Remembering Eleanor Engle

Eleanor Engle in 1952 with Harrisburg infielders Ron Esrang, left, and Joe Tuminelli

Today marks what would have been Eleanor Engle’s 98th birthday.

The onetime stenographer from Shiremanstown, Pa., becomes a national headline in the summer of 1952, when she signs a contract to play for the foundering Class B Harrisburg Senators.

“She can hit the ball a lot better than some of the fellows on the club,” team president Jay Smith says of Engle, a former softball and basketball player.

Engle’s contract calls for her to be paid between $250 and $300 per month.

Engle works out as an infielder with the old Senators on Harrisburg’s City Island, but never gets a play for them as her contract quickly is voided by both minor league president George Trautman and Major League Baseball commissioner Ford Frick.

“I like to tell people Ford Frick threw me a curveball, and I struck out," Engle says in 2006. “But I don’t regret that I didn’t have the chance to play, because so many other wonderful things have happened to me.”

Despite living only six miles from where she signs to become a pro baseball player in 1952, Engle – who passes away in 2012 – never returns to City Island for the final 60 years of her life.