Jean Faut was a star pitcher with the South Bend Blue Sox of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL).
- Died: February 28, 2023 (Who else died on February 28?)
- Details of death: Died at the age of 97.
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AAGPBL
Faut was an athlete in high school, but she didn’t play softball, instead competing in track and field, basketball, and field hockey. She learned her devastating pitch throwing rocks at telephone poles as a child, and she honed it in batting practice with the school’s boys’ baseball team. After graduation, Faut was working in a clothing factory when she decided to try out for the AAGPBL in 1946. Assigned to the South Bend Blue Sox, she became a star of the team, known for her curve ball. In 1951 and 1953, Faut pitched perfect games. They were two of only five perfect games in AAGPBL history, and Faut was the only professional baseball player, male or female, to have pitched two perfect games. She helped the Blue Sox to two consecutive championship titles, in 1951 and 1952. Faut retired in 1953, a year before the AAGPBL folded. In later years, she worked as a researcher at the University of Notre Dame and Miles Laboratories.
Faut on her AAGPBL salary
“A hundred and twenty-five a week and besides that, when I started playing, they were paying meal money on the road. We got six dollars a day for food, and in those days, you could eat for six dollars a day. You don’t have time to go shopping, and I sent my mother fifty dollars a week home to start a bank account, and that was a lot of money in those days.” —from a 2010 interview for the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project
Tributes to Jean Faut
Full obituary: The Comeback
