The Cubs have fired many men over the years, but 22 years ago this week the Cubs made the news when they fired a woman. Not just any woman...their ballgirl!

Her name was Marla Collins. While it's true that Marla was a ballgirl, she wasn't exactly a kid. She was "all grown up in all the right places" as Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray used to say. She dressed in a skimpy Cubs outfit and ran the balls out to the umpire, and Harry talked about her quite a bit. The cameramen at WGN also were known to focus their cameras on Marla quite a bit more than they did for a typical ballgirl.

The result was that Marla became one of the most popular attractions in Wrigley. At the peak of her popularity, she was so famous that she got her own shoe contract. But this week 22 years ago, Marla's 15 minutes of fame came to a crashing end. The Cubs got the news that ended her career. They discovered that their young innocent ballgirl Marla (whom Harry and the WGN cameramen had turned into a sex object for several seasons) had posed for nude pictures for Playboy.

The Cubs were shocked (SHOCKED!) when she posed nude in Playboy, and fired her when it was announced. She appeared in the September issue of Playboy (that's a photo of the cover of her issue), but she never again appeared in her cute little outfit on her cute little metal folding chair at Wrigley Field.

And she has never been adequately replaced.