Marilyn Jenkins

Marilyn A. Jenkins (September 18, 1934 – February 7, 2020) was a catcher who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Listed at , 140 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created by Chicago Cubs' owner Philip K. Wrigley in anticipation of losing male players to the World War II draft, gave a new name to the baseball game. Since its 1943 season opener, the circuit developed a select group of women that changed the ballgame forever between the 1940s and 1950s.

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Marilyn Jenkins played for her hometown team Grand Rapids Chicks during the last three seasons of the league.

Jenkins was a modest but dedicated ballplayer who earned the responsibility of learning the game correctly at a very early age. She started a long time relationship of ten years with the Chicks when she was 10 years old, and stayed with them until the league folded after the 1954 season.

Marilyn was in grade school when she sneaked out of class to serve as a bat girl for her home team. When she was 13, the team allowed her to practice with them on the field. She always used to arrive very early to the ballpark and quickly learned to catch a ball during batting practice. When her father died in 1947 the Chicks provided a strong support for her and her mother. Then, when the team won the champion title in that season she felt comforted and happy again. Four years later, she turned 17 and was ready to start playing with the team. I learned a lot and idolized them, of course, she explained in an interview.

After baseball, Jenkins fulfilled a wide variety of jobs. She entered the healthcare field as a radiologic technologist, and years later offered paralegal services until 1980, then started an estate sales business that she attended for the next two decades. In her spare time she became an avid golfer.

In 2010, Jenkins was among other 50 AAGPBL former players honored at Comerica Park before a Detroit Tigers' game against the Chicago White Sox. Jenkins and her AAGPBL pals also had a lunch cruise aboard the Detroit Princess Riverboat, in addition to a banquet and players meeting. It was a heck of a lot of fun, she said. At the time, none of us really thought we were doing something out of the ordinary. We just loved to play baseball.

Marilyn Jenkins resided in her home town of Grand Rapids until her death on February 7, 2020.

Career statistics Batting

Fielding GPPOAETCDPFA 113 346 63 17 426 11 ..960