Jean Faut
| Jean Faut | |||
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| All-American Girls Professional Baseball League | |||
| Pitcher | |||
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Born: January 17, 1925 East Greenville, Pennsylvania |
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Jean Anna Faut [Winsch/Eastman] (born November 17, 1925) was a starting pitcher who played from 1946 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m), 137 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.
Jean Faut is considered by baseball historians and researchers as the greatest overhand pitcher in AAGPBL history. From 1946 through 1953, Faut set several all-time and single-season records. She compiled a lifetime record of 140–64 with a 1.23 earned run average in 235 pitching appearances, registering the lowest career ERA for any pitcher in the league. Besides hurling two perfect games, her league achievements include pitching two no-hitters, twice winning the Triple Crown and collecting three 20-win seasons. She also led in wins and strikeouts three times, set the league record for single-season winning percentage at .909 (20–2), and led the South Bend Blue Sox to consecutive championships in 1951 and 1952. Faut never had a losing season or an ERA above 1.51, being surpassed only by Helen Nicol for the most career wins (163). A four-time member of the All-Star Team, Faut was named Player of the Year in two out of eight possible seasons. Her baseball career, which spanned eight years, reflects the experiences of many women who played in the competitive era of overhand pitching in the AAGPBL. But like several other players from the league, she coupled her professional playing career with a more traditional lifestyle as a wife and mother.
By 1943 a new All-American Girls Softball League was formed, playing a hybrid form of softball and baseball that never really became baseball until overhand pitching began in 1948. Women's softball was enormously popular in the early 1940s, and often drew good crowds. In June 1943, Time magazine estimated there were 40,000 women's softball teams in the U.S., including popular touring clubs such as Barney Ross' Adorables and Slapsie Maxie's Curvaceous Cuties. The new league was conceived by chewing gum magnate and Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley, who decided in 1942 to start a women's professional softball league, concerned that the 1943 major-league season might be canceled because of World War II. The circuit would eventually shift gears and become the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and was dissolved at the end of the 1954 season. About 500 women attended the initial call. Of these, 280 were invited to the final try-outs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where 60 of them were chosen to become the first women to ever play professional baseball. The 60 players were placed on the rosters of four fifteen-player teams: the Rockford Peaches, the South Bend Blue Sox, the Racine Belles and the Kenosha Comets.
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