Dottie Hunter

Early life

Hunter was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She grew up in a home where sports were considered of vital importance, as her father was a prominent soccer player and coach. She started playing playground games, and played whatever sport the boys were playing baseball, softball or basketball. There were no teams for girls and the boys would let her play with them.

In February 1943, Hunter knew that Philip K. Wrigley had founded a league exclusively for women players. Wrigley, a chewing gum manufacturer and owner of the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball club, materialized his idea as a promotional sideline to maintain interest in baseball during World War II, when more than half of the players in the Major Leagues were in the service. 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 this new professional league. Hunter was interested in the new league and accepted an invitation to a tryout.

Finally, only 280 girls were invited to the final try-outs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where 60 survived the final cut. Enticed with salaries ranging from $55 to $150 per week, the initial group of women would form four teams – the Racine Belles, Kenosha Comets, Rockford Peaches, and South Bend Blue Sox – for the league’s inaugural campaign. Each team consisted of 15 players. Hunter survived the last cut and was assigned to the Racine squad, becoming one of the oldest players to enter the league at 27.

AAGPBL career

Listed at 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm), Hunter batted and threw right-handed. She started 1943 with the Belles as their regular first sacker. She hit .224 in 80 games and helped Racine win a pennant and championship in the AAGPBL’s first-ever season. After that she became a chaperone for the expansion Chicks, first at Milwaukee (1944) and later in Grand Rapids (1945-'54), until the league folded following the 1954 season. Hunter enjoyed continued success following each move, becoming the only girl in AAGPBL history to participate in the playoffs every year, including four Championship Titles. She also was one of three girls, along with Dottie Green (catcher/chaperone) and Dorothy Schroeder (infielder), to participate in all 12 seasons for the league.

Milestones

On November 5, 1988, Hunter was honored with the rest of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the opening of a permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. In 1998, she and other 10 girls from Manitoba who played in the AAGPBL were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hunter died at a nursing home in Manitoba at the age of 89.