| Alta Weiss | |
|---|---|
| Pitcher | |
| Born: 1890 Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio |
|
| Died: 1964 Ragersville, Ohio |
|
| Batted: | Threw: right |
| Professional debut | |
| 1907 for the Vermilion Independents | |
| Last professional appearance | |
| 1922[1] for the Weiss All Stars | |
| Teams | |
Alta Weiss Hisrich (1890–1964), 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 states of Ohio and Kentucky. She was an early semiprofessional female baseball player who went on to become a physician.
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Weiss was born in 1890 in Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio the daughter of Dr. George and Lucinda Zehnder Weiss.[1][2] When she was 5 years old the family moved to Ragersville.[1][3] She began to pitch for boys' baseball teams at the age of 14. At 17, she joined a men's semiprofessional team, the nearby Vermilion Independents. 1200 people turned out to see her make her debut: she gave up only four hits and a single run in five innings. Soon, special trains were being run out from Cleveland, Ohio whenever she pitched. When she appeared in the Cleveland Naps' League Park, more than 3,000 people paid their way in to see her.[4]
"I found that you can't play ball in skirts, I tried. I wore a skirt over my bloomers – and nearly broke my neck. Finally I was forced to discard it, and now I always wear bloomers.- but made so wide that the fullness gives a skirtlike effect," she told reporters.
Her baseball skills were good enough to put her through medical school at the Starling Medical College, where she was the only female to graduate with the class of 1914.[1][2] Even after she began to practice as a physician in Norwalk, she continued to play off and on into the 1920s.[2][5]
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 (ISBN 0-689-83300-8).[6][7] On October 20, 2004 she was inducted into the Ragersville Hall of Fame.[1] 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.[1]