Betsy Jochum, Last Original Member of Women’s Baseball League, Dies at 104

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Playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which inspired the film “A League of Their Own,” she won a batting title and stole 127 bases in 1944.

By Richard Sandomir

Betsy Jochum, the last of the 60 players from the inaugural season of what became known as the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — which decades later inspired Penny Marshall’s 1992 film, “A League of Their Own” — died on May 31 at her home in South Bend, Ind. She was 104.

Her death was announced by Carol Sheldon, vice president of the league’s players association.