Kittenball!

Mon., July 29, 1935 - Peggy here all day while Mom worked on her dresses that Roxie brought yesterday.  I went up to Alma's tonite.  She was going to the show with Gerald so I talked to Mrs. L.
Tues., July 30, 1935 - Worked on my star quilt.  It was hot today and not a breeze blowing.  Alma came down tonite.  We lay on the bedspring until 11:30 and talked.
Wed., July 31, 1935 - Ardath and Peggy here this a.m. trying on dresses.  We had a good rain tonite.  Willie, Lillie, Louise and Marjorie Hamm were in town for a kittenball game.  They got caught in the rain and are staying all nite.

I, for one, have never heard of kittenball.  But not being one to let that stand in my way, this is what I found at hdwebpros.com:

     The earliest known “softball/kittenball” game was played in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day 1887 between Yale and Harvard alumni who had gathered at the Farragut Boat Club to hear the score of their annual football game. When the score was announced and bets were settled, a Yale alumnus threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The other person grabbed a stick and swung at it. A man named George Hancock called out “Play ball!” and the game began, with the boxing glove tightened into a ball, and a broom handle serving as a bat. This first contest ended with a score of 44-40.  The ball, being soft, was fielded barehanded.

     George Hancock is credited as the game’s inventor for his development of a softball and an undersized bat in the next week. The Farragut Club soon set rules for the game, which spread quickly to outsiders. Envisioned as a way for baseball players to maintain their skills during the winter, the sport was called “Indoor Baseball." Under the name of “Indoor-Outdoor," the game moved outside in the next year, and the first rules were published in 1889.

     In 1895, Lewis Rober, Sr. of Minneapolis organized outdoor games as exercise for firefighters; this game was known as kittenball (after the first team to play it), lemon ball, or diamond ball. Rober’s version of the game used a ball 12 inches (305 mm) in circumference, rather than the 16-inch (406 mm) ball used by the Farragut club, and eventually the Minneapolis ball prevailed, although the dimensions of the Minneapolis diamond were passed over in favor of the dimensions of the Chicago one.

     Sixteen-inch softball, also sometimes referred to as “mush ball” or “super-slow pitch," is a direct descendant of Hancock’s original game. Defensive players are not allowed to wear fielding gloves. Sixteen-inch softball is played extensively in Chicago, where devotees such as the late Mike Royko consider it the “real” game, and New Orleans. In New Orleans, sixteen-inch softball is called “Cabbage Ball” and is a popular team sport in area elementary and high schools.

The things you learn . . .  The date on the photo of kittenball players is quite fortuitous, but I do not know who those young ladies are or where they are from.