Professional Baseball Player. A utility player for seven seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), she was one of the fastest runners in the circuit's history. Raised in coastal California, Charlene learned baseball from her father, earned notice as a singer, and worked as one of the first female DJs in the country. Joining the Marine Corps Reserve in 1944, she entertained the troops as a vocalist with the Dick Jurgens Orchestra then in 1946 tried out for the AAGPBL; assigned to the Muskegon Lassies, she played both infield and outfield and steadily improved her skills while becoming a feared baserunner. Charlene accompanied the Lassies on their 1950 move to Kalamazoo then was traded to the South Bend Blue Sox. In 1951 she had her most productive campaign, earning All-Star status while leading the league in hits, batting .312, stealing 129 bases, and helping the Blue Sox to the first of two straight league crowns. Despite more on the field success 1952 saw a number of the Blue Sox have problems with manager Karl Winsch, leading Charlene to retire at the end of the year having achieved a .255 lifetime batting average with 510 stolen bases. She married in 1953 and lived for many years in Medford, Oregon, where she worked as a school truant officer and playground coach. In 1988 she was part of the mass induction of the AAGPBL and its players into Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame; the league's story was told in the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own".
Professional Baseball Player. A utility player for seven seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), she was one of the fastest runners in the circuit's history. Raised in coastal California, Charlene learned baseball from her father, earned notice as a singer, and worked as one of the first female DJs in the country. Joining the Marine Corps Reserve in 1944, she entertained the troops as a vocalist with the Dick Jurgens Orchestra then in 1946 tried out for the AAGPBL; assigned to the Muskegon Lassies, she played both infield and outfield and steadily improved her skills while becoming a feared baserunner. Charlene accompanied the Lassies on their 1950 move to Kalamazoo then was traded to the South Bend Blue Sox. In 1951 she had her most productive campaign, earning All-Star status while leading the league in hits, batting .312, stealing 129 bases, and helping the Blue Sox to the first of two straight league crowns. Despite more on the field success 1952 saw a number of the Blue Sox have problems with manager Karl Winsch, leading Charlene to retire at the end of the year having achieved a .255 lifetime batting average with 510 stolen bases. She married in 1953 and lived for many years in Medford, Oregon, where she worked as a school truant officer and playground coach. In 1988 she was part of the mass induction of the AAGPBL and its players into Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame; the league's story was told in the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own".
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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