Shakeia Taylor: Home team may have lost, but record-setting Chicago Red Stars game at Wrigley Field was a win for women's sports

CHICAGO — On July 1, 1943, Wrigley Field hosted a large Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) rally.

The event included a doubleheader with a WAAC softball game at 6 p.m. between teams from Fort Sheridan and Camp Grant near Rockford, Ill., followed by an all-star baseball game at 8:30 p.m. with players from the four original All-American Girls Professional Baseball League teams (the Racine Belles, Kenosha Comets, South Bend Blue Sox and Rockford Peaches).

To help light the field for the later game, three banks of temporary lights were installed on poles situated behind home plate, first base and third base.

Yes, in the first night game held at the North Side ballpark, it was women who took the field. They would play a second night game there the following year.

More than 80 years later, two professional women’s teams made history again.

Neither rain nor wind nor rapidly dropping temperatures could keep fans away from Wrigley Field on Saturday evening to see the Chicago Red Stars play Bay FC in a National Women’s Soccer League game. The 35,038 fans in attendance broke the league record of 34,130 set last October at Seattle’s Lumen Field for Megan Rapinoe’s final regular-season match.

Gallagher Way, the enclosed grassy area outside of Wrigley, was a festive scene. Families moved about excitedly while a DJ played tunes.

As I looked around, every other person was wearing a shirt or hoodie that read, “Everyone watches women’s sports” — a mantra and a call to action. The momentum of women’s sports is growing across leagues as college and professional sports see tremendous growth in viewership, attendance and interest.

Cheryl and Clair Rollman-Tinajero, along with their kid Rowan, traveled from Austin, Texas, to be part of the moment.

The Rollman-Tinajeros’ love of women’s sports has taken them to San Jose, Calif., for Bay FC’s home opener, to Kansas City, Mo., for the opening of the KC Current’s CPKC Stadium and to Dublin to watch the Irish women’s national team play Sweden.

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