Dorothy “Dottie” Kamenshek was the Babe Ruth, so to speak, of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the only women’s professional baseball league in baseball history.
She passed away on May 17, 2010 at age 84. The Gina Davis character in A League of Their Own was named after Dottie and loosely based on her.
The AAGPBL lasted 12 seasons from 1943 through 1954. At its inception, the “girls” played a game that was closer to fast-pitch softball than what we think of as baseball.