Professional Baseball Player, Folk Figure. A left handed hitting first baseman, she was considered by some to be the best player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Raised in Cincinnati she grew up playing softball and in 1943 tried out for the then-new AAGPBL at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Assigned to the Rockford Peaches she was to play her entire career with the squad, from 1943 to 1951 and again in 1953. A seven-time All Star, she led the league twice in batting, hitting .316 in 1946 and .306 in 1947, while stealing 109 bases in 1946. Dottie was recruited by a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, men's Class B minor league team in 1947 but declined to participate in what she perceived to be a publicity stunt. After a back injury forced her 1953 retirement with a career batting average of .292 and the circuit's lifetime record for hits she studied at Milwaukee's Marquette University, earning a degree in physical therapy in 1958. Dottie then worked for a time in Cincinnati before relocating to Los Angeles where she retired as chief of physical therapy for Los Angeles County Children's Services in 1980. In 1988 the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, created a permanent display honoring the AAGPBL and did a mass induction of all of its players. Dottie's career provided a portion of the basis for Geena Davis' 'Dottie Hinson' character in the film "A League of Their Own" (1992), and in 1999 "Sports Illustrated" magazine ranked her among the 100 greatest female athletes of the 20th. Century. She died of the complications of age and of multiple strokes. Of the pain of playing baseball in a skirt she said simply: "We got used to it".
Professional Baseball Player, Folk Figure. A left handed hitting first baseman, she was considered by some to be the best player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Raised in Cincinnati she grew up playing softball and in 1943 tried out for the then-new AAGPBL at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Assigned to the Rockford Peaches she was to play her entire career with the squad, from 1943 to 1951 and again in 1953. A seven-time All Star, she led the league twice in batting, hitting .316 in 1946 and .306 in 1947, while stealing 109 bases in 1946. Dottie was recruited by a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, men's Class B minor league team in 1947 but declined to participate in what she perceived to be a publicity stunt. After a back injury forced her 1953 retirement with a career batting average of .292 and the circuit's lifetime record for hits she studied at Milwaukee's Marquette University, earning a degree in physical therapy in 1958. Dottie then worked for a time in Cincinnati before relocating to Los Angeles where she retired as chief of physical therapy for Los Angeles County Children's Services in 1980. In 1988 the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, created a permanent display honoring the AAGPBL and did a mass induction of all of its players. Dottie's career provided a portion of the basis for Geena Davis' 'Dottie Hinson' character in the film "A League of Their Own" (1992), and in 1999 "Sports Illustrated" magazine ranked her among the 100 greatest female athletes of the 20th. Century. She died of the complications of age and of multiple strokes. Of the pain of playing baseball in a skirt she said simply: "We got used to it".
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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