Annabelle Lee
| Annabelle Lee | |||
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| All-American Girls Professional Baseball League | |||
| Pitcher | |||
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Born: January 22, 1922 Los Angeles, California |
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Died: July 3, 2008 (aged 86) Costa Mesa, California |
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| debut | |||
| 1944 | |||
| Last appearance | |||
| 1950 | |||
| Teams | |||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Annabelle Lee Harmon (January 22, 1922 – July 3, 2008) was a female pitcher who played from 1944 through 1950 with four different teams of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m), 120 lb, Lee was a switch-hitter and threw left-handed. She was born in Los Angeles, California. She was the aunt of Bill Lee, a former Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos pitcher.
Anabelle Lee grew up in a home where baseball was considered of vital importance, as her father was an early 1920s baseball standout for the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League, while her nephew Bill Lee pitched in Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos. She entered the baseball record books in 1944 after pitching the first perfect game in AAGPBL history. Besides this, she hurled a no-hitter game the next season and posted a solid career 2.25 earned run average during her seven years in the league. Lee is also recognized as one of the few pitchers in the AAGPBL to pitch all three pitching styles adopted in the league's history. Unfortunately, she never enjoyed a winning season on her way to a 63–96 career record, due to pitching mostly for awful teams with bad defense and a low run support.
The AAGPBL operated from 1943 to 1954 and gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball and to play it at a level never before attained. The league was conceived by Philip K. Wrigley during World War II. Wrigley, who was in charge both of the Wrigley Company and the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball club, conceived the idea of initiating the innovative project to maintain interest in baseball as the military draft was depleting major-league rosters of first-line players and attendance declined at ballparks around the country. By sending out talent scouts and setting up try-outs in dozens of major cities, Wrigley attracted hundreds of women from all over the United States and Canada who were eager to play in this new professional league. Of these, only 280 were invited to the final tryout at Wrigley Field in Chicago where 60 were chosen to become the first women to ever play professional baseball. League play officially began on May 30, 1943 with the teams Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox. Each team was made up of fifteen girls.
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