Dottie Wiltse Collins

Dorothy Wiltse Collins (September 23, 1923 – August 12, 2008) was an American professional baseball pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) from 1944 to 1948 and 1950. Collins played her rookie season for the Minneapolis Millerettes and spent the rest of her career with the Fort Wayne Daisies. Known as the "Strikeout Queen," she set multiple AAGPBL records throughout her career and led the league with her winning percentage, fielding percentage, and strikeouts. Collins helped form the All-American Girls Professional Baseball league Players Association in 1987 and held many different positions during her tenure with the association.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) had over 500 women's baseball players from the years 1943 to 1954. With only a few exceptions, baseball games were played extremely similarly compared to the games Major League Baseball (MLB) players would play in. Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, started the League in 1943 because he thought fans would forget about baseball because of World War II. The League's seasons would go from May to about mid-September. Her father was a Standard Oil Company welder and former semipro baseball player in the Los Angeles area and her mother was of an English-German-Italian background. On her father's side, Collins had a couple of distant relatives who played professional baseball in the MLB. Her father built a backstop in their backyard where they would practice a lot, but sometimes they would go to the school's softball field to provide more of a challenge for Collins.

Over the course of Collins's career, the AAGPBL switched their pitching styles form underhand, to sidearm, and eventually settled on the overhand pitch. The team members became known as 'the Orphans' as they lived in hotels to finish out the 1944 season. When Collins went out to pitch in pain, Allington came out to ask what was wrong and made sure that she got to the hospital and was taken care of. Although the team did not do well as a whole, Collins was able to pitch a 20–16 record in her rookie season. At one point, the Fort Wayne Daisies were even described as being similar to the famous Yankees because they recruited the most talented players and dominated the league.

In the 1946 season, Collins, now pitching under her married name, Collins, won 22 games and struck out 294 batters, which was another record. In the 1947 season, Collins won 20 more games and led all AAGPBL pitchers with a 0.965 fielding percentage.

After taking the 1949 season off to raise her daughter and work, Collins returned to the League for the 1950 season. In the 1950 season, she had an ERA of 3.46 and a winning percentage of 0.619. Harvey and Dottie's second child, Daniel, was born on March 18, 1954.

The Cooperstown exhibit as well as a documentary about the AAGPBL was inspiring for actress and director Penny Marshall. Her cause of death was a stroke according to her son-in-law. Collins left a lasting legacy for female athletes, especially female baseball players. She was described as being a fine ballplayer who embodied the AAGPBL's ideal of athleticism combined with femininity. Collins's star shone on and off the field during her playing career, which was shone with all of her promotion and organization over the years.