After Major League Baseball

After the 1938 baseball season, Woody made the decision that it was time to hang up the glove and move on in life. For a while he worked in Chicago at a factory making fairly good money. He stayed in Chicago during World War II working at a airplane factory. Woody got married in 1948 to a woman named Katherine. He received a phone call from an old aquantice asking him if he would be interested in being manager of the Grand Rapids Chicks of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Woody was happy in Chicago and thought he woud discourage this friend so he named a price he thought was unreasonable. To Woody's surprise, he responded, "Can you come tomorrow?" Woody move with his new bride and her grand daughter to Grand Rapids and stayed for seven or eight years.

This girls league became quite popular during the Second World War when many of the male baseball players were serving their country in the armed forces. The movie "League of Their Own" was about this girls league. Woody became manager of the Grand Rapids Chicks in 1952. He continued to manage the Chicks until the team and eventually the girls league disbanded in 1954.

( click to enlarge )

Woody returned to Newark, Ohio in the early '60's and moved in with his mother in the house he had bought for her when he was playing for the Cubs.

Pictured below are some family photos provided by Patricia Smith who was Katherine's grand daughter and lived with Woody in Grand Rapids and Newark. Click the thumbnail image to enlarge.

Woody worked for State Farm Insurance until his retirement. Woody passed away on September 26, 1997 at the age of 91.

Throughout his later years, Woody was often receptive to writers, reporters and collectors who were interested in the "grand ole days" of baseball. Of course, being an eye-witness to the Babe Ruth folklore, "called shot," he may have been contacted more than usual. One can find many autograph cards and pictures that clearly shows his signiture shaky from old age. His greatest memory was the 1933 All-Star game and he believed the game, when he played, was as honest as it could possibly be.