Background
Born in 1890 in Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, she was the daughter of Doctor George and Lucinda Zehnder Weiss.
Born in 1890 in Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, she was the daughter of Doctor George and Lucinda Zehnder Weiss.
She was an early semiprofessional female baseball player who went on to become a physician. When she was five years old the family moved to Ragersville. Weiss began to pitch for boys" baseball teams at the age of 14.
At 17, she joined a men"s semiprofessional team, the nearby Vermilion Independents.
1200 people turned out to see her make her debut: she gave up only four hits and a single run in five innings. Soon, special trains were being run out from Cleveland, Ohio whenever she pitched.
When she appeared in the Cleveland Naps" League Park, more than 3,000 people paid their way in to see her. "I found that you can"t play ball in skirts, I tried.
I wore a skirt over my bloomers – and nearly broke my neck.
Finally I was forced to discard it, and now I always wear bloomers.- but made so wide that the fullness gives a skirtlike effect", she told reporters. Her baseball skills were good enough to put her through medical school at the Starling Medical College, where she was the only female to graduate with the class of 1914. Even after she began to practice as a physician in Norwalk, she continued to play off and on into the 1920s.
Weiss died in 1964 in Ragersville, Ohio, just three days after her 74th birthday.