroz Hormusjee Naoroji Mody, the second son of Sir Hormusjee Naorojee Mody, an Indian Parsi businessman and opium broker in Hong Kong. Born in 1875, Mody studied law at Cambridge and began his career in international banking. He spent most of his adult life in Japan, first in Nagasaki and later in Kobe, where he made Henry Sanborn’s Pleasanton Hotel his home. Mody was a passionate collector of Japanese art, amassing a large collection of clocks, furnishings, and 19th century Nagasaki-e prints. He wrote extensively on Japanese art, and his collection has been exhibited in museums around the world. Like Henry Sanborn, Mody would also not live to see Japan at peace again, passing away in occupied Hong Kong in 1944, aged 69.
THE SAME COULD NOT be said for Eddie Ainsmith and the bogus Bobbies. The Formosa tour foundered as soon as fans realized that only three of the Bobbies were women. The group arrived in Hiroshima with no money and no way to return home. Inexplicably, Eddie Ainsmith scraped together enough money from friends to book passage home for himself and his wife – but not for anyone else!
Abandoned by the Ainsmith’s, Edith Ruth, Nella Shank, and Leona Kearns managed to make it back to Kobe, where Henry Sanborn gave shelter to this second batch of Bobbies. Somehow, the indomitable hotelier convinced the U.S. State Department to arrange passage for the three remaining Bobbies on the S.S. Empress of Asia. However, just when the trio thought their troubles were over, tragedy struck. During a heavy winter storm, Nella and Leona went on deck for fresh air. A large wave hit the ship, washing Leona overboard. After fruitlessly circling his ship for an hour, the captain declared Leona Kearns lost at sea.
LORETTA JESTER played the 1926 season with the Bobbies, but things had changed. Soured by the Japan ordeal, Edith Houghton left to play for other teams around Philly. Early in the summer, Mary O’Gara was hit by a car, breaking both legs and leaving her unable to manage her team. At some point, Eddie Ainsmith reappeared, inserted several men on the team, and continued to barnstorm under the Philadelphia Bobbies name.
Loretta and most of the girls who made the trip to Japan drifted away to other teams or to start families. Loretta followed the latter path, marrying Walter Lipski in 1927. The couple had four sons and a daughter. Fittingly, while Loretta’s boys eventually lost interest in playing ball, it was her daughter who carried her love of the game into adulthood, playing competitively in two softball leagues in Washington, D.C.
Over the years, Loretta found professional baseball drifting further away from the game she had loved and played as a teenager. “Players today aren’t as good and aren’t as fun to watch because all they think about is contracts and how much money they are going to get,” she told a local newspaper.
After her husband, Walter, passed away in 1978, Loretta began revisiting her baseball past. When a newspaper story proclaimed a team from the 1940s as the first professional all-women baseball team, Loretta’s former teammate Jean “The Uke Kid” Phillips contacted the writer to tell the story of the Philadelphia Bobbies. This led Loretta and several other former Bobbies to reunite in Cooperstown, NY, in 1988, where they were honored at a ceremony opening a special exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame dedicated to the women of baseball.
The 1992 movie A League of Their Own, a fictional retelling of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in the 1940s, generated a renewed interest in the history of women in the National Pastime. Loretta was a frequent guest for the Philadelphia media outlets, joyfully recounting her time with the Bobbies in numerous radio and newspaper interviews. During the 1990s, “Sticks” Jester became a fixture on the East Coast baseball card and memorabilia show circuit.
The fit and feisty octogenarian seated behind a table, autographing her own homemade baseball cards for fans, must have been a stark contrast to the modern athletes charging beaucoup bucks for their signatures on mass-market memorabilia. The scenario makes me think of a quote from one of the newspaper features on Loretta: “In my day, people played because they loved the game and didn’t worry about what they could get out of it. That’s why I played baseball. I just loved the game.”
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Loretta “Sticks” Jester-Lipski passed away on March 22, 2007, at the age of 98.
Eddie Ainsmith never faced any repercussions for abandoning the Bobbies 7,000 miles from home. He later managed the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Edith Houghton became Major League Baseball’s first female scout when she was hired by her hometown Philadelphia Phillies in 1946. She’s credited with signing sixteen players.
Leona Kearns’ body was never recovered.
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This piece could not have been written without the work of three outstanding baseball historians.
Barbara Gregorich’s book, Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball, is the definitive work on the subject, with its three-volume companion, Research Notes for Women at Play, adding further invaluable information.
Kat D. Williams contributed an in-depth assessment of the 1925 Japan tour, Rethinking the Philadelphia Bobbies 1925 Tour in Japan: ‘Embarrassment to the Nation’ or ‘Great Success’?, published in the SABR book, Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan, 1907-1958.
And no baseball library is complete without a copy of the Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball by Leslie A. Heaphy. This massive work not only covers the individual women who played the National Pastime since its beginnings, but also those who managed, umpired, and owned ball clubs, as well as the various teams and leagues. Leslie also graciously shared her research with me on whether a Philadelphia Bobbies–New York Bloomer Girls championship series did indeed take place.
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This story is Number 91 in a series of collectible booklets
