For eight years after World War II, Doris Jane "Sammye" Sams, a gifted athlete and star fast-pitch softball player from Knoxville, Tennessee, enjoyed an outstanding career in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. In the end, she compiled the league's sixth highest lifetime batting average with a .290 mark.

     Following the circuit's 1947 season, Sammye's second year, she was selected as the AAGPBL's Player of the Year. A pitcher turned outfielder, she was named to the league's all-star team at both positions. No other player in the history of the AAGPBL accomplished that unique feat.

     Sams was an excellent all-around athlete. Not only did she pitch a perfect game for the Muskegon Lassies on August 18, 1947, beating the Fort Wayne Daisies, 2-0, but she also batted .280 with 41 RBI. When the league went to sidearm pitching that summer (shifting from a modified underhand delivery in 1946, after three seasons of regulation underhand), Doris, a natural sidearmer, hurled the perfect game and ten more wins. She finished with an 11-4 record and a 0.98 earned run average, the second-best ERA in the league.

     Sams was such an excellent performer that she won Player of the Year honors again in 1949. The only other girl who twice won that honor in the All-American League was Jean Faut, the greatest overhand pitcher in league history. Jean was selected Player of the Year in 1951 and 1953.

     A five-time all-star during her eight-year pro career, Sams made the league's honor team in 1947 and from 1949 through 1952. One of the AAGPBL's best batters, she hit over .300 in her last four seasons. An excellent defensive outfielder, the Knoxville lassie took away home runs from several opponents with catches against the outfield fences in Muskegon and, later, Kalamazoo.

     "It wasn't so perfect," Sams recalled in a 1997 interview about her perfect game. "They hit me like a drum. But it was one of those days when everybody was on their toes. They were catching line drives. You know, the pitcher doesn't do it, let's face it. They caught line drives and everything else - just unreasonable catches that day."

     For example, Fort Wayne's Dottie Schroeder smashed a shot down the third base line in the fourth inning. The ball took a bad hop, but Arleene Johnson, who had seven assists and three putouts for the evening, jumped up, speared ball with her bare hand, and threw Schroeder out at first.

     Also, Sally Meier lined one to left field in the fifth frame, and Lassie Jo Lenard came up with a classic shoe-string catch. When Velma Abbott bunted in the sixth, Sams made a great fielding play and threw Abbott out at first - by a slim margin.

     "The last ball they hit was by a pinch-hitter, Mary Rountree," Sammye explained. "I threw one in there, and she hit that thing back to me like a bullet. It took one hop, and I couldn't get it. It hit me on the knee, and ricocheted up in the air, and Tex Fisher came running in from shortstop and caught that thing, and threw it to first - and ended the game. I mean we had everyone out there run to death!"

     The game may have been less then "perfect," but 5,728 enthusiastic Muskegon fans were thrilled by the home team's performance.

     Born in Knoxville on February 2, 1927, Sammye grew up with two sports-minded brothers. "I feel like I've played ball since day one," Doris reminisced, "out here on the fields with my brothers, Paul and Bob, Jr."

     Friendly, personable, and witty, the 5'9" 145-pound Sammye, who wore glasses, excelled in almost every sport as a youth. Reflecting on her early influences, she said that her grandfather was a semipro hurler who helped her learn to pitch. Also, her father, an outfielder, played semipro ball until he got married.

     An attractive brunette, Sammye recollected that her ball playing days started in 1938 when a fellow who organized girls' softball teams told her to go and sign up with the city's recreation department.

     "Sure enough, one of those fast-pitch teams picked me up when I was eleven years old, and I started pitching for them. Most of the girls were a good five, six, or seven years older than I was. We ended up winning six or seven state championships.

     "I started out with Nelson's Cafe. The Pepsi Cola Company bought it. They took over the team after we won two or three championships. I played for Pepsi Cola until '46, and that's when I got into pro ball."

     Before softball, however, Doris had already achieved local notoriety. At age nine she won the Southern Appalachian Marbles Tournament, making her the first girl to qualify for the National Marbles Championship in Chicago.

     "The way I got involved with the All-American League is that a kid who was fourteen and who used to go fishing with my Dad came over here in the spring of 1946. He said, 'Doris, I heard on the radio that there's going to be two professional girls baseball teams pass through here.'"

     Her friend explained that the teams were touring on their way back to the Midwest from spring training. He convinced Sammye to talk to the manager.

     "I went over there and knocked on that door, you know, and took a big, deep breath. This guy came to the door, and I introduced myself and said, 'I play softball around here, and I want a tryout.'

     "He said, 'Well, are you any good?'

     "Now he swears that I said this, but I don't remember it. I looked him right in the eye and said, 'Well, I hit a home run about every time I get up!'"

     Sammye laughed. "That was the Racine manager, Leo Murphy. It was raining cats and dogs that day. I knew there wasn't any way I could try out for them here."

