Dottie Green

The lanky and thin Green was one of the 60 original founding players of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1943.[1] She possessed the ideal qualities for a catcher: a strong arm with a quick release and a deep knowledge to handle a pitching staff. During four seasons she was one of the most respected catchers in the league, until a knee injury forced her to abandon her promising career. A championship team member in 1945, she committed only 55 errors in 1355 total chances for a sterling .957 career fielding average.

A native of Natick, Massachusetts, Green grew up as an all-round athlete. She started playing baseball with the boys of the neighborhood when she was about eight or ten years old. Later she attended and graduated from Natick High School, and was a competent athlete in any sport she could find to play. During her senior year at school she was captain of the girls' field hockey, basketball, and softball teams. Following her graduation, Green played from 1939 to 1941 for the Boston Olympettes, a semi-professional softball women's team that played in the Boston Garden. Walter Brown, the original owner of the Boston Celtics, organized the team as a means of having a weekly sports program during the summer months. Games were scheduled with teams from the New England area, the highlight being a game scheduled with teams from the New York area at Madison Square Garden.[2]

In February 1943, Green knew that Philip K. Wrigley had founded a league exclusively for women players. Wrigley, a chewing gum manufacturer and owner of the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball club, materialized his idea as a promotional sideline to maintain interest in baseball as the World War II military draft was depleting Major League rosters of first-line players. Green was one of three Olympettes recruited by the new league, along with Maddy English and Mary Pratt. Green and Pratt were assigned to the Rockford Peaches; English to the Racine Belles. Another two teams, the Kenosha Comets and South Bend Blue Sox, completed the original roster of the league.[3]

Green was one of four catchers for Rockford in the 1943 season. hit a .164 batting average in 48 games, while the Peaches finished in last place with a 55–90 record. At the end of the season, the Belles defeated Kenosha in a best-of-five series to become the first Champions in All-American Girls history.

Green saw more action in 1944, appearing in 98 games while hitting .145 with a career-high 23 stolen bases. She also led all catchers with a .962 fielding percentage (18 errors in 477 chances). In 1945 she hit .145 and posted a .966 fielding percentage, while the Peaches, with Bill Allington at the helm, defeated Grand Rapids in the first round of the playoffs and dispatched Fort Wayne, 4 to 1 games, to clinch the Championship Title.

In 1946, Green dropped to .116 but again showed her solid defense with a .958 fielding average. For the second consecutive year, Rockford reached the playoffs, but lost in the first round to Grand Rapids, 3 games to 2. In 1947 she batted .115 in only 14 games, before suffering a serious knee injury which ended her career. After her playing days were over, she became a AAGPBL chaperone until the folding of the league after the 1954 season, joining Dottie Hunter (1B/chaperone) and Dorothy Schroeder (SS) as the only girls to participate in all 12 seasons for the league. The Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox also were the two teams to be active in every AAGPBL season.[4][5]

Batting

Fielding

[6]

The off season found Green managing and operating a dry cleaning plant. She also was an accomplished musician, playing trumpet and harmonica. Following her baseball career, she became a recreation officer at the state prison for women at Framingham, Massachusetts, and was captain of the prison guards team for several years. She was also a chaperone for the Rockford Peaches. She traveled with the Peaches for many years. Although Green was not a fan of Major League Baseball until later life, she began rooting for the Boston Red redofords. She died at her home in Natick, Massachusetts at the age of 71. Her siblings were with her as she passed from natural causes.[7]

Green appeared in Ken Burns's 1994 documentary Baseball where she discussed her experiences playing professional baseball.

• Brown, Patricia I. (12 March 2003). A League Of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls (Paperback). Macfarland & Company, 2003. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-7864-1474-1.
• Madden, W. C. (27 February 2008). All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book (Paperback). McFarland & Company, 2000. p. 294. ISBN 978-0-7864-3747-4.
• Heaphy, Leslie A.; May, Mel Anthony (2006). Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball (Paperback). McFarland & Company. p. 438. ISBN 0-7864-2100-2.
• Berlage, Gai Ingham; Gerard, Charley (1994). Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History (Hardcover). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 224. ISBN 0-275-94735-1.
• Johnson, Susan E. (1994). When Women Played Hardball (Paperback). Seal Press. p. 320. ISBN 1-878067-43-5.