In 1919, the Chicago Cubs defied the National League ban on holding Ladies’ Day promotions. The Cubs’ ownership expected that adding female fans would help the team attract more respectable fans, the “socially elect of our city,” as Cubs chewing gum magnate owner William Wrigley described. Highly successful, the Cubs’ Ladies’ Days drew more fans than some team’s total season attendance through the 1920s and 1930s. A newspaperman noted, not without concern, the “sudden and spectacular burst of feminine interest in baseball.” If participating in professional baseball remained a male domain, women had visible place as supporters at Cubs games.
The Cubs’ Ladies Days remained a hit after the war, and the number of female fans expanded, particularly given the team’s embrace of day baseball and exposure on radio and television. Promoting the Cubs baseball team was imagined by the Wrigley family as not so different from how they had built a chewing gum empire.
In the 1970s, Ladies’ Days were abolished due to concerns that they constituted discrimination. While Ladies’ Days faced legal challenges in the 1970s, the Cubs retained a large female fan base. Conversely, the franchise’s devotion to daytime games – along with and generally dreary performance on the field – turned a generation of working-class men away from the Cubs. Yet, Cubs female fans similarly challenged the stereotype that they were passive consumers of baseball. Some women protested their beloved team’s often poor play on the field, particularly in fan magazines – their loyalty to the Cubs was not blind.
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