     Murphy took Sams on the team bus to Chattanooga, where she tried out and made the club. A few days later she boarded a plane to Michigan, and the plane trip was a "first" for her. Allocated to Muskegon, an expansion team, Sammye played her entire AAGPBL career with the Lassies. In mid-1950 the franchise shifted to Kalamazoo. A down-home friendly person, she became as popular in Kazoo as she was in Muskegon.

     In Muskegon Sammye, like the league's other players, lived with a local family. Two other Lassies lived in the home where she lodged. She remembered starting out by earning $65 or $70 a week, which was double the salary she was earning with a Knoxville photographer.

     Sams' first manager was "Buzz" Boyle, a former Brooklyn Dodger outfielder who hit .290 lifetime in five big league seasons. Later, Bill Wamby (born Wambsganss), an infielder with Cleveland for 13 years, managed the Lassies.

     Sammye recalled her delivery: "I had three different ways of pitching underhand. I pitched a figure-eight, and then the submarine, because I was a natural sidearmer, and then I had the windmill. Today the biggest part of the fast-pitch softball players are pitching the windmill.

"We were playing Grand Rapids one day. When I first hit that league, all I heard was 'Connie Wisniewski, Connie Wisniewski.' So I thought, 'If you can beat that team, you've got it made.'

     "We were leading Grand Rapids and Wisniewski by one run. I walked somebody, and the runner stole second. Anyway, the runner ended up on third with two out. We were about to get beat. That was the last inning.

     "I said, 'Well, nobody's ever seen me pitch this windmill. I'm to try it on this gal.'

     "I had two strikes on Doris Tetzlaff, and I went around about six times, and I released it, and it just happened to hit the heart of the plate. She's still standing there!"

     Sams recalled throwing mostly the figure-eight, which gave the ball a crazy spin.

     "But I was a natural sidearmer. When they put me in the outfield, my catcher just called me everything. When I threw from the outfield, I was throwing the awfulest curve you ever saw.

     "But when the league went overhand [in 1948], it like to killed my arm. They kept screaming, 'Overhand! Throw Overhand!'

     "I tried pitching overhand, but it like to ruin my arm. I got tired of pitching anyway. I wanted to play all the time.

     "I was pretty good at shagging flies, so I ended up in center field before it was all over."

     Playing in 42 games in 1946, Sams hit a solid .274, going 29-for-106, with a double and 9 RBI. Her average was seventh best in the league for girls with 100 or more at-bats, an auspicious start for the 19-year-old rookie. Pitching 25 games, she compiled an 8-9 record with a 3.78 ERA.

     But from 1947 through her final season of 1953, Sams was nothing short of outstanding. Playing the outfield, the Knoxville native produced the league's fourth highest average, hitting .280 with nine doubles, five triples, and 41 RBI.

     As a hurler in 1947, Sams ranked second in the AAGPBL behind "Millie" Earp of Grand Rapids. Earp posted a 20-8 record with a 0.68 ERA in 35 games. Pitching in 19 contests, Sammye's record was 11-4 with an 0.98 ERA. In 136 innings she allowed 26 runs, 15 being earned, while striking out 34 and walking 28.

     In April 1947 all of the league's players were flown to Havana, Cuba, for spring training. It was a highlight experience for many of the girls, and Sammye remembers it well:

     "It was hotter than Hades for one thing! It must have been 110 over there. But it was interesting. I'd never been anywhere, really. Havana was real good. The people were bug-eyed. They just couldn't believe that women were playing ball like that! We drew thousands of fans."

     Flying back to Florida after the Cuban adventure, the teams paired off and played exhibition games, traveling by train to their home cities. That exhibition schedule helped get the girls ready for the opening of regular season games in the last week of May.

     Thanks partly to Sammye, Muskegon rose from sixth place (of eight teams) and a 46-66 record in '46 to first place in the regular season with a 69-43 ledger in 1947. In the Shaughnessy Playoffs, however, the Racine Belles, regular season and playoff champions in 1946, ousted the Lassies.

     Racine was loaded with pressure-tested players such as infielders Sophie Kurys and "Maddy" English, outfielders "Edie" Perlick and Eleanor Dapkus (who also pitched), and right-handed ace Anna May Hutchison. Playing in Muskegon, the Belles won the first two games of the best-of-five playoff.

     Moving to Racine, Nancy Warren won game three for the Lassies. But the Belles won the crucial fourth game, 2-1, by squeeze-bunting in a run in the ninth inning. In the end, Grand Rapids defeated Racine in a best-of-seven playoff for the 1947 AAGPBL championship.

     Sams recalled, "That was the year we were in the playoffs and we were gonna play Racine, and they beat us. We were so sure of that playoff, because we had just beat Racine down the road all year. We just fell apart. Youngsters in the playoffs, I guess."

     Sammye returned in 1948 and enjoyed another first-rate season. In 117 games she hit .257, ninth in the AAGPBL, while producing six doubles, seven triples, three home runs, and 59 RBI.

