Mary Louise Lester (January 19, 1919 – December 20, 1977), later known as Mary Louise Luster, was an American

infielder An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field. Standard arrangement of positions In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles. ...

who played 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 , 138 lb, Lester batted and threw right-handed. She was born in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

. Mary Louise Lester was one of the original founding members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in its 1943 inaugural season. In 1943, Lester attended the final tryouts of the league at

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...

. Once the final cut was made, Lester and another 59 of the 280 girls who tried out were chosen to become the first women to ever play professional baseball. She was relocated 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 ...

, playing for them one year before joining the South Bend Blue Sox in the 1944 season. Lester was used as a backup infielder, serving primarily as a backup at second base while hitting a .186

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 112 career games. She could not be reached after leaving the league in 1944.The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Mary Louise Lester 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 to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She died in Nashville on December 20, 1977, at the age of 58.Obituary of Mary Louise Luster
/ref>

Career statistics

Batting Fielding

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lester, Mary Louise 1919 births 1977 deaths All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players Baseball players from Tennessee Kenosha Comets players People from Nashville, Tennessee South Bend Blue Sox players