death_date death_place bats birth_place statvalue team image_size birth_date image article_title statlabel name throws
09 may 2006 south bend , indiana left lebanon , missouri & & nbsp ; 609 & nbsp ; 191 & nbsp nbsp ; .271 ; 665 2245 & nbsp ; 367 all-american girls professional baseball league 220px 15 july 1930 betty wagoner.jpg betty wagoner
 games batting average played at-bats runs scored hits runs batted in betty wagoner left
betty wagoner

betty ann wagoner -lrb- july 15 , 1930 -- may 9 , 2006 -rrb- was a right fielder and pitcher who played from through in the all-american girls professional baseball league .
listed at , 110 lb. , she batted and threw left-handed .
an all-star and a member of two championship teams , betty wagoner played in the all-american girls professional baseball league during the final seven years of its existence .
for most of her career wagoner hit for batting average , moving along baserunners as an occasional slugger and often appeared among the league 's top twenty hitters .
a smart and alert runner , she moved aggressively in the right situations to take the extra base .
armed with a strong , accurate throwing arm , she had good range at right field , catching almost everything that came her way and always knew what to do with the ball .
eventually , she played at center field or first base , serving also as an occasional starting pitcher .
she posted an 8 -- 20 record in 32 pitching appearances , while her .271 batting average ranks her eleventh in the aagpbl all-time list .
in 1942 , chewing gum magnate and chicago cubs owner philip k. wrigley decided to start a women 's professional softball league fearing that world war ii would force a cancellation of the major league baseball season .
wrigley had scouts all over the united states , canada and even cuba signing girls for tryouts .
the circuit was initially called the all-american girls softball league , though early in the first season the name was changed to all american girl 's baseball league .
in its twelve years of history the aagpbl evolved through many stages progressing far enough to become a regulation baseball game .
these differences varied from the beginning of the league in 1943 , progressively changing the pitching style , extending the length of the base paths and pitching distance and decreasing the size of the ball until the final season of play in 1954 .
a native of lebanon , missouri , wagoner was a 1948 graduate of bolivar high school .
she started to play softball in phillipsburg on the boy 's softball team in grade school and later joined the girl 's softball team at bolivar , playing also for the ywca team of springfield during two summers .
wagoner read about the aagpbl in `` life '' magazine when she was 12 years old .
`` i told my parents that someday i 'd like to play in that league -lrb- if i was good enough -rrb- '' , she recalled in an interview .
after graduating at 17 , she attended a tryout at chicago .
she passed the test and was rewarded with a contract to play in the circuit .
in 1948 the aagpbl expanded to a historical peak of ten clubs divided into two divisions representing eastern and western zones .
the eastern division included the chicago colleens , fort wayne daisies , grand rapids chicks , muskegon lassies and south bend blue sox teams , while the kenosha comets , peoria redwings , racine belles , rockford peaches and springfield sallies played in the western division .
at the same time , the league made the switch from side-arm to overhand pitching .
wagoner entered the league with the lassies , playing for them only four days before joining south bend for the rest of her career .
in her rookie season , she hit a combined .278 -lrb- 69-for-284 -rrb- in 84 games for both teams .
south bend , with marty mcmanus at the helm , ended in third place with a 57 -- 69 record and lost to grand rapids in the first round of the playoffs , three to two games .
in game 1 , jean faut pitched 20 innings to beat alice haylett and grand rapids , 3 -- 2 , in which has been reported as being the longest game in aagpbl post-season history .
grand rapids won game 2 in 11 innings , 3 -- 2 , to tie the series , but lillian faralla hurled a four-hit , 2 -- 1 victory in game 3 .
in another extra-inning duel , haylett took revenge in game 4 , defeating faut and south bend in 15 innings by a 1 -- 0 score , while in decisive game 5 mildred earp silenced the south bend hitters in a one-hit , 1 -- 0 shutout , and grand rapids advanced to the finals .
in 1949 wagoner became the every right fielder of south bend .
she appeared in a career-high 113 games and hit .230 -lrb- 87-for-379 -rrb- , scoring 58 runs while driving in 26 more .
throughout the regular season , south bend , now managed by dave bancroft , waged an up-and-down battle with rockford for first place .
although south bend had a four-game lead in august , both clubs tied with identical records of 75 -- 36 at the end of the year .
in the playoffs , rockford eliminated south bend in four straight games .
by edict of league president max carey , the playoff victory also made rockford the regular season champion team .
by 1950 the advantage began to shift toward the batter .
that year , most pitchers were still adjusting to the new 10-inch ball introduced the previous season .
also , the pitching distance , set at 43 feet before 1948 and increased to 50 feet in 1949 , was augmented to 55 feet in 1950 .
