Lucille Thomas

Lucille R. Thomas

Biographical Information

Lucille Thomas became a footnote to baseball history on January 4, 1931 when she purchased the Topeka Senators of the Class A Western League. That made her the first woman to purchase a professional team outright, although a few other women, most notably Helen Britton in the majors and Florence Killilea in the minors, had become owners through inheriting a team. The news was picked up by a number of newspapers at the time.

The team had only moved to Topeka the year before, having previously been the Tulsa Oilers, and the move was only considered to be temporary with Ms. Thomas' intention being to return it to Tulsa, OK. This was the height of the Great Depression and such franchise movements were common. The Senators played the 1931 season in Topeka and then disappeared, wit a new Western League team popping up in Tulsa in 1932, so the proposed return home may well have taken place. Tulsa then moved to the Texas League in 1933 while a team reappeared in Topeka that year.

Little else is known about her except that she was originally from Wichita, KS and a resident of Tulsa at the time of the purchase from Phil Ball, who was the owner of the St. Louis Browns at the time. The price was said to be somewhere under the asking price of $30,000. She was described as an avid baseball fan. In 1930, she had made a bid to purchase the Wichita Aviators but it collapsed at the last moment. Her plan there was to install lights in order to boost attendance and revenue.