death_date death_place bats birth_place team position width birth_date image article_title name throws
20 january 2004 delhi township , ohio right cincinnati , ohio all-american girls professional baseball league utility 250px 30 april 1925 fort the all american girls professional baseball league arguing with umpire wayne norris ward opa-locka , florida.jpg daisies player , marie wegman , of marie wegman
 marie wegman right
marie wegman

marie wegman -lrb- april 30 , 1925 -- january 20 , 2004 -rrb- was a utility infielder-outfielder and pitcher who played from through in the all-american girls professional baseball league .
listed at , 130 lb. , she batted and threw right-handed .
born in cincinnati , ohio , marie wegman had her first contact with baseball at the age of three when her father taught her how to throw and hit a ball .
the oldest of seven children , she grew up playing scrub baseball with her brothers and the neighborhood boys .
she did not play organized softball until she was 14 .
at the time , softball was not offered at school for girls , so she joined an industrial league and played on several traveling teams .
wegman was in a drugstore when she was spotted by a scout of the all-american girls professional baseball league .
she was offered a contract , but turned it down .
nevertheless , when wegman found out she would train in havana , cuba and that the pay was more than she was making in a factory , she reconsidered .
all the aagpbl teams stayed at the seville biltmore hotel and were filmed for fox movietone news going down the steps at the university of havana , while their exhibition games were played at estadio latinoamericano .
wegman moved around for a while over a period of four years , as the aagpbl shifted players as needed to help teams stay afloat .
she started the 1947 season with the rockford peaches , playing for them one year before joining the fort wayne daisies -lrb- 1948 -rrb- and then found herself on the move again , this time to the muskegon lassies -lrb- 1949 -rrb- , and then the grand rapids chicks -lrb- 1950 -rrb- .
during her first season with the peaches , wegman got homesick , although she loved baseball .
″ blackie ″ , as she was called , played primarily at third base and second base .
eventually , she also played in the outfield and as a relief pitcher .
she considered herself more of a defensive player .
`` i had problems with curveballs '' , she explained .
wegman was used sparingly in her first three years .
her most productive came in 1950 , her final season , when she posted a career-high .234 batting average in 94 games , driving in 27 runs and scoring 26 times while stealing 22 bases , also career numbers .
she was added to the all-star team as a replacement player .
in a four-year career , wegman posted a .180 average and a .231 on-base percentage in 291 games .
she pitched briefly in 1948 , going 0 -- 0 with a 6.56 earned run average in three games , including nine walks and five strikeouts in 11 innings of work .
she also made two appearances in the post season with muskegon -lrb- 1949 -rrb- and grand rapids -lrb- 1950 -rrb- , going 8-for-31 for a .258 average with three runs , two rbi and two stolen bases in nine games .
following her baseball career , wegman returned home to help out her family .
she regretted her father 's absence , because he died in 1945 and was not able to see her play professional baseball .
she attended classes at the university of cincinnati while working as a designer of packaging equipment and machinery .
she later worked for lodge & shipley company until her retirement in 1988 .
late in the year , she became part of `` women in baseball '' , a permanent display based at the baseball hall of fame and museum in cooperstown , new york , which was unveiled to honor the entire all-american girls professional baseball league rather than individual baseball personalities .
marie wegman died of a heart failure in delhi township , ohio at the age of 78 .
