Mildred Eleanor Deegan (December 11, 1919, Brooklyn, New York – July 21, 2002, New Port Richey, Florida) was an American pitcher and second baseman who played ten seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, from 1943 to 1952.^[1]

[edit] Background

Born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Deegan was a star athlete at Abraham Lincoln High School and in 1935 was the "champion woman baseball thrower" in New York City.^[2] She learned baseball from her father, coach of the Brooklyn Bloomer Girls team. As a teenager she placed second behind Babe Didrikson Zaharias in the javelin throw in the national meet before the 1936 Summer Olympics. However, at 16 she was too young. Later, she played fastpitch softball for the New York Americanettes in 1938-39. In 1939 her batting average was .406. That year she was the guest of New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (along with other celebrities) at the opening day of the New York World's Fair. She played later with the Manhattan Beach Girls, who competed in the Metropolitan League in Madison Square Garden. Deegan gained the nickname of "the Babe Ruth of Women's Softball" when she hit a 250-foot home run inside the building. Babe Ruth, the only other player ever to hit a home run inside the Garden, was in attendance, and posed for a photograph with her, squeezing her biceps.

[edit] Professional career

Deegan joined a Chicago fastpitch softball team for the American Softball Association National Tournament in 1943. She was soon signed by the league to play for the Rockford Peaches. She played for the Peaches until midway through the 1947 season, when she was traded to the Kenosha Comets, beginning a four-year stretch in which she played for six teams. In 1948 Deegan was with the Comets and Springfield Sallies, from 1949 through part of the 1951 season she played with the Fort Wayne Daisies. She finished the season with the Peoria Redwings before ending her career in 1952, returning to the Rockford franchise. Her managers and coaches included former big-leaguers Max Carey, Jimmie Foxx, Bill Wamby and Marty McManus. Deegan also worked as the league's official photographer.

As a pitcher, she gave up the winning run to the Racine Belles in the final game of the 1946 Shaughnessy series but had a lifetime earned run average of 2.36. Her career batting average was .260.

In 1944, the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Deegan and two other women players to the team's spring training camp at Bear Mountain, New York. She was given permission to travel with the team from manager Leo Durocher but was not allowed to step on the field. However after retrieving a foul ball during an exhibition game, one of the coaches gave her a fungo bat and let her bat infield practice. Durocher was quoted as saying that "...if we run out of men, Millie will be the first on the team...if she were a man, she no doubt would have been a Dodger."^[3]

[edit] Retirement

After retiring from baseball Deegan worked as a commercial photographer in Miami, North Carolina, and New Jersey. She also worked for the Western Electric Corporation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She served as a coach for a semi-professional women's softball team for 22 years (1958-79) and as a coach at Middlesex County College in the late 1970s. Deegan moved to Florida in 1976 and died at the age of 82 following a two-year battle with breast cancer.

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

• Short biography at Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen
• Good biography at NJ Divas Fastpitch
• Short biography at the AAGPBL web site
• Obituary
• "Three Views of Millie Deegan"