Alta Weiss “The Girl Wonder”
A Turn of The Century STAR PITCHER, A FUTURE AAGPBL STAR, AND AN AUTOGRAPHED BASEBALL
“Would you like a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth?”
“My eyes lit up and I said, “yes!” And then she said, “would you like me to sign it?” and I said, “yes!” She took out her pen — there were no ballpoints in the 1940s — and she signed it.”
This conversation took place around 1946 between two very unusual baseball players. One was a 13-year-old girl, growing up in isolated Ragersville, OH, with baseball as one of her only entertainment options. “There was no television and I didn’t want to read. I guess there was a radio, the only real good thing to do was get out and throw the ball around, and my dad would play pitch and catch with me,” recalled Lois Youngen, now 89 years old.
Across the street, Alta Weiss, a 56-year-old retired doctor and one of the most accomplished female baseball pitchers of all time, sat on the porch of the house in which her father, Dr. George Weiss, had delivered Lois 13 years earlier, observing the scene. She got word to Lois’s dad, Elden Youngen, who had pitched at Kent State back in the 1920s, and invited Lois over for a visit.
“I’m 12 or 13. I didn’t know that Alta Weiss was a great pioneer baseball player, but I said I would go to visit her for lemonade and cookies. At the appointed time I walked up the street, knocked on the door, and Alta opened it. She was probably in her late 50s, quite heavy set, probably 5'8" or 5'7". I got invited in, sat on the edge of the sofa and I was nervous. She mostly asked me questions about my ball playing, who I played with, how long I had been playing, and, what I liked and didn’t like.
“I regret being at the age I was because I wasn’t dry behind the ears. All I wanted to do was to play ball. I didn’t know her history. I regret that I wasn’t older so that I could have asked her the questions. I now have a million questions. If I had a chance to do it all over, I would ask her many questions about her playing, how travel was, and how it was being with her sister, Irma. Did they play every night? Did you hit since they didn’t have a designated hitter in those days?”
For historians of women’s baseball, there is an almost eerie, twilight-zone quality to this meeting. Each of these women were born nearby — Alta in 1890, and Lois in 1933. Each played baseball with the local boys from a young age, in a town with no more than two or three hundred people — which created opportunity for girl players that did not exist in bigger places.
Each were encouraged by their fathers, and each were very good baseball players who would play professionally for several years. But as they sat together in the house, neither knew of the other’s baseball accomplishments, past or future.
Each also used their experiences playing baseball as young women to generate income, and then invested that income in education in similar careers, one as a doctor, and the other with a doctorate in health and physical education. Alta earned her M.D. from Starling Medical College, known today as Ohio State University — which is where Lois earned her doctorate in physical education in 1971. Readers today are not surprised to encounter a female doctor or college professor, but in their respective generations, both Alta and Lois — interesting that their names sound like “high” and “low” broke barriers on the field and in their fields. (There is no truth to the rumor that one had a secretary named Lincoln and the other had a secretary named Kennedy…)
Lois’s many accomplishments on the field are well portrayed in a fun series of four short video interviews, as well as several good websites with biographical information
Let’s take a closer look at Alta Weiss. (For the historical record, two notes on pronunciation. “Alta” is pronounced closer to the sound of “altitude,” rather than “ultimate.” And “Weiss” is pronounced just like “wise,” according to Lois).
George Weiss should get an award for being the father who did the most to encourage a baseball-playing daughter. At age two, he noticed her ability to chuck corn cobs with startling accuracy at a cat who was stalking birds. They started playing catch, and he found her to have a powerful and supple arm. He encouraged her to play ball with the local boys, and even went so far as to construct a “gymnasium,” a barn with a woodstove inside, so she could enjoy throwing year-round.
He hired one of her teammates as a farm hand, with the understanding he would serve as Alta’s catcher. Alta went on playing in local games, and got pretty good.
As if building a gymnasium and hiring a catcher for your daughter wasn’t enough, Dr. Weiss went so far as to establish a high school in town, so that the school could have a baseball team, and his daughter could play on it. George Weiss took supporting his daughter’s baseball dreams to a whole other level.
The summer of 1907 was hot, and there was no air conditioning back then, so the Weiss family headed north to the shores of Lake Erie in Vermilion, Ohio, for swimming and cool breezes off the lake. 17-year-old Alta brought her glove.
One morning she found a couple of local boys playing catch on the beach, and asked if she could join in. They permitted this pretty young woman to play, and carefully lobbed her the ball. She zinged it back, making a glove pop and a hand sting. Before too long, one of the boys ran off to get Mayor H.P. Williams, who was immediately enthused at her ability.
