Ruth Matlack

Ruth Matlack [Sagrati] (January 13, 1931 - August 11, 2017)[1] was an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player. Listed a 5' 2", 127 lb., she batted and threw left handed.[2]

Ruth Matlack
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
Pitcher / Pinch hitter
Born: (1931-01-13)January 13, 1931
Cromwell Heights, Pennsylvania
Died: August 11, 2017(2017-08-11) (aged 86)
Langhorne, Pennsylvania
Batted: Left Threw: Left
Teams
Career highlights and awards
  • Women in Baseball – AAGPBL Permanent Display at Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (since 1988)

Ruth Matlack was a more efficient hitter than pitcher during her only season in the league.

Born in Cromwell Heights, Pennsylvania,[2] Matlack grew up learning to play baseball from her father, an avid fan of the game. She then started to play organized softball while attending eighth grade. After her graduation from Bensalem High School in 1949,[3] she played for a team based in Norristown, where she read about the league in a newspaper and went to a tryout in Allentown. In 1950, she was invited to spring training in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and was assigned to the Fort Wayne Daisies as a pitcher.[4]

Matlack was strictly used as a relief pitcher. The left-handed threw a natural curveball and a changeup, but not much of a fastball, as she explained in an interview.[4]

In 14 pitching appearances, Matlack posted a 0–4 record with a 3.54 ERA in 61.0 innings of work. But since she had solid plate discipline and good contact skills, she often was used as a reliable pinch hitter, totaling a .361 average with a .477 OBP and driving in two runs, while scoring three times in 21 games. In the playoffs, she had a single in three at-bats for the second place Daisies.[5]

The AAGPBL shipped Matlack to the Kalamazoo Lassies before the 1951 season, but she was feeling homesick and did not want return to the league.[4]

Following her baseball career, Matlack worked briefly at a restaurant before becoming a factory supervisor in 1952, staying with that organization in various capacities until her retirement in 1985.[6] In the same year, she married to John Sagrati.[4]

After retiring, Matlack moved to Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where she golfed, bowled and waterskied.[6]

Matlack is part of the AAGPBL permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York opened in 1988, which is dedicated to the entire league rather than any individual figure.[7] The same year, she gained induction in the Bensalem High School Hall of Fame.[8]

Sources
  1. Ruth Sagrati Obituary
  2. All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Official Website
  3. Bensalem Twp High School – Classmate Profiles (1949). Bensalem Owls Organization Website. Retrieved on April 4, 2017.
  4. Madden, W. C. The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary (2005). ISBN 978-0-7864-2263-0
  5. Madden, W. C. (2000) All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-3747-2
  6. Heaphy, Leslie A.; May, Mel Anthony (2006). Encyclopedia of women and baseball. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-2100-8
  7. Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Official Website Retrieved on March 27, 2017.
  8. Bensalem High School Hall of Fame Inductees. Bensalem Owls Organization Website. Retrieved on April 4, 2017.
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