Betsy Jochum

Betsy was the daughter of Frank and Katherine Jochum, German-speaking Hungarians who immigrated to United States, landed at Ellis Island, and eventually arrived to Cincinnati, just before the World War began in 1917.

Her father worked as a carpenter and cabinetmaker.

She had an older brother, Nicholas, and her younger sister Frances.

The siblings grew up together in a close household that held the value of family over anything else.

Jochum started playing sandlot ball by the time she turned eight and organized softball at age 12.

During her student years at Hughes Center High School, she took part in many intramural athletic events offered for girls: basketball, volleyball, track and field and softball.

After graduating from high school, Jochum attended Cincinnati Business School and learned to operate the comptometer, the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator.

She was forced to take an employment in a meat packing house, and played semi-professional softball on the company team in the Cincinnati League.

The team participated in several national softball tournaments, including Chicago, Illinois.

Betsy "Sockum" Jochum (born February 8, 1921) is a former outfielder and pitcher who played from 1943 through 1948 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Listed at 5' 7", 140 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.

A native of Cincinnati, Jochum was one of the sixty original founding members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

An ideal leadoff hitter, she was one of the fastest runners in the early years of the league and rarely struck out, fanning only 104 times in 2,401 plate appearances, which combined with a stellar defense and a strong and secure throwing arm.

In addition, she was an All-Star, won a batting title, collected 354 stolen bases, and pitched a full season during her six seasons in the league.

During a competition held in Connecticut in 1938, she posted a 276 feet mark which placed second only to Babe Zaharias, who threw the ball a national record of 296 feet.

Later, she found a job in a dairy company doing comptometer work, earning $16 a week, before signing a contract for $50 per week.

Philip K. Wrigley decided, in 1942, to start a women's professional baseball league, concerned that the 1943 Major League Baseball season might be canceled because of World War II.

Since the only organized ball for women in the country was softball, the league created a hybrid game which included both softball and baseball.

Wrigley had scouts all over the United States, Canada and even Cuba signing girls for tryouts.

About 500 girls attended the call.

Of these, only 280 were invited to the final try-outs in Chicago, where 60 of them 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.

The first spring training was set for May 17, 1943, at Wrigley Field.

Of the six girls from Ohio who went to Chicago, Betsy Jochum and Dorothy Kamenshek were selected for the new league.

Jochum was allocated to the Blue Sox and Kamenshek joined the Peaches.

Jochum entered the league in 1943 and spent her entire six-year career with the South Bend Blue Sox, one of two teams to play in every AAGPBL season, the other being the Rockford Peaches.

Jochum appeared at center field and left, pitched, and also played first base for a long time when the regular was hurt.

She was selected to the All-Star Game, which coincidentally was the first night game played at Wrigley Field, on July 1, 1943.

Jochum led the circuit in her sophomore year of 1944 by hitting a respectable .296 average, considering the league's dead-ball era.

She also posted career-numbers in games (112), runs (72), hits (128) and stolen bases (127), including seven steals in a game on August 2.

Jochum dropped to .237 with 40 runs and 25 stolen bases in 1945 but rebounded in 1946 with a .250 average, including 64 runs, 73 stolen bases, 64 runs and a career-high 63 runs batted in.

In that season, Dorothy Kamenshek led the league with a .316 average, while Bonnie Baker tied Sophie Kurys for second place at .286.

With her .250 average, Jochum ranked third in her team and tenth overall for girls playing 90 or more games.

She also tied with Kamenshek for the fewest strikeouts (10) and ranked second in RBI behind Elizabeth Mahon (72).

Often a second-division team, the Blue Sox advanced to the playoffs for the first time in 1946, being beat in the first round by the Racine Belles, the eventual Championship Team after defeating the Rockford Peaches in six games.

In 1947, the league moved its spring training camp to Havana, Cuba.

The new rules applied during the regular season permitted a full sidearm pitching delivery, and many players who developed hitting underhand pitching had problems adjusting to the new pitching style.

Because she played in a league that progressively expanded the length of the base paths and pitching distance and decreased the size of the ball until the final year of play in the 1954 season.

In her rookie season, Jochum posted a .273 average and led the league in at-bats (439), hits (120), singles (100), and doubles (12).

She also stole 66 bases, scored 70 runs, and led all hitters in the second half of the season with a .295 average.