'League of Their Own' athlete dies in Lake Forest

Mabel Holle, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., died recently at her home in Lake Forest after a long illness. She was 91.

A strong-armed outfielder and third baseman, Holle played in 90 games in 1943 and 1944 for the Kenosha Comets and the South Bend Blue Sox of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — the league that inspired the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”

Born in Jacksonville, Ill., Holle showed athletic ability at a very young age.

Since girls were prevented from playing baseball in high school at the time, she played on town clubs. Her sister, Patricia Patrick, says she played for Caterpillar in Peoria, as well as a well-known local hardware store team.

“She got picked to play with the boys football team for freshman and sophomore years in high school,” Patrick said.

Mabel graduated from MacMurray College in Jacksonville in 1942 and was inducted into that college's Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 for her leadership in the classroom and on the playing field.

“As long as you played on the college team, you couldn't play on an outside team, so (Holle) played with this fake name so she could play,” her sister said. “Jo Montgomery was her fake name.”

After graduation, a tryout at Wrigley Field led to her involvement with the AAGPBL. Patrick said the family traveled to South Bend to watch Holle play.

“They pitched with an underhand pitch, sidearm-like,” she said. “They took trains to places where they were going to play, and they had a chaperon who taught them how to walk correctly. Their uniforms, they had short skirts with shorts underneath, and so they got a lot of scrapes and bruises.”

The pay was good, though. Fifty dollars per week, her sister said, which was more than their father made.

As a player, Holle possessed a cannonlike arm.

“She could throw some people out from center field to home plate,” Patrick said.

Holle also distinguished herself as a physical education instructor, coach and athletic administrator in the Waukegan schools.

Holle's career was cut short when she was forced to choose between her teaching job and her baseball playing, said her longtime partner, Linda Hoffman.

“Her principal wouldn't let her take time off to play baseball,” Hoffman said.

Still, Holle continued her obsession with sports. She watched all the Chicago Cubs games, or listened to them on the radio, and also followed the Chicago Bulls, Chicago Bears and many women's sports, including the short-lived women's pro basketball team, the Chicago Condors.

“She was thrilled that the women finally were allowed to be in the public eye in sports,” Hoffman said.

Holle was the first person to chair the IHSA Girls Track and Field Advisory Committee.

“One of the things that she was in charge of was the first state track meet for high school girls in the state of Illinois,” Patrick said. “So the girls that are playing sports now, like my granddaughters, they don't know what they had to do to get to where we are now because they were always looking to change the rules (to put obstacles in girls' paths).”

Holle also served on the state meet's games committee.

When “A League of Their Own” appeared in theaters, Holle saw it and thought it was “pretty good.”

“She said there were a few things that they kind of stretched, that were Hollywood, but it was pretty factual,” Hoffman said.

In later years, Holle received letters requesting her autograph.

“She was the sweetest person you would ever want to know,” her sister said, noting that she saved her money and bought three lots in Lake Forest. “She gave me one of the lots. Then when I got older, she helped me build the house on the lot, and she built her house on (another lot).”

“She was very generous with her time,” Hoffman added. “She was very unselfish.”

A private memorial is being planned.