The history of women in baseball dates to 1866 when the women of Vassar College allegedly played the game. From the 1890s to the 1930s, various Bloomer Girls teams barnstormed across the United States playing baseball, mostly against male competition. In 1942, Chicago Cubs owner Philip Wrigley founded the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), a group of women’s teams that competed against each other. The AAGPBL functioned between 1943 and 1954. After the league folded, Allington’s All-Americans were formed by former AAGPBL players to barnstorm, again opposing mostly male teams. The idea of reviving an all-women baseball team was the brainchild of Bob Hope, former vice president and PR/marketing director of both the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks (NBA). In 1993, Hope was the president of Whittle Communications, LP, a marketing and promotional company. Whittle was hired by Coors Brewing Company President W. Leo Kiely to develop and implement a unique sports idea that would ultimately, if successful, be imitated by competing breweries. Ten years earlier, Hope tried unsuccessfully to start a women’s minor league team in Florida. Now, buoyed by the success of the motion picture A League of Their Own (1992), Hope was able to bring his idea to fruition. Coors agreed to finance and sponsor a women’s barnstorming team in the fall of 1993. They would fund the team in the amount of $2.6 million annually. Coors nicknamed the team the Silver Bullets, a blatant advertisement for a particular brand of their product. On December 10, the team was officially recognized by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. It was Hope’s dream that the team would eventually serve as a Class A minor league club, feeding its best players to AA, AAA, and eventually, the major leagues. During the spring of 1994, an estimated 1,300 to 2,000 women showed up at locations around the country to try out for the new team. From these applicants, 24 would be selected as Colorado Silver Bullets. Former major league pitcher Phil Niekro was named manager. Each player would receive $20,000 for four months of work. This figure was considerably higher than a first-year minor leaguer would earn, but several of the women were older than their male counterparts, and in some cases had left lucrative-paying positions in order to join the Silver Bullets. On April 23, 1994, the team played its first exhibition game, a three-inning, 2-0 loss to the Memphis Chicks. After the game, all paying customers of legal drinking age received a free six-pack of Coors Light beer. The first regular-season game was scheduled for Mothers’ Day, May 8, at Charlotte, NC vs. a team of Northern League All-Stars which included former major league players Leon “Bull” Durham and Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd. A crowd of 8,179 saw the Bullets suffer a 19-0 defeat. The game was televised live on ESPN2. After a 1-21 start, the Silver Bullets reduced the level of competition, playing only local, semipro men’s all-star squads. The Bullets ended the 1994 campaign with a 6-38 record. They improved to 11-33 in 1995, 18-34 in 1996 and 23-22 in 1997. In November 1996, the team played a series of exhibition games in Taiwan, posting a 0-5 record with one game rained out. At the conclusion of the 1997 season, Coors withdrew its sponsorship of the team. Unable to find another sponsor, the club announced they would not field a team in 1998. Sagging attendance, lack of media interest, no home field, and stiff competition from other women’s sports made it impossible for the Silver Bullets to continue. Some of the more illustrious members of the Silver Bullets team include pitchers Gina Satriano, daughter of former major league catcher Tom Satriano, who took a leave of absence from her position as a deputy district attorney; Lisa Martinez, a underhand-tossing knuckleball pitcher, formerly a high school science teacher; Pam Davis, who hurled one inning of scoreless relief for the AA Jacksonville Suns (Southern League) in an exhibition against the Australian Olympic baseball team. Outfielder Tammy Holmes hit the first Silver Bullets home run (an inside-the-park grand slam); first baseman Julie Croteau, a stunt double in A League of Their Own, was the first woman to play on a men’s NCAA college baseball team, and later served as the first known woman to coach a college baseball team.