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 Pioneers of Our Sport |
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Wednesday, February 14
Joan Joyce
Joyce, Joan
b. Aug. 1, 1940, Waterbury, CT
Although she's not nearly as well known, Joyce has to be ranked very close to Babe Didrikson Zaharias as the greatest woman athlete of all time. She made her name as a softball player. Before she was 14, she joined the Raybestos Brakettes of Stratford, CT. During her 20 seasons with the team, the Brakettes won eleven national championships, including four in a row. Joyce pitched 150 no-hitters and 50 perfect games, winning 753 games while losing only 42. She once pitched 29 innings of a 1-0 victory.
When not pitching, she played first base and had a .324 career batting average. In 1971, she was the top hitter in the National Softball Association tournament, with a .467 average. An All-American eighteen years in a row, she was named most valuable player of the tournament eight times.
The 5-foot-9 Joyce averaged 25 points a game in AAU basketball competition and was a three-time All-American. She was also a fine volleyball player and, three months after she started bowling, she won the Connecticut state championship.
Joyce announced her retirement from softball after the 1973 season and was given the Gold Key award for outstanding achievement by the Connecticut Sportswriters Association. She was not only the first woman to win the award, she was the first ever invited to the awards banquet.
But she didn't stop there. Joyce joined the Ladies' Professional Golf Association tour in 1975. Though never a champion, she did win more than $30,000 in 1984, when she shot a 66 for one round of the S & H Golf Classic. Joyce was also a player-coach in the United States Volleyball Association for four years.
During her softball career, Joyce's pitches were sometimes clocked at more than 116 mph. In exhibition games, she struck out Ted Williams in 1962 and Hank Aaron in 1978.
In 1994, Joyce became the first women's softball coach at Florida Atlantic University. She has also coached the women's golf team at the school since 1996.
International Women's Sports Hall of Fame
Softball Hall of Fame
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Wednesday, February 14
Eddie Feigner
Feigner, Eddie
b. March 26, 1925, Walla Walla, WA
d. Feb. 9, 2007
Abandoned as infant, Feigner was named Myrle King by his adopted family. He was a trouble-making child who was thrown out of school in his early teens. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II, but was given a medical discharge after suffering a nervous breakdown.
He decided to start a new life by taking a new name--Feigner from his mother and Eddie from a friend. And he discovered he had a talent: He could pitch a softball faster than anyone. In 1946, he organized a four-man team, taking on all comers in the Pacific Northwest and in 1950 he named the team "The King and His Court" and began touring the country, playing against nine-man teams.
Feigner, whose pitches have been clocked at 104 miles an hour, entertained crowds by pitching at times from behind his back and through his legs. In more than fifty years of barnstorming, his team traveled more than 3 million miles and played before more than 20 million spectators.
In 2000, he threw out the first pitch before the women's softball competition at the Sydney Olympics. A day later, he suffered a stroke that ended his playing career.
Feigner pitched in more than 10,000 games, amassing 930 no-hitters, 238 perfect games, 1,916 shutouts, and 141,517 strikeouts.
Thursday, October 30
Roy Burlison
<font size="3">Roy "Burly" Burlison
Ask almost anyone anywhere in the country to name a famous men's fast pitch pitcher, and Roy Burlison's name will most surely be mentioned. Burlison is an incredible seven-time All-American and was named Most Valuable Pitcher in the 1969 and 1971 ASA National Fast Pitch Championships. He also played played professional ball with the St. Louis Browns in 1973, and he contributed to seven state championships and six regional championships. Some players never win an ASA fast pitch national championship, although their individual performance is outstanding. Nine times pitcher Roy Burlison, who had overpowering speed, competed in the ASA Men’s Major Fast Pitch National Championship, but never came home a national champion during a 27-year career. The closest he came was in 1969 when, then 23, Burlison hurled the Fairchild Falcons of Mountain View, CA to a second place. Born October 18, 1945, Burlison had an outstanding tourney. He won seven of nine games and struck out 108 batters in 62 innings, allowing 26 hits and 11 runs. His performance earned him the tourney MVP award as well as a first-team All-America selection. Burlison said winning that MVP award in his first national was the greatest thrill of his career. He also won the MVP award in the 1971 ASA Men's National Fast Pitch Championship. In national championship play, he won 23 games and lost 14 for a winning percentage of .649. During his career he won more than 700 games and lost less than 100 with 14 perfect games. He retired as an active player in 1993.
Roy Burlison is the first person that was a role model/idol for me in the sport of Fastpitch. I was taken by my father as a child to a fastpitch tournament and saw him for the first time and was HOOKED! He struck out the side and then came in and took oxygen from and oxygen tank. He is still considered one of the hardest throwing pitchers to ever play the game! - Jim Greiner
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