     The Tennessean could easily have made the All-Star team in '48, but she was overlooked. Batting .309 with four home runs and 56 RBI, Kenosha Comet outfielder Audrey Wagner, who was named Player of the Year in 1948, was the league's only .300-plus hitter. The other two All-Star flychasers were Racine's Edie Perlick, who averaged .243 with two home runs and 51 RBI, and Grand Rapids' Connie Wisniewski, who hit .289 with seven homers and 66 RBI.

     After finishing second at 66-57 in the All-American's Eastern Division (with 10 teams in 1948, the league went to two divisions), Muskegon lost in the first round of playoffs.

     The Lassies were upset by eighth-place Fort Wayne in four games. Muskegon won the opener behind the hurling of lefty Irene Applegren. But Fort Wayne won three straight, thanks to the pitching of Annabelle Lee (who beat Sams in game two, 5- 3), Donna Cook, and Kay Blumetta.

     Since the inaugural season of 1943, the league had used a plastic-centered "deadball." In mid-1949 the league reduced the official AAGPBL ball's size to 10 inches while adding a cork center and red laces. That meant the girls had a "live" ball to hit, and batting averages rose all around the league.

     Sams produced another exceptional season in 1949. Her excellent hitting record can be seen from these figures:

     Sammye was chosen Player of the Year for the second time. Making the All-Star squad for the second time, she continued to be an All-Star outfielder through 1952.

     However, the Lassies never won another pennant during Sams' career. Muskegon fell to sixth (of eight teams) in 1949 with a record of 46-66. By mid-season of 1950, poor attendance caused the franchise to be sold to Kalamazoo. The change of scenery didn't help, as the Lassies finished last with a mark of 36-73. In 1951 and 1952 Kalamazoo came in seventh. In the six-team circuit of 1953, the Lassies climbed to third place with a 56-50 record.

     Sammye's career was punctuated with highlights, including that she:

shared the cover of 1948 edition of Dell Publishing's Major League Baseball: Facts and Figures, which pictured Sporting News Player of the Year Ted Williams on the front cover and Sams on the back cover

hurled her second no-hitter on July 12, 1948, beating the Springfield Sallies, 3-0

helped beat the Sallies, 6-5, one evening later, going 3-for-4 with an RBI triple, a single, and a clutch two-run homer - a line drive over the left fielder's head which rolled to the 325-foot marker

pitched a one-hitter, contributed two hits, and drove in one run as Muskegon beat the South Bend Blue Sox, 3-1, on July 14, 1949

hurled a three-hitter to stop the Blue Sox, 2-0, on August 19, 1949. She singled and scored Muskegon's second run in the top of the ninth, then stifled a two-on, one-out rally in the bottom half by inducing the last two Sox hitters to pop out

pitched and hit Kalamazoo to a 3-1 win over Racine on July 10, 1950, allowing two singles and belting two triples herself, the second driving home Bonnie Baker with what proved to be the winning run in the top of the eighth inning

after singling and scoring on a double by Jenny Romatowski in the eighth, Sammye slammed a long home run in the tenth to beat the Peoria Redwings, 5-3, on August 30, 1951

led a Sunday double-header sweep of the Grand Rapids Chicks on June 22, 1952, by homering in each game, including a two-run blast to back a four-hit 3-0 win by Ruth Williams in game one, and a solo shot which provided a 2-1 margin for the seven-hit pitching of Gloria Cordes in the nightcap

appeared on the cover of the August 1952 issue of Greater Kalamazoo: News and Views as the city's "Queen of Swat"

     The Kalamazoo clouter enjoyed her greatest single season in 1952, besting the all-time home run record of 10 set in 1943 by Racine's Eleanor Dapkus. In her next-to-last year, Sams produced a .314 average, 12 four-baggers, and 57 RBI. When she retired from the AAGPBL after the '53 season, her .290 lifetime average remained the sixth best hitting performance by an All-American.

     Ironically, Sammye ended her ballplaying days by striking out with the bases loaded in Kalamazoo's last regular season game. But during the at-bat before, she belted her final home run.

     Recalling why she finally quit, Sams said, "The league was going down by 1953. You could see it. It was getting to be the same old teams, over and over."

     But she also returned home because of a good job offer with the Knoxville Utilities Board, where she worked as a computer operator for 25 years. She retired in 1979 at age 53, partly to take care of her seriously ill mother. In 1954 Sammye began playing golf. She soon developed a scratch game, but a back injury later forced her to leave the links.

     In 1970 the former Lassie won what she considers her greatest honor. She was selected for the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. Asked how she felt during the induction ceremony, Sammye quipped, "Buddy, I was walking in high cotton that night!"

     More recently, Doris Sams won another honor. Writing in 1995 for Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, Barbara Gregorich and Debra Shattuck selected the Knoxville athlete as one of the twenty greatest stars in AAGPBL history.

     When fans, readers, and baseball enthusiasts reflect on the All-American players who performed in consistently excellent fashion year in and year out, the diamond feats of Doris Sams will be remembered among the best in the 12-year history of the AAGPBL.

Doris "Sammye" Sams : Knoxville's All-American, All-Star Outfielder and Pitcher