Williams lobbied Charles Heidloff, the manager of Vermilion’s town team, to give Alta a chance to pitch for the local nine. Artist and historian Gary Cieradkowski sets the scene in his 2018 booklet “Alta Weiss, the Girl Wonder,” part of his “Infinite Baseball Card Set:” “Like virtually every town in America in 1907, Vermilion had their own baseball team that played other villages in the area. Back then, these semi-pro teams weren’t just for recreation – they represented civic pride and coveted bragging rights. Stakes were high, and washed up former pros and moonlighting college players were actively recruited to bolster the local talent.”
The Vermilion town team was a little short on pitching, as Labor Day and other crucial September games approached. Heidloff wanted to win, but initially couldn’t feature the idea that a teenage girl in a blue, ankle-length skirt was the ticket to success.
The mayor set up some sandlot games so Heidloff could see Alta pitch, and eventually persuaded him to put her on the mound for just the first inning of the big Labor Day game against the archrival team from Wakeman, OH. Wakeman’s Redcaps were a famous semi-pro baseball team from that glorious era of “town ball,” as baseball at the grassroots level was known back then. Founded in 1889, the Redcaps would play for local glory and host barnstorming teams of the highest level well into the 1950s. Wakeman is a true baseball town, and a scrapbook covering the years 1928-48 is housed in the archives of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. During that 20-year span, Wakeman hosted barnstorming teams including the Chicago Union Giants and the Mohawk Colored Giants of the Negro leagues, as well as a barnstorming team led by Eddie Cicotte, former ace pitcher of the Chicago White Sox, who was banned from baseball for his participation in the 1919 “Black Sox Scandal.” Wakeman, as an opponent for Alta Weiss in 1907, was no small potatoes team.
“I was instrumental in getting Miss Alta Weiss to pitch her first game of ball in Vermilion. I consider her a wonderful player, and think our boys would do well to emulate her as to deportment on the ball field as her actions were always ladylike.” Mayor Williams was quoted on a beautiful barnstorming broadside, proudly displayed in Lois Youngen’s home.
The Redcaps came to Vermilion’s Crystal Beach ballpark for the big game on Labor Day, Monday Sept 2, 1907. Alta retired the side in the first inning, essentially calling the manager’s bluff. Would he be able to think outside the box, and leave her in the box? Perhaps the crowd of over 1200 curious fans helped to convince him, but Alta stayed in the game. Various sources report that she struck out 15 that day, which would mean that she was perfect through her five innings, but Cieradkoswki has dug up the real stat line.
She pitched five innings, giving up just four hits and one run, and catching a scorching liner along the way. Vermilion won the game in 11 innings. Alta Weiss was now a member of the team. She belonged, and would pitch the next game the following Sunday.
She pitched well that day also, and went the distance in the final scheduled game of the season, earning her first official win, 9-3. Word travelled fast, and newspapers all over the Midwest were buzzing with stories about “The Girl Wonder.” Vermilion scheduled two more games, in order to capitalize on the opportunity to sell a lot of tickets, and she was also hired by nearby Millersburg to pitch another game. Though these three starts were not as good as her first three, people kept coming, and extra trains were hired to bring fans from Cleveland.
The natural next step was to schedule a game in Cleveland, so Alta Weiss pitched in League Park, the big-league park which housed the then-called “Naps,” named after player-manager Napoleon Lajoie. On October 3rd, she started against the Vacha All-Stars before 3,100 fans. Alta’s team led 7 to 6 going into the ninth, but Vacha scored twice, and supportive fans rushed the field, demanding the game be called due to darkness. Had the umpire complied, the score would have reverted back to 7-6, and Alta would have earned the victory. Sensing that it might be in his personal safety interests not to let her lose, he compromised and called the game a 7-7 tie.
Alta returned to League Park on a frigid October 20th for a final game against a semi-pro team sponsored by Mahon & Roth, a clothing store. Among the fans in the crowd that day were Nap Lajoie and his wife, Myrtle. Alta must have liked the cold weather as she won 4-2, giving up one run on five hits, striking out three and walking just one. Lajoie said “She looked to me to have as much as many men pitchers, but I hardly think I will release Addie Joss or Heinie Berger to make room for her. But really, I was surprised to find that she could pitch so well.”
So how did she pitch? Cieradkowski quotes her from an off-season newspaper profile: “Throwing curves and sending a ball swiftly across the plate is as much a fine art to me as dabbling in paints or modeling sticky clay. I get as much enjoyment out of a game well played as a musician does out of a successful concert.” Weiss was a musician as well—she played guitar, violin, ukulele, banjo and piano.
