Legendary South Bend baseball player Betsy Jochum passes away at 104

Born in 1921, Jochum was one of the sixty original founding members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1943 while the MLB was shut down for WWII. 

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.

In 1948, she retired from the league and began her life after baseball right here in South Bend.

ABC57 spoke with Jocheum and her friends just last year around her 103rd birthday. 

Funeral info:

• Saturday, June 7
• 2 p.m. (visitation begins at 1 p.m.)
• Kaniewski Funeral Home 3545 N. Bendix Drive, South Bend

Statement from the AAGPBL Players Association:

Betsy was born February 8, 1921 and was a former outfielder, first basewoman and pitcher who played from 1943 through 1948 in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. She was listed at 5' 7” and batted and threw right-handed.

Early Life

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.

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. 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 in the league. Betsy's other sports include basketball, tennis, badminton and table tennis.

AAGPBL Playing Career

Cub scout Jack Sheehan came to Cincinnati in early 1943, held tryouts, and signed several local girls, including Jochum, Dot Kamenshek, and Marion Wohlwender. The girls traveled by train to Chicago and tried out again, as was dramatized in the 1992 movie, A League of Their Own.

If successful, they were sent to one of the original four 15-player teams. Besides South Bend, the league at first featured the Racine Belles, the Rockford Peaches, and the Kenosha Comets. The All-American controlled all players, and the girls were allocated to different clubs with the aim of keeping the teams balanced. Jochum joined 14 other professional pioneers in South Bend for the inaugural season.

Jochum 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.

Betsy played outfield, pitched, and also played first base for a long time when the regular player was hurt. 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.

She was selected to the All-Star Game, that was played in Wrigley Field, The game raised money for the Red Cross. The Blue Sox/Peaches won the opener, 16-0, but a lack of time caused the second tilt to go only three innings. One unusual feature of the game was that Wrigley ordered temporary floodlights rigged on top of the grandstands.

The lighting was dim, but Betsy remembers the event well, including the appearance of Hollywood's Victor Mature to highlight the between-games fund-raising for war-related causes. This All Star game was the first night game ever played in Wrigley Field!

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.

Betsy 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 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

In 1948, the league shifted to overhand pitching. Showing her versatility, the strong-armed Jochum was a natural choice to become a pitcher in her final season. She debuted against the Fort Wayne Daisies and limited them to a pair of hits, allowing only four batters to get on base (two by errors) while striking out five.

At one point during the season, Jochum had a 13–6 record, but she lost seven of her last eight decisions to finish with a 14–13 mark. When she was not pitching, South Bend manager Marty McManus used her to fill at outfield, first base and pinch hit, even though she batted a low-career .195 average.

Nevertheless, Jochum provided 14 of the 57 victories of her team, including a sparkling 1.51 earned run average, and striking out 103 batters while walking just 58 in 215 innings of work. So well did Betsy perform that at the season's end, McManus encouraged her to ask for a raise.

"He said I deserved more money," Jochum recalled. "So I went down to see Doctor Harold Dailey, and he said, `No.' After it happened, I was traded. I don't know that if that had anything to do with it, or if Peoria wanted someone who could pitch and play the outfield, too. I never did find out.”

Not only was she traded, but other Blue Sox girls were told about the trade first, before Betsy. In that sense women of the All-American were treated the same as big leaguers of the era: players were the property of the ball club. The manner in which she was told about the trade made Jochum angry. She liked living in South Bend, so she retired.

Jochum's favorite memories include:

• Playing in a July 4, 1948, double-header at Playland: "We had about 10,000 fans at those games." liking the South Bend fans: "The same faithful fans would sit behind our dugout every night, and they would yell, `Sockum Jochum' when I came up to bat!"
• Taking the spring training trip to Havana, Cuba, in 1947: "I took my first airplane flight, we stayed at the Seville- Biltmore Hotel, and we played our games at the `Gran Stadium.' All the teams were filmed for `Fox News' going down the steps at the University of Havana."
• Enjoying a cruise across Lake Michigan from Muskegon to play a game in Wisconsin: "This was a special treat for us, and the driver took the bus around the lake."
• Riding on the team's private bus starting in 1946: "No more trains or luggage to carry!"
• Going to spring training in the South: "We went to a naval base in Opa-Locka, Florida, one year, and another year we went to Tampa, Florida."
• Making her debut as a pitcher on May 29, 1948: "I gave up two singles, struck out five, walked none, and allowed only four runners on base." Betsy won that first game, 6-0.

Life after baseball

After her baseball days, Betsy earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in physical education from Illinois State University. She taught girls physical education for South Bend Community Schools at Muessel Elementary/Junior High School for 26 years and retired in 1983.

After that, she participated in golf, bowling, and the Run Jane Run Exhibition Games. She also assisted in gathering and sorting AAGPBL memorabilia for the History Museum South Bend which is the National Repository of the AAGPBL

In November 1988, Jochum, along with her former teammates and opponents, received their long overdue recognition, when the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York dedicated a permanent display to the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.

In 1999 she was enshrined into the Ohio Baseball of Fame and Museum. Besides this, her South Bend Blue Sox uniform has traveled in an itinerant display promoted by the Smithsonian Institution as part of its exhibition on Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers.

The uniform is now on permanent display at the Smithsonian History Museum in Washington D.C. As Jochum recalled in an interview, Women should have their own major league and minor leagues plus the sponsors to make it go.

Credit Author Jim Sargent and Wikipedia and edited by Carol Sheldon