Millie Deegan

Mildred Eleanor Deegan (December 11, 1919 – July 21, 2002) was an American pitcher, outfielder and second basewoman who played ten seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, from 1943 to 1952.

[1] Deegan was one of 25 players who made the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League clubs hailed from New York City and State, including Muriel Bevis, Gloria Cordes, Nancy Mudge, Betty Trezza and Margaret Wigiser.

Born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, she was a star athlete at Abraham Lincoln High School and in 1935 was the "champion woman baseball thrower" in New York City.

"Mildred Eleanor Deegan was born on Dec. 11, 1919, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst.... She excelled in track and field at Lincoln High School, and after graduation played amateur softball with a team called the Americanettes.

Babe Ruth, the only other player ever to hit a home run inside the Garden, was in attendance, and posed for a photograph with her, squeezing her biceps.

In 1944, the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Deegan and two other women players to the team's spring training camp at Bear Mountain, New York.