“I have seen Miss Alta Weiss pitch on several occasions and for a girl I consider her a wonder,” said J.W. Spaulding, sporting editor of the Lorain Daily News. “She handles herself with all the movements of a man while on the mound; has speed, a good curve and good control. She knows the game and knows how to pitch winning ball.” Henry P. Edwards, sporting editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer added that she “fields her position well in addition to having a good baseball ‘noodle.’ ”
In a 2003 booklet called “You Can’t Play Ball in a Skirt,” authors Susan Brewer and Bette Lou Higgins credit her with having a fastball, curveball, knuckler, sinker, and even a spitball as part of her pitching repertoire. “She threw a good spitball — chewed a big wad of gum to keep up a good chunk of spit. She had control over every pitch except the knuckler and the spitter — she claimed she never knew how they would break.”
Cieradkowski produced a baseball card of Alta in 2018, as part of his “Infinite Baseball Card Set”, a never-ending set of cards honoring “baseball’s forgotten heroes” — and a few heroines as well. In addition to beautiful artwork, impressive writing and research, he totaled up her 1907 stats on the back of the card: 7 games, with a 5-2 record, 3 complete games and 44 innings pitched. She struck out 21 and walked nine, while picking up five doubles and 7 stolen bases on offense.
Gary Cieradkowski / Gary Cieradkowski Applied Art & Design
Alta is featured on three other baseball cards. Ken Burns created a card set which included Alta and several other women in conjunction with his 19-hour “Baseball” series on PBS in 1994. On the back of that card, Burns quotes Alta: “I found you can’t play ball in skirts. Now I always wear bloomers.”
A second card was produced in 2003 in conjunction with Brewer and Higgins booklet “You Can’t Play Ball In A Skirt.” A third card of Alta was issued by the Minnesota Girls Baseball Association, as part of a fundraising set featuring great women in the game from the present day as well as across the more than a century of women’s baseball history. Weiss has also been covered in a 2003 children’s book, “Girl Wonder, A Baseball Story in Nine Innings,” written by Deborah Hopkinson and illustrated by Terry Widener.
For the 1908 and 1909 seasons, Alta’s father purchased the Vermilion team, renaming it the Weiss All-Stars. The players wore old Cleveland Naps uniforms, with their new name stitched across the front. Alta would be the literal center of attention, wearing a full-length, maroon dress that is now on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Later on, she donned bloomers, making it easier to play. The Weiss team toured the Midwest, playing in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, often against high level semi-pro and barnstorming competition. Alta was paid as much as $100 a game. She brought her sister Irma along, for female companionship, and to protect her reputation. A woman travelling alone with a men’s baseball team, playing against other men’s teams, was not considered proper at the time.
Alta enjoyed the travel and all the hoopla, but she had an overarching goal — saving money for her college education, which she started after the 1908 season at the University of Wooster.
A poster from 1909 shows two photos of Alta at the top, one in her baseball uniform and the other is a portrait of a young college student. “Base Ball! Miss Alta Weiss, the Girl Wonder, will play as a member of (fill in the blank) team and will pitch (blank) innings and play first base (blank) innings. Game called at (blank time). One side of the poster features quotes about her baseball ability and the other side portrays her as a student: “On reading of her prowess on the diamond, one naturally expects to see a strong, masculine, daring personage; but they are happily disappointed in Miss Weiss, for she is a sensible, great hearted, earnest young woman with an intense interest in all that goes to make an ideal student. She has been one of the most studious girls in the institution.”
After noting that she “has taken no part in college athletics among the young women, but has given her entire thought to her studies,” the essay goes on to describe her further:
“Miss Weiss is but 18 years old, with a splendid, hearty laugh, and an open-faced demeanor that at once wins her friends; she is splendidly built, sings beautifully, and is also quite skillful at the piano.”
“Miss Weiss does not court notoriety, and it is safe to say that if all the men who play ball conducted themselves so absolutely beyond reproach as does Miss Weiss, there would be no ground for criticism. All preconceived notions of a woman ballplayer vanish to the wind when one becomes acquainted with this young woman, and any who expect to see anything that is unwomanly in her conduct are disappointed.”
After Wooster, Alta went on to Starling Medical College, a precursor to the medical school at Ohio State University. She went on to practice medicine in small Ohio towns, and married John Hissrich in 1926, separating in 1944. She continued to pitch the occasional baseball game, often to support local charities, up into the mid-1920s.
Grassroots Baseball correspondent Tim Wiles is a long-time advocate for women and girls in baseball, and the former director of research for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY. He is the author of two baseball books and dozens of articles. Catch his “Let’s Play Too” blog posts here at grassrootsbaseball.org.