Three-time All-Star Team (1952–1954)
AAGPBL Championship (1943, 1954)
All-time leader in games, RBI and walks
Second all-time in hits and third in home runs
Women in Baseball – AAGPBL Permanent Display
Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (1988)

Dorothy Schroeder, nicknamed Dottie, (April 11, 1928 – December 8, 1996) was a shortstop who played from 1943 through 1954 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), 150 lb., Schroeder batted and threw right-handed. She was born in Champaign, Illinois.

At age fifteen, Schroeder became the youngest founding member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, thus having the distinction of being the only girl to play in the league for its twelve full seasons. A three-time All-Star and ranked in the Top-10 in several offensive categories, she was arguably the top shortstop in league history. After the league folded in 1954, she played four more years on a touring team of 11 All-Americans piloted by Bill Allington across Canada and United States. When the lack of finances caused the tour to end after four summers, Schroeder had played a record 15 seasons of professional baseball.

The AAGBL flourished in the 1940s when the Major Leagues went on hold as men went to war. Women have been playing professional baseball since the late 1930s, yet it was not really a well known fact until the 1992 film A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall and starred by Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell, that brought these ballplayer's women into the public eye.

Schroeder was the daughter of a German farmer and local postmaster at Champaign. She had an older brother, Walter, and a twin brother, Don. Dorothy was nine years old when their family moved to Sadorus, Illinois. She attended St. Paul's Lutheran Church in nearby Sadorus and sang in the choir. By then, she started to play baseball with her two brothers and her father, who had also managed a semi-pro baseball team of Champaign. In 1939, the young girl played on a fastpitch softball team and joined the Illinois Commercial College team in 1940.

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