Maybelle Blair

Maybelle Blair
Born: (1927-01-16) January 16, 1927
Inglewood, California, U.S.
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Teams
Career highlights and awards
  • Women in Baseball – AAGPBL Permanent Display at Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (since 1988)

Maybelle Blair (born January 16, 1927) is a former All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player. Listed at 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) and 150 pounds (68 kg), she batted and threw right-handed.[1][2]

Born in Inglewood, California,[2] Blair was a pitcher and joined the league with the Peoria Redwings in its 1948 season, although she appeared in only one game for the team, and then moved the next year to a professional softball league in Chicago to play for the Chicago Cardinals.[2] Later, she played for the Jax Girls softball club of New Orleans.[3] Afterwards, Blair attended Compton Junior College in California and then Los Angeles School of Physiotherapy.[1] Following her graduation, she worked at a treatment center in Los Angeles before began a long 37-year career at Northrop Corporation, where she started as a chauffeur and ended up as the manager of highway transportation, being one of the three female managers the company employed in that period.[3][4]

Following her retirement, Blair became vice president of Center for Extended Learning for Seniors (CELS); an educational travel tours program provider for Elderhostel.[1] Blair also became a collaborator in different projects of the AAGPBL Players Association since its foundation in 1982, serving on the Board of Directors and the Chair of the Fundraising Committee.[1] The association helped to bring the league story to the public eye and was largely responsible for the opening of Women in Baseball, a permanent display based at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which was unveiled in 1988 to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League rather than any individual personality.[5] In addition, Blair was a founding member of the International Women's Baseball Center (IWBC), a nonprofit building an educational center and museum in Rockford, Illinois, the home of the Rockford Peaches.

In 2022, Blair publicly came out as a lesbian while promoting the TV series A League of Their Own, saying that prior to her time in the AAGPBL, “I thought I was the only one in the world… I hid for 75, 85 years and this is actually, basically, the first time I’ve ever come out.”[6] In 2023 she received the first Amazin’ Mets Foundation Legacy Award.[7] A biography of Maybelle was published by Rowman Littlefield in March 2025.

Sources

  1. ^ a b c d "All-American Girls Professional Baseball League – Maybelle Blair". Retrieved March 27, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c Madden, W. C. (2005) The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary (2005). ISBN 978-0-7864-2263-0
  3. ^ a b Heaphy, Leslie A.; May, Mel Anthony 2006). McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-2100-8
  4. ^ "Baseball pioneer Maybelle Blair, 91, still likes a ball with zip on it". January 31, 2018. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
  5. ^ "League of Women Ballplayers". Baseball Hall of Fame.
  6. ^ Bergeson, Samantha (June 14, 2022). "Why the Creators of 'A League of Their Own' Wanted to 'Rob the Bank' for Season 1". IndieWire. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
  7. ^ "Mets honor women's baseball trailblazer Maybelle Blair". MLB.com.
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