Mary Nesbitt Wisham
| Mary Nesbitt | |||
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| All-American Girls Professional Baseball League | |||
| First base / Pitcher | |||
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Born: January 1, 1925 Greenville, South Carolina |
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Died: November 17, 2013 (aged 88) Palatka, Florida |
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Mary Nesbitt Wisham (January 1, 1925 – November 17, 2013) was an American baseball pitcher and first basewoman who played from 1943 through 1950 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m), 155 lb., Nesbitt batted and threw left-handed. She was born Marie Crews Nesbitt in Greenville, South Carolina. Before becoming married in 1946 she played under the name of Mary Nesbitt.
Nesbitt enjoyed many firsts in her fruitful All-American Girls Professional Baseball League career. She is recognized as one of the sixty original founding members of the league. An ideal fastpitch, knuckleball left-handed, she was one of the most dominant pitchers in the early years of the circuit. The unpredictable movement of her pitches made it almost impossible to hit, until a severe injury suffered in a regular game shortened her promising career. She posted a 65–49 record with a 2.44 earned run average in 120 pitching appearances. After that she switched to first base, to become a dangerous and productive hitter through the rest of her career, ranking among the top 10 AAGPBL players for five out of her six seasons. Her accomplishments also included appearing in the first ever AAGPBL All-Star Game and by collecting a .422 on-base percentage and a .393 of slugging, while her .282 batting average ranks her sixth in the all-time list of hitters who had a minimum of 1000 at bat appearances.
Nesbitt played ball ever since elementary school. At age 12 she hurled in a fast-pitch softball league in her hometown, and later played for some championship teams in Illinois and Florida, as well as for a men's team in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where baseball scout Jimmy Hamilton was impressed with her talent. He decided to inviting the young pitcher to an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League tryout. The AAGPBL was a circuit that began to operate in 1943 in cities located on or near Lake Michigan. The main promoter was Philip K. Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who worried about the viability of male professional baseball players during World War II decided to establish an alternate attraction. By sending out scouts and setting up try-outs in dozens of major cities, Wrigley attracted hundreds of women from all over United States and Canada who were eager to play in the new professional league. Of these, only 280 were invited to the final try-outs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where 60 were chosen to become the first women to ever play professional baseball. The girls were placed on the rosters of four fifteen-player teams: Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox. Mary Nesbitt was one of them. Her tryout in Chicago was a success, and she was allocated to the Belles at the age of 18. The average full-time worker made $1,299 a year in the 1940s, according to one estimate, or about $25 a week. Players in the AAGBBL made between $50 and $125 a week during a three-month, 108-game season. At the time, clubs of girls (never called women) seemed like a way to fill ballparks, according to an article in Smithsonian magazine in 1989, but the league lasted twelve successful seasons before folding in 1954. It was a neglected chapter of sports history, at least until filmmaker Penny Marshall premiered her 1992 A League of Their Own, which was a fictionalized account of activities in the AAGPBL. Starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell, this film brought a rejuvenated interest to the extinct league.
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