Helen Callaghan Candaele St. Aubin (March 13, 1923 – December 8, 1992) was a left-handed center fielder who appeared in five seasons 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 ...

(AAGPBL), playing under the name Helen Callaghan.Helen St. Aubin – Biography / Obituary
''

''. Retrieved 2019-04-11.

Baseball career

As a rookie with the

Minneapolis Millerettes The Minneapolis Millerettes were an expansion All-American Girls Professional Baseball League team that played for one season in 1944 based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Millerettes played home games at Nicollet Park, home of the men's minor lea ...

Callaghan hit a .287

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

in 111 games, for second in the league. She also finished third in total bases, hits, runs and

stolen bases In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base to which they are not entitled and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe or ...

(112), while tying for third in

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s. By then, her older sister,

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...

, was the team's third basewoman. The Millerettes could not compete attendance-wise with the

Minneapolis Millers The Minneapolis Millers were an American professional minor league baseball team that played in Minneapolis, Minnesota, through 1960. In the 19th century a different Minneapolis Millers were part of the Western League. The team played first in ...

, so the team moved in 1945, becoming the Fort Wayne Daisies. That year Callaghan had her best season, batting .299 to lead the AAGPBL. (The league average was .198 that year.) She tied for the league lead in homers (3), led in total bases (156), was second in steals (92), first in hits (122), second in runs (77) and first in doubles (17). Callaghan was often called the "

Ted Williams Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 ...

of women's baseball". The league was not yet giving out Player of the Year or All-Star honors, but it is clear she was a candidate for both. Ft. Wayne finished second and advanced to the championship, but fell four games to one despite a .400 mark from the younger Callaghan. Callaghan slipped drastically in 1946, hitting just .213, even though league averages rose about 10 points. She still tied for third in steals with 114. After missing the 1947 season due to illness, she returned for part of 1948 after getting married and having her first child. However, that year she hit just .191 as a bench player. She finished her career with Kenosha in 1949 as Helen Candaele, bouncing back to a .251 mark, tied for seventh in the league. She was ninth in total bases (113), eighth in steals (65), sixth in doubles and tied for eighth in triples. In a five-season career, Callaghan was a .256 hitter (449-for-1756) with seven home runs and 117

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the bat ...

in 495 games, including 419

, 299 runs, 44 doubles, 20 triples and 271 walks while striking out 220 times. Her

on-base percentage In baseball statistics, on-base percentage (OBP) measures how frequently a batter reaches base. An official Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic since 1984, it is sometimes referred to as on-base average (OBA), as it is rarely presented as a ...

was .355, while her

slugging percentage In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats, through the following formula, where ''AB'' is the number of at bats for a given player, ...

was .315.

Family

Helen had five sons.

Casey Candaele Casey Todd Candaele (born January 12, 1961) is a American former utility player and professional baseball coach. His mother, Helen Callaghan St. Aubin and her sister, Marge Callaghan, played for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball Lea ...

is also a former professional baseball player who spent nine years with the

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...

Houston Astros The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after ...

and

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. Another son, Kelly Candaele, is a politician, filmmaker, teacher, and writer. He produced a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

documentary special on the

AAGPBL 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 ...

Penny Marshall Carole Penny MarshallBorn Carole Penny Marshall in 1943, as per ''My Mother Was Nuts, a Memoir'', p. 10; . Copyright 2012 (October 15, 1943 – December 17, 2018) was an American actress, director and producer. She is known for her role as ...

was inspired to create the 1992 film '' A League of Their Own'' after watching the documentary. Another son, Kerry Candaele, directed the 2013 documentary ''Following the Ninth'', about the global influence of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

's final symphony, and co-authored the book ''Journeys With Beethoven''. Another son, Rick Candaele, is the former football coach at

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

and

Claremont McKenna College Claremont McKenna College (CMC) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It has a curricular emphasis on government, economics, public affairs, finance, and internat ...

Death and legacy

Callaghan died of

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

, on December 8, 1992, aged 69. In June 1998, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inducted, as a group, the 68 Canadian women who played in the AAGPBL. In 2021, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Callaghan individually; she was the first woman so honored.

Career statistics

Batting Fielding ''The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary'' –

W.C. Madden W.C. Madden is a retired journalist, teacher and author who has written multiple books about baseball, including two about the AAGPBL. He has also written about the Western League and the College World Series. While much of his work is based on ba ...

. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2005. Format: Softcover, 295pp.

References

External links

Short biography at Famous CanadiansHer article at Women in Baseball
Thomas, Robert McG. Jr. (1992-12-11). ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
Baseball: My Mother the Feminist Would Never Drop a Ball on Purpose
Candaele, Kelly (2017-07-10) ''Capital & Main''. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
"Helen Callaghan Candaele Photograph, 1949"
''

National Baseball Hall of Fame 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-r ...

''. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
"Helen Callaghan and Faye Dancer Photograph, 1944"
''

''. Retrieved 2019-04-11. {{DEFAULTSORT:Callaghan, Helen 1923 births 1992 deaths All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players Minneapolis Millerettes players Fort Wayne Daisies players Kenosha Comets players Baseball people from British Columbia Canadian baseball players Canadian people of Irish descent Deaths from cancer in California Deaths from breast cancer Sportspeople from Vancouver 20th-century American women 20th-century American people Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductees