“I guess I was born with a baseball in my hand. I enjoyed it more than anything.”
Edith Houghton was just ten years old, but in a way already an experienced baseball player. Her father, a skilled player taught her the sport at the baseball field across the street from their home.
And Edith, who was small, so much so that her uniform had to be “cinched with pins and string” to fit, became the starting shortstop and the star of her team, the semi-pro Philadelphia Bobbies.
She would go on to serve during WWII as a member of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services. And then after pitching herself to the Philadelphia Phillies owner, she become a baseball scout for the team. Her philosophy as a scout was that “players must be big, and they must be fast. But they must be able to hit. I learned early in my baseball career that you can’t steal first base.”
Edith would rejoin the Navy to during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Note: Photo is of ten year old Edith in 1922.
Sources: http://www.philly.com/
