Bethany Joan "Beth" Goldsmith (October 6, 1927 – October 24, 2004) 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 ...

who played from 1948 through 1950 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 ...

. Listed at , 160 lb, she batted and threw right-handed.Bethany Goldsmith – Profile / Obituary
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''. Retrieved 2019-04-10. Born in

Elgin, Illinois Elgin ( ) is a city in Cook and Kane counties in the northern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Elgin is located northwest of Chicago, along the Fox River. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 114,797, the seventh-large ...

, Goldsmith started playing sandlot ball with the boys of her neighborhood at age 12 and organized softball for the

McGraw Electric The McGraw Electric Company was a US manufacturer of electric appliances founded by Max McGraw in 1900. It grew through mergers and acquisitions to become a major enterprise. The best known product may have been the Toastmaster pop-up toaster. In 1 ...

team when she was a teenager. Charlene Barnett, a former teammate on the McGraw team who had joined the AAGPBL the previous year, advised Goldsmith to attend the next

spring training Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for Schedule (workplace), roster and position spo ...

of the league in Opa-locka, Florida. Primarily an

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...

, she attended the tryout and was converted into a pitcher on the strength of her arm and her quick overhand delivery. She then was assigned to 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 ...

to start the 1948 season. In her rookie year Goldsmith posted a 14–14 record and a 1.68

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 ...

in 31 pitching appearances,

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117 batters in 245 innings of work. During the season, she hurled both games of a doubleheader against the Fort Wayne Daisies. She limited them to one hit in the opener but lost the game. Then she had better luck in the second game and was credited with the victory.The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League In addition, she finished 11th in innings pitched and tied for 10th for the most strikeouts with

Muskegon Lassies The Muskegon Lassies were one of the expansion teams of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in the 1946 season, representing Muskegon, Michigan. The team played their home games at Marsh Field. History The 1946 Muskegon Lassies p ...

Doris Sams Doris Jane Sams (February 2, 1927 – June 28, 2012), nicknamed "Sammye", was an American outfielder and pitcher who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at , 145 lbs., she batted and threw righ ...

.''All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book'' Before the 1949 season, Goldsmith enjoyed a memorable experience during an AAGPBL tour of Central America, as the teams were feted by both government officials and the common people. In

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

, she visited the presidential palace and was greeted by the then President Anastasio Somoza. That year, she went 8–11 with a 3.09 ERA in 29 games. Fourth place Kenosha advanced to the postseason, but lost to Muskegon in the best-of-three first round. In her only career playoff game, Goldsmith pitched two perfect innings of

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while striking out three. Goldsmith improved to 12–9 with a .368 ERA in 1950, her last season in the league.1950 Kenosha Comets
Retrieved 2019-04-10. In all, she finished with 34–34 record and a 2.72 ERA in 87 games. Following her baseball career, she worked for

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

company for 30 years. After retiring in 1984, she attended AAGPBL Players Association reunions and enjoyed playing golf in her home of

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

. Goldsmith forms 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:Goldsmith, Bethany All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players Kenosha Comets players Baseball players from Illinois Sportspeople from Elgin, Illinois Baseball players from Orlando, Florida 1927 births 2004 deaths Sportspeople from the Chicago metropolitan area 20th-century American women 20th-century American people 21st-century American women