Background
She was born in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts.
She was born in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts.
Foreign other uses, see Jean M. Buckley. Listed at 5 ft 9 in (175 m), 145 lb, Buckley batted and threw right-handed. Buckley started to play softball at age 12 for a Catholic Youth Organization team in her hometown.
As a teenager, she played with the Quincy Raiderettes, an amateur fastpitch softball team
At the time she was scouted by Mary Pratt, a former AAGPBL pitcher, who invited her and other girls to a tryout in a gym at Everett, Massachusetts. I had never throw a baseball in my life, she explained in an interview.
I played softball in Boston. Number sliding, no stealing.
A team sport not dominated by a pitcher.
C.Y.O. (at) Boston Parks. I was a natural. Buckley was admitted in the league and went to spring training in West Baden, Indiana. She opened the 1950 season with the Kenosha Comets, playing for them two years before joining the Rockford Peaches (1952).
She usually was placed fifth in the batting order but could also fill in at cleanup spot if needed.
I played at centerfield, right a little. I batted fifth, couldn"t handle the fourth place pressure, she recalled.
In her rookie year, Buckley batted a.207 average with 22 runs batted in and a slugging of.297 in 71 games, helping Kenosha reach the playoffs after losing the first round a year before. But the Comets once more failed to advance to the finals.
She went 4-for-10 (400) with a triple, one run and one Reserve Bank of India in a lost cause.
Her most productive season came with the Peaches in 1952, when she posted career numbers in games played (96) home runs (4), hits (62), doubles and Reserve Bank of India (35), to have a shot at getting back into the playoffs. She went 4-for-4 with four Reserve Bank of India against the Fort Wayne Daisies in the third and decisive game of the first round, to back up a six-hit, 6–0 shutout by Migdalia Pérez and secure a spot in the best-of-five final series. Following her baseball career, Buckley moved to Redwood City, California, where she played for the local softball team and travelled the great state.
In 1954 her whole family moved to Redwood City to see her playing on the team
She then attended San Francisco State College and earned a degree in 1954. She taugh at elementary and junior high school for the next 29 years and retired in 1995.
At age 84, Jean Buckley currently lives in Fortuna, California and usually attends AAGPBL Players Association reunions. The association was largely responsible for the opening of Women in Baseball, a permanent display based at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, which was unveiled in 1988 to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.