betty foss of fort wayne topped the league with a .346 average , while rockford 's eleanor callow and racine 's sophie kurys tied with seven home runs , and grand rapids ' pepper paire finished with 70 runs batted in .
wagoner enjoyed a solid season , hitting .296 with 61 runs and 39 rbi in 106 games .
she also recorded career-best numbers in at-bats -lrb- 388 -rrb- and hits -lrb- 115 -rrb- , and was selected for the all-star team .
south bend finished in fifth place with a 55 -- 55 mark and dropped out of the playoffs .
in 1951 karl winsch took over as manager of south bend .
by the time the season rolled around , his wife jean faut was a successful and established pitcher .
she led the league in strikeouts -lrb- 135 -rrb- , tied for seventh in wins -lrb- 15 -rrb- , and ranked third in earned run average -lrb- 1.33 -rrb- and in shutouts -lrb- seven -rrb- .
wagoner , who was proficient at hitting line drives , played 110 games and hit a .272 average -lrb- 102-for-375 -rrb- , driving in 41 runs and scoring 77 times to set career numbers in both categories .
faut reached her peak of the season on july 21 , when she hurled a perfect game against the visiting rockford peaches at playland park .
ahead 2 -- 0 , she struck out five of the last nine hitters , including pitching ace helen nicol to end the game .
faut gave considerable credit for her perfect performance to the flawless fielding of her teammates .
`` i had an extremely good team behind me '' , she recalled years later .
to this day she remembered the shoestring catch wagoner made on the right field foul line in the second inning .
`` that was the only real scare i had .
that was a tremendous catch '' , adding that wagoner ran a long way on a dead run to snag it justoff the ground .
while south bend placed third in the first-half standings , the team finished first in the second half , thus giving them a playoff berth .
their complete season record of 75 and 36 was best in the league in 1951 , and the blue sox would end the season battling rockford in the best-of-five championship round .
the defending aagpbl champion rockford won the first two games , but south bend won the next three games to clinch the title .
faut collected two of the victories , while wagoner led all-hitters with a .600 average -lrb- 6-for-10 -rrb- .
but everything came to a head in 1952 , because south bend manager winsch became more demanding of his players .
that season was to see faut again lead the league in several pitching categories .
she posted a 20 -- 2 record in 23 games to set an all-time record in winning percentage -lrb- .909 -rrb- .
she also recorded a career-best 0.93 era and led all pitchers with 114 strikeouts , but the fact that her husband managed the team created friction between faut and many of her teammates .
meanwhile , wagoner raised her average to .295 , including 64 runs and 27 rbi in 97 games .
nevertheless , some of the players bristled under winsch 's leadership , many of them refusing to speak to him or their star pitcher .
dissension within the south bend team peaked just before the season ended , when flashy infielder charlene pryer was disciplined following a dispute with winsch .
the incident occurred when he suspended pryer from the team after she responded slowly to his order to pinch-run late in a game .
in protest , five south bend teammates joined pryer in a walkout , leaving winsch 's team short-handed for the playoffs .
pryer was reinstated at the club , but she decided to retire for good .
the championship series was a repeat of the previous year with south bend again facing rockford .
it was the second league championship for south bend and the second time faut pitched the decisive game 5 .
she also hit two triples and drove in two runs while turning in a 6 -- 3 complete game victory .
in 1953 south bend was weakened considerably by the player losses at the end of the previous season .
the blue sox would finish the second from last , compiling a dismal 45 -- 65 record .
wagoner dropped to .239 -lrb- 84-for-352 -rrb- , driving in 27 runs while scoring 42 times in 97 games .
in spite of everything that had gone wrong , faut still turned in a solid season by leading the league in wins -lrb- 17 -rrb- , strikeouts -lrb- 153 -rrb- and era -lrb- 1.51 -rrb- in 29 games , to win the triple crown and player of the year honors .
she was worn down from all the dissension and retired at the end of the season .
wagoner saw limited action in 1954 , but she still batting for average and went 48-for-150 to collect a .320 mark in just only 48 games , joining the all-star team as a reserve outfielder .
south bend finished second -lrb- 48 -- 44 -rrb- and advanced to the playoffs , but was beaten in the first round by the kalamazoo lassies , who would end the season defeating fort wayne to become the winning team of the last championship in the league 's history .
following her baseball career , wagoner took a job at bendix corporation , where she worked as an office supervisor from 1952 to 1986 .
after retiring , she stayed active by constantly volunteering and by playing bowling and basketball .
she gained induction into the hall of fame in lebanon , missouri , and also is part of the aagpbl permanent display at the baseball hall of fame and museum at cooperstown , new york , which was inaugurated in in honor of the entire league rather than individual baseball personalities .
wagoner was a longtime resident of south bend , indiana , where she died at the age of 75 .
