by Libby Marr
April 14, 2005
My close friend and softball teammate from high school, Belinda Ramirez, and I are baseball (and Cubs!) fanatics. Most of the time we agree, including on who was the greatest shortstop of all-time (with the exception of our great Ernie Banks, of course!).
That's her, yes HER, to the left. Dorothy ''Dottie'' Schroeder.
She was born on April 11, 1928 in Sadorus (which is about 40 minutes from Decatur, Illinois). A three-time all-star, Dottie's the only person to play in all twelve years of the AAGPBL. She tried out at the age of fifteen, she made an initial tryout cut in St. Louis (one of only two players selected from 60), traveled to Chicago, made a further cut and was signed by the South Bend Blue Sox in 1943.
In her rookie season, Dottie quickly became of one the league's most popular players and one of its most visible players on the field. Standing at 5'8'' and wearing long braids, she played shortstop like a vacuum cleaner, leading the league's shortstops in fielding percentage.
Schroeder was traded to the usual cellar-dwelling Kenosha Comets in 1945 and then to Fort Wayne in 1947. For six season in Fort Wayne, Dottie led the Daisies into the playoffs several times, but never played for a championship. Then, just when the Daisies seemed to be the team to beat, Schroeder was traded to the poor Kalamazoo Lassies.
In 1954, the final year of AAGBL play, Dottie had one of her finest seasons, hitting .304 and belting 17 homeruns. Dottie helped the Lassies upset Kenosha for the final league championship by driving in the winning run in the AAGPBL's final game on September 5, a clutch 8th inning RBI double. Of all the awards and accolades she won during her career, it is this championship that Dottie most treasured.
Dottie holds the AAGPBL all-time records for most games played (1,249), most at-bats (4,129) and most runs batted in (431), one of only five players who drove in more than 400. She ranks second in hits and third in homeruns.
A lifelong Cubs' fan, one of Dottie's favorite players was Pete Rose, who she said belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ironic, indeed, that Dottie is now honored in Cooperstown (one of the few AAGPBL players singled out in the Women in Baseball section) but not Rose. Sadly, Dottie passed away on December 8, 1996.
All of us in women's college and high school softball owe Dottie and the other women of the AAGPBL our ever-lasting gratitude. Without them, there very likely would be no women's Olympic softball, Title IX athletic policies might not exist and girls everywhere would still be shutout on Little League ball diamonds.
Just how great a player was Dottie?
After watching Dottie work out one day in the mid-1940s, then-Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm said, "If she was a boy, I'd give $50,000 for her."
Just how great a compliment was that? Consider this: in 1946, $50,000 was also the annual salary of American League MVP Ted Williams!
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