Joyce Westerman

Description

As a young girl growing upon on a Wisconsin farm, Joyce cleaned the barn, picked vegetables, and helped her father cut down trees. But what she really loved to do was play baseball. She played at recess and with friends whenever she could, and she even joined her aunt’s softball team when she was just twelve years old. When Joyce graduated from high school, she went to work at a factory in Kenosha. But then World War II broke out, and chewing-gum tycoon P. K. Wrigley started a women’s baseball league to help build morale on the homefront while so many Americans were overseas serving their country. Women from all over the United States tried out for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Only a few were good enough to make the cut, and Joyce was one of them. For eight years, she traveled around the country playing the game she loved, and in her final season, she won the 1952 AAGPBL championship with the South Bend Blue Sox. Joyce Westerman: Baseball Hero tells the story of a young girl who grew up to live out her dream of becoming a professional athlete.