Have You Heard of the Pawtucket Slaterettes?

A Darlington Pioneers team coached by Chuck Gutgsell poses for a team photo in 1973, the league’s first year. Photography courtesy of Pawtucket Slaterettes

Jo-Ann Wunschel grew up in a baseball family. Her father, Paul Engelhardt, was scouted by the Kansas City Royals and played in a military league during his time in the Navy. Her grandfather also played Navy baseball, and Wunschel — an avid Red Sox fan — recalls watching games as a kid on a black-and-white TV. “We used to go to Slater Park, because we lived nearby in Pawtucket, and throw a ball around,” she says. “There’s just something about baseball that I preferred over softball.” It’s not surprising then, that when she arrived in middle school, she had no interest in donning a softball glove. Instead, she and her sister expressed interest in playing in a girls’ baseball league. Her parents began making calls, and in 1973, the Darlington Pioneers were born. The league — which later changed its name to the Pawtucket Slaterettes — continues today as the oldest all-female recreational baseball league in the country. “It was unheard of. There was nobody else to play against, just the four senior league teams and the six junior league teams,” Wunschel recalls. “We, of course, had to play around the boys’ Little League schedule. We were relegated mostly to Sunday mornings, because that’s when the field was available.” Today, the league has divisions for T-ball players through adults and home fields at Fairlawn Veterans Memorial Park. With interest in women’s baseball continuing to grow — Brown University’s Olivia Pichardo became the first woman to play NCAA Division I baseball in 2023 — the program remains strong. Travel teams compete regionally and nationally, and Slaterettes players have gone on to attend tournaments in Hawaii and Japan. In 2017, the league even reenacted the PawSox’s “Longest Game” during a marathon day of playing at McCoy Field. “We have mothers that are organizing the league that used to be players, and now their kids are playing,” says Deb Bettencourt, another longtime player. For its fiftieth anniversary in 2023, the league hosted a tournament featuring teams from as far away as Canada and Washington, D.C. Wunschel threw out the first pitch. “There are Pawtucket Slaterettes items in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown,” she says. “Never could have imagined that.” All because a few girls wanted to play ball. slaterettes.com