Baseball in Fort Wayne

Posts Tagged ‘Ruby-Heafner’

I have been watching some Fort Wayne Daisies headlines come though lately. Here’s a sample:

• Breeder Played Pro Baseball: The York Daily Record (Pennsylvania) caught up with the former Daisies and Racine Belles infielder Ruth Hartman as she tended to the sheep she brought to the York Fair.
• There’s Crying in Baseball: A nice post at Dinged Corners blog about Dottie Collins.
• America Loses It’s All-American Girl: The Sporting News’ coverage of Dottie Collins.
• A league of her own: The Plymoth Indiana Pilot catches up with Beatrice Kemmerer, who played one season with the Daisies before being sent home with a hurt ankle and ending up on the South Bend Blue Sox softball team the same year the team won its first of two league championships.
• Four inducted into Gaston Sports Hall: Former Daisies, Ruby Heafner was recently inducted into the Gaston County Sports Hall of Fame (The Gaston Gazette – Photos).

Note: This post was updated on September 9, at 8:43PM

Former Fort Wayne Daisies player, Ruby Heafner will be inducted into the Gaston County (Ohio) Sports Hall of Fame during a September 8 ceremony at Cramer Mountain Country Club.

Heafner played in the short-lived All-American Girls Professional Baseball League immortalized in the 1992 Hollywood movie “A League Of Their Own” that starred Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna. A catcher who was often compared to Detroit Tigers’ Hall of Famer Mickey Cochrane, Heafner was nicknamed “Rebel” and played for Rockford, Fort Wayne, Racine and Battle Creek over a six-year career lasting from 1946 through 1951 – or shortly after Heafner served two years in the U.S. military.

After the women’s pro baseball league folded, Heafner returned to her native city where she worked for the city recreation department, helped coached girls softball and served as a volunteer at Gaston Memorial Hospital.

Source: Gaston Gazette