Casey Candaele shares story of his mother, inspiration for ‘A League of their Own’

Stories are often told about the game of baseball being passed from father to son and then from son to his son — and so on. For Mariners first base coach Casey Candaele, it’s just a little different.

As Casey tells when we sat down with him, his mother, Helen Callaghan Candaele St. Aubin, played for five years in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and, growing up, it was she who taught him the game.

She would talk a little, then, about her experience playing baseball, but it wasn’t until Casey’s brother Kelly starting doing research on the league before he eventually got a sense for what it was all about and what his mother had accomplished.

That research, done in conjunction with Kim Wilson-Southerland, eventually became a full documentary titled A League of their Own, which you can watch in its entirety on their website.

Then the documentary was eventually adopted into the full-fledged motion picture that’s still popular today, A League of Their Own.

The characters in the movie were only loosely adopted from real-life personalities, but you can see the similarities.

During her time in the AAGPBL, Candaele herself played for Minneapolis Millerettes, Fort Wayne Daisies and Kenosha Comets. She was, for part of her career, teammates with her sister Marge — which naturally bears similarities to the popular film. During their time together, Helen would often bat leadoff, with Marge second — the latter frequently moving the former over, or driving her in.

For more details on the league, Kelly Candaele’s film is worth viewing. Again, you can watch the A League of their Own documentary, in its entirety, on their website.