National Baseball Hall of Fame Library
Dottie Collins, star pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, passed away from a stroke Tuesday in Fort Wayne Ind.
Not only was she one of the biggest names in the women’s baseball league and one of the best players, she did a lot to keep the memory of the league alive.
According to Richard Goldstein in the NYT, she was quite a hurler:
She pitched underhand, sidearm and overhand; she threw curveballs, fastballs and changeups; and in the summer of 1948, she pitched until she was four months pregnant. She won more than 20 games in each of her first four seasons. She threw 17 shutouts and had a league-leading 293 strikeouts in 1945 for the Fort Wayne Daisies, when the women’s game resembled fast-pitch softball.
She also had a lot to do with the Women in Baseball exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Without her, it wouldn’t have happened.