Joanne Weaver

Joanne "Joltin' Jo" Weaver (December 19, 1935 – March 19, 2000) was a right fielder who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Listed at , 142 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.

Overview profile One of the most talented hitters in AAGPBL history, Joanne Weaver was the youngest of three sisters to play for the Fort Wayne Daisies in the final years of the league. Weaver often outdid her renowned sister, Betty, as a power hitter, winning three consecutive batting titles and setting several all-time records. At this point, the Weaver-Foss duet led the AAGPBL in most major offensive categories between 1952 and 1954. A three-time All-Star, Weaver earned Player of the Year honors in 1954, when she hit a .429 average to set an AAGPBL single-season record. Besides this, her .429 mark was the highest Professional American Baseball batting average collected by any player in a single season in a minimum of 300 at-bat appearances. At the age of 11, she began playing softball with her sisters Betty and Jean. Their father tried to get them to play on a local boys' baseball team, with little success, until he managed to insert them into the Magnavox team of the Chicago industrial league, a successful fastpitch softball squad in which they finally started to play regularly. In 1950, Betty rejected a contract offer from the Chicago White Sox minor league system and opted to sign with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Betty was allocated to the Fort Wayne Daisies and her sisters joined her on the team a year later.

Weaver's performance exploded in her second season. After moving to right field in 1952, she led all hitters with a .344 average, surpassing her sister Betty (.331), who led five offensive categories and earned the Player of the Year Award, while Joanne did not rank high in any other category. Both sisters were selected for the All-Star Team and helped Fort Wayne advance to the playoffs.

The Fort Wayne Daisies advanced to the best-of-five game Championship Series. Previously in the playoffs, the Kalamazoo Lassies dispatched the South Bend Blue Sox in three games and Fort Wayne did the same with the Grand Rapids Chicks.

The sisters Foss-Weaver were able to win the final five batting championships of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and two Player of the Year awards. With Helen Callaghan winning the batting title in 1945, the Fort Wayne Daisies amassed six batting crowns to set a league record. But while Fort Wayne made the playoffs in the last seven seasons of the league, the team struggled in the post-season and never won a Championship Title. In 1952 and 1953, the Daisies were knocked out in the first round after posting the best regular-season record.

Life after baseball Following her baseball career, Joanne Weaver lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana for more than 30 years. In November 1988, the Weaver sisters received recognition when the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York dedicated a permanent display to the entire league rather than any individual player.

Weaver was honored by Major League Baseball when the league named a conference room in her honor at its headquarters in New York in 2020.

Career statistics Batting Bold denotes category leader.

Fielding GPPOAETCDPFA 319 552 40 43 635 10 .932