Amy Irene Applegren
| Amy Irene Applegren | |||
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| All-American Girls Professional Baseball League | |||
| Pitcher / Infielder | |||
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Born: November 16, 1926 Peoria, Illinois |
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Died: April 3, 2011 (aged 84) Washington, Illinois |
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| debut | |||
| 1944 | |||
| Last appearance | |||
| 1953 | |||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Amy Irene "Lefty" Applegren (November 16, 1926 – April 3, 2011) was an American baseball pitcher and infielder who played from 1944 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5'4, 125 lb., she batted and threw left-handed.
Born in Peoria, Illinois, Amy Applegren was one of five siblings in the family of Roy and Amy [nee Gardiner] Applegren. She started playing softball at the age of eleven for the Farrow Chicks, a team based in her hometown. In the early 1940s she joined the Caterpillar Dieselettes, where she came to the attention of a scout of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The league had been founded the year before by Philip K. Wrigley, a chewing-gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball club. Wrigley feared that major leaguers would be drafted into the military during World War II, while minor leaguers were already being called up. Teams of girls (never called women) seemed like a way to fill ballparks, according to an article in Smithsonian magazine in 1989. Applegren showed up at Peru, Illinois for a tryout and was offered a contract to play. The league lasted for 12 seasons from 1943 to 1954, and she played in all but the first and last seasons.
Applegren joined the AAGPBL in 1944 with the Rockford Peaches, playing for them two years. A hard-thrower underhand lefty, Applegren posted a 16-15 record for Rockford in her season debut and went 13-11 the next year, as part of a pitching rotation that included Carolyn Morris and Jean Cione. In the interim, she graduated from Peoria Manual High School.
The Peaches, with Bill Allington at the helm, clinched the league title in 1945 with a 67-43 record and later defeated the Fort Wayne Daisies in the best-of-seven series, four to one games, behind a strong pitching effort from Morris (3-0) and the opportune hitting of Dorothy Kamenshek (6-for-21, .285).
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