Fort Wayne has a rich sports history with notable athletes of amateur and professional ranks. Perhaps one of our great city's most notable claims to sports fame was hosting the first professional league baseball game. On May 4, 1871 the Fort Wayne Kekiongas took on the Cleveland Forest Citys and won 2-0 in a game pitched by Bobby Mathews who is believed by many to be the inventor of the curveball.
From 1945-1954 Fort Wayne was home to the Daisies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. An AAGPBL reunion in Fort Wayne served as inspiration for the 1986 documentary "A League of Their Own" which in turn inspired the movie by the same name. Many of the movies lead roles were loosely based on the Fort Wayne Daisies players.
However baseball is just one of the many sports with notable Fort Wayne ties. Basketball, hockey, tennis, golf, soccer and football have all shined here. The History Center collection includes many artifacts representing Fort Wayne's athletic history from novice to professional with a small sampling of those artifacts shown here.
To learn more please join us for the "Fort Wayne Sports History" lecture by Blake Sebring on Sunday, January 5, 2014 at 2pm. The lecture is free and open to the public.
