Maxine Drinkwater

Maxine Drinkwater (born May 19, 1936 as Maxine Simmons) played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She both batted and threw right-handed and played in first base and second base. Her nickname was Max.

Max spent her childhood years in Camden and, during that time, her summers playing baseball with her brothers and other kids from the neighborhood. Clearly playing baseball came naturally to her. She said: “I didn’t have to learn how to play. I just knew. We had a good group of neighborhood kids and I lived right near the field.”

As a player in 1954 for the South Bend Blue Sox, she earned a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Maxine played in 45 of the team’s 111 games, making her one of the league’s top fielding second basemen, boasting a .947 fielding percentage. With offensive however, she only batted .147.

One of her claims to fame was that she was the first player chosen at the tryouts for the league. A year later however, the team folded. At 69 years old, on July 31, 2005, Maxine was amongst 11 individuals inducted in various ceremonies that took place at a Portland hotel. On being the first woman to be inducted into the hall of fame, Maxine was reported to have said, “I think it’s pretty good. It’s been a long time coming.”