Alta Weiss Explained

Alta Weiss
Position:Pitcher
Birth Date:9 February 1890
Birth Place:Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, U.S.
Death Place:Ragersville, Ohio, U.S.
Throws:right
Debutteam:Vermilion Independents
Finalteam:Weiss All Stars
Teams:
  • Vermilion Independents
  • Weiss All Stars of Cleveland (–)

Alta Weiss Hisrich (February 9, 1890 – February 12, 1964), born Alta Weiss, was an American minor league baseball pitcher from Ohio who drew large crowds to exhibition games at minor league and major league venues in the US state of Ohio and Kentucky. She was a semiprofessional female baseball player who went on to become a physician.

Early life

Born in 1890 in Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, she was the daughter of Dr. George and Lucinda Zehnder Weiss.[1] When she was five years old the family moved to Ragersville.[2] [3]

Later career

She was the only female to graduate Starling Medical College with the class of 1914.[2] [1] [4]

Weiss married John E. Hisrich in 1926; they separated in 1944.[5] She died in 1964 in Ragersville, Ohio, just three days after her 74th birthday.[6]

Honors

A picture-story book for children Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings, by Deborah Hopkinson, with illustrations by Terry Widener, was published in 2003 .[7] [8] On October 20, 2004, she was inducted into the Ragersville Hall of Fame.[2] Her uniform was sent to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York for exhibition in a Women's baseball exhibit that opened in 2005.[2]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: You Cant Play Ball In A Skirt: The Alta Weiss Story. Ragersville Historical Society. February 3, 2009. September 26, 2009.
  2. Web site: Eberle. Maxine Renner. Ragersville Hall of Fame to induct Alta Weiss as first female semi-pro baseball player. October 20, 2004. September 26, 2009.
  3. Ragersville, in Tuscarawas County, is south-southeast of Sugarcreek, Ohio and east-northeast of Baltic.
  4. Book: Ward, Geoffrey C.. Baseball An Illustrated History. Ken Burns. 13 August 1996. A.A. Knopf . 0-679-76541-7.
  5. "Files for Divorce." Coshocton (OH) Tribune, August 7, 1946, p. 2.
  6. "Alta W. Hisrich Dies at Dover." Coshocton (OH) Tribune, February 13, 1964, p. 13.
  7. Web site: Deborah Hopkinson – Girl Wonder . Hopkinson . Deborah . Deborah Hopkinson . September 28, 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100418135111/http://www.deborahhopkinson.com/picture%20books/girl_wonder.html . April 18, 2010 .
  8. The book was awarded a Jan Addams honor award for illustration in 2004. See Web site: Jane Addams Peace Association – Previous Winners of the Jane Addams Children's Book Awards Listed by Year. September 27, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195125/http://home.igc.org/~japa/jacba/previous_winners.html. 2008-05-16. dead.