[2] In between, Mary learned her baseball skills from her neighbor Eddie Lake, a former shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers who often joined the local kids on the sandlots ball for a game.
[3] She got her chance to play through an English teacher at her high school who introduced her to a former All-American League player, Doris Neal.
[3] Under Neal's guidance, Moore went to South Bend, Indiana for a tryout and was assigned to play at second base for the traveling Springfield Sallies in 1950.
[2] By then, the Sallies and the Chicago Colleens played exhibition games and recruited new talent for the league, as they toured through the South and East.
[2] The injury was reminiscent of the one suffered by dead-ball era pitching star Mordecai Brown, who in his youth lost parts of two fingers on his right hand in an accident in a corn grinder.
[2][3] Moore hit .148 (13-for-88) with a .306 OBP and one double in 42 games for Battle Creek, driving in one run and scoring 11 more while stealing five bases.