Athlete. Born Faye Katherine Dancer, the daughter of Lloyd Dancer, an inspector for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Olive Pope Dancer, a schoolteacher. She attended University High School in West Los Angeles where she broke an all-city basketball record when she shot 42 baskets in one minute; she also ran an obstacle course in 9.4 seconds and fast-walked the half mile in 2 minutes and 42 seconds. From 1940 to 1942 she played for the Dr. Peppers, a class-A amateur girls' softball team sponsored by the Dr. Pepper company. In 1944 Dancer was discovered by the West Coast scout for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and was invited to spring training. She was signed as the centerfielder for the Minneapolis Millerettes at $75 per week. Her first season, she racked up 25 stolen bases, two grand-slam home runs, and a .274 batting average. She signed with the Fort Wayne Daisies for the 1945 season and was traded to the Peoria Redwings during the 1947 season. One sportswriter called her a "fly-catching genius" and four times during her career, she exceeded sixty stolen bases per season; in her fifth, she amassed 108 stolen bases – at the time a league record. Known as the league joker and an inveterate rule breaker she kicked against league strictures on private life; she smoked and drank, and after her fiancé was killed in action during World War II, dated whomever she pleased. In her six year career she played in almost 600 games batting .236 with 193 runs batted in, 323 runs scored, 16 home runs, and 352 stolen bases. She also pitched 25 games, with a 2.28 earned run average, 43 strikeouts, and an 11-11 won-lost record. Playing with the Redwings for the 1950 season, she ruptured a disc on a dive to first base while trying to avoid a pickoff play, ending her career. For the next 35 years, she worked for a power generator company in Santa Monica. On November 5, 1988 Dancer joined more than seventy-five other former AAGPBL players for the opening of the league's exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York where her baseball glove and spikes are on display. Dancer's career was one of the inspirations for the 1992 film, "A League of Their Own." She died at age 77 after undergoing surgery at the UCLA Medical Center.