Women’s History Month: Baseball Pioneer Emma Hough
In 2022, Rachel Balkovec became the first women to manager full time in the minor leagues. Since then, several other women have coached at the professional level and in the Northwest League. As we celebrate Women's History Month, we remember a baseball pioneer from our own backyard. Emma A. Hough
In 2022, Rachel Balkovec became the first women to manager full time in the minor leagues. Since then, several other women have coached at the professional level and in the Northwest League. As we celebrate Women's History Month, we remember a baseball pioneer from our own backyard.
Emma A. Hough (1877-1940) was among the first female managers of a semipro baseball team in the history of our National Pastime. She led the Edmonds Shingleweavers to the 1925 Snohomish Independent championship, and hardly no one knows her name on this 100th Anniversary.
Local newsprint announced her appointment as manager July 25, 1924. She promised an immediate shakeup of the roster and delivered. Emma gave no cares for “gentlemen’s agreements” on segregation and integrated the ball club. Edmonds signed left-handed curveball artist Jimmy Claxton, who had been banned from Tacoma Industrial League and Seattle City Leagues earlier the same season.
With Hough in the dugout and Claxton on the mound, winning was the outcome. They finished with a record of 17 wins and 4 losses.
She piloted Edmonds to their first five victories of 1926 before retirement from baseball, with a record of 26 wins and 5 losses as manager. Her husband Frank was briefly appointed manager in 1927 and son their Perry Hough was an outfielder on the team.
The family moved to Everett in 1929. There, they enjoyed the last decade of 45 years of marriage. Emma passed away April 1, 1940, her husband six years later. They are buried in adjacent plots at Marysville Cemetery.
May her memory never be lost to baseball.
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