"Lizzie" Murphy

“Lizzie” Murphy was not your typical female. Born on April 13, 1894, one of seven children, she preferred to play baseball with the boys rather than house with the girls. Years later while reminiscing about her youth, she said, “I always loved boys’ sports. They’re so active, they wake you up.” Lizzie first played baseball with her brother and the neighborhood boys. She was only allowed to play because she owned the baseball. In 1918, after years of perfecting her skill at the game, Lizzie was good enough to play semi-professionally with the Providence Independents, where she earned the nickname “Spike.” Two years later, she joined Ed Carr’s All-Stars of Boston, a team that consisted of former major league players. She toured with them for seventeen years, many times playing over 100 games a season. The high point of Lizzie’s career came when she played at Fenway Park on August 14, 1922, in a benefit game against the Boston Red Sox. In 1929, she became the first woman to play on an all-black baseball team, the Cleveland Colored Giants. Lizzie not only made money playing the game, ($5.00 per game along with a percentage of the gate), but also supplemented her income by going into the stands between innings and hawking postcards of herself in uniform for a dime apiece.