Barbara Joan Rotvig ��Big Swede″(July 2, 1928 – December 27, 1963) was a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

in the

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was a professional women's baseball league founded by Philip K. Wrigley which existed from 1943 to 1954. The AAGPBL is the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the Uni ...

who played with the

Kenosha Comets Based in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Kenosha Comets were a women's professional baseball team that played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The team played their home games at List of defunct amusement parks#Wisc ...

for parts of three seasons spanning 1948–1951. Rotvig batted and threw right-handed. She was born in

Duluth, Minnesota , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

to Arnold B. and Bertha (Ekman) Rotvig. A hard throwing pitcher, the tall Barbara Rotvig never had a winning season, mainly because of poor run support. Still, she neither posted an

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

above 2.84 in her three-year career. Rotvig hurled a

no-hitter In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...

in her rookie season. She finished with an 11–16 record and a 2.52 ERA in 30 games, allowing 99 runs (66 earned) on 159

hits Hits or H.I.T.S. may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''H.I.T.S.'', 1991 album by New Kids on the Block * ''...Hits'' (Phil Collins album), 1998 * ''Hits'' (compilation series), 1984–2006; 2014 - a British compilation album se ...

and 96 walks, while

striking out ''Striking Out'' is an Irish television legal drama series, broadcast on RTÉ, that first aired on 1 January 2017. Produced by Bl!nder F!lms for RTÉ Television, ''Striking Out'' stars Amy Huberman as Dublin-based solicitor Tara Rafferty, who is ...

99 batters in 107

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is bot ...

of work. Nevertheless, she suffered terrible control issues that led her to lead the league for the most hit-by-pitch batters (19) and more

wild pitch In baseball, a wild pitch (WP) is charged against a pitcher when his pitch is too high, too short, or too wide of home plate for the catcher to control with ordinary effort, thereby allowing a baserunner, or the batter (on an uncaught third stri ...

es (16).''The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary'' – W. C. Madden. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2005. Format:

Softcover A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...

, 295 pp. Her most productive season came in 1949, when she slightly improved to an 11–15 mark with a 2.33 ERA and a seventh-best 97 strikeouts. She did not play in 1950, but returned the next year and went 6–10 with a 2.57 ERA, while ending sixth with 93 strikeouts.''All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book'' Barbara Rotvig was one of Duluth's

Denfeld High School Duluth Denfeld High School, also known as Denfeld High School, is one of two high schools in Duluth, Minnesota along with Duluth East as of 2011 after the closure of Duluth Central and the previous closing of Morgan Park HS in 1982. Serving over ...

most successful female athletes before girls' sports were officially sanctioned. She played semi-pro softball, participated in the All-American golf league and joined the Women's Professional Golf Tour. Rotvig was involved in intramural volleyball, track, basketball, softball and golf while at Denfeld. She also participated in Speech, Pyramid, Criterion, choir and band. In 1960, the first

LPGA The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekl ...

National Golf School staff was established under the guidance of Shirley Spork and Barbara Rotvig. She died December 27, 1963, of cancer in the University of Michigan Hospital in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...

, at the age of 36. An award in her name is given each year to the outstanding female athlete of the year at Denfeld. Rotvig is part of ''Women in Baseball'', a permanent display based at the

Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-re ...

Cooperstown, New York Cooperstown is a village in and county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. Located at the foot of Otsego Lake in the C ...

, which was unveiled in 1988 to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Career statistics

Pitching Batting Fielding

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotvig, Barbara All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players Baseball players from Duluth, Minnesota Baseball players from Ann Arbor, Michigan 1928 births 1963 deaths 20th-century American people