Going Pro Turns Out to Be Bad Move for Lionettes

The Orange Lionettes’ amateur softball dynasty came to an end in 1976, when the team became the Santa Ana Lionettes of the International Women’s Professional Softball Assn.

And the glory years were definitely over.

“We figured that since there were about 200,000 girls playing softball in Orange County that the fans would keep coming,” franchise holder Ed Goldstein told The Times in 1976. “Obviously we were wrong. It was financial disaster.”

Shirley Topley, who had been a member of six national championship teams with the Lionettes--three as a player, two as a player-coach and one as a coach--and Carol Spanks, who had been named to the Pacific Coast League All-Star team 16 times with Orange, resigned after one year because of philosophical differences with Goldstein.

Topley had been general manager and field manager. Spanks was the coach.

“We all had such high hopes,” Spanks said. “The timing seemed right, but the management structure of the league was very weak and some of the owners did some stuff, failed to pay their bills and things that really set softball back.

“I was 40 at the time, I didn’t want the hassle, I didn’t want to be told how to coach, so I figured it was a good time to retire.”

Goldstein wanted a more wide-open style, but Topley and Spanks knew well-placed bunts, not home runs, won softball games.

Spanks took her conservative approach to Cal Poly Pomona, where the Broncos were 46-6-2 in her first season as coach.

The women’s pro league soon folded and the Lionettes, if not their legacy, quietly disappeared.