Darrell Davis: Hall inductee Baker one of many ground-breakers

Mary “Bonnie” Baker is rightfully being inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

She may be less familiar than some of her fellow inductees, such as Dave Keon and Damon Allen, but Baker was likely the best-known of the players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Set up to compensate for the number of Major League Baseball players fighting in the Second World War, the girls loop was immortalized in a movie entitled “A League of Their Own.” The movie’s star, Geena Davis, was inspired by Baker, a catcher whose good looks, hitting prowess and base-stealing ability made her one of the league’s most noteworthy players.

Baker is also honoured with a memorial in a central-Regina park.

Her notoriety should remind everyone of the ground-breakers like Arleene Noga, Daisy Junor, Mildred McAuley, Muriel Coben and Ethel McCreary, who left Saskatchewan to play pro sports and hopefully helped forge a path for fellow Canadian women like Sandra Post, Brooke Henderson and Genie Bouchard.