Lucille "Lou" Colacito (later Appugliese; December 27, 1921 – January 30, 1998) was a

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the ( home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the ca ...

who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at , 120 lb, she batted and threw right-handed. Born in

Florence, Colorado The City of Florence is a Statutory City located in Fremont County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 3,822 at the 2020 United States Census. Florence is a part of the Cañon City, CO Micropolitan Statistical Area and the Front ...

, Colacito had limited experience before joining the league because her high school did not have sports teams. Then she began playing amateur softball in the local area.Heaphy, Leslie A. & Mel Anthony May. ''Encyclopedia of Women and Baseball'', McFarland & Company, 2006; After graduating from school in 1943, she received an invitation to attend the next AAGPBL spring training in Peru, Illinois. She played two years 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 Kenosha's Lake Front Stadium, but l ...

. Her most productive season came in 1944, when she posted career-numbers in games played (85),

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 ...

(.179), runs (24) and RBI (22), while tying for eighth in the league for the most doubles (7). Madden, W.C. ''All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book''. McFarland & Company, 2000; After leaving the league, Colacito returned home and played softball for some years. She later continued her activities as a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

er and won several local awards over the years. She and her husband raised a son and two grandchildren. She is part of ''Women in Baseball'', a permanent display based at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, which was unveiled in 1988 to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She was elected to the Denver Softball Hall of Fame. Lucille Colacito died in 1998 in

Adams City, Colorado Adams City is an unincorporated community located in Adams County, Colorado, United States. Much of it was incorporated into Commerce City in 1952. History Adams City was laid out in 1903, with developers hoping the county seat would be establ ...

, aged 76.Lucille M. Colacito profile
ancestry.com; accessed July 3, 2020.

Career statistics

Batting Fielding

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colacito, Lucille All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players Kenosha Comets players Baseball players from Colorado People from Florence, Colorado 1921 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American women 20th-century American people