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Jean Anna Faut () (born November 17, 1925) was a starting pitcher who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at , 137 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.〔''The Women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: A Biographical Dictionary'' – W. C. Madden. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2005. Format: Paperback, 295 pp. Language: English. ISBN 978-0-7864-3747-4〕 Jean Faut is considered by baseball historians and researchers as the greatest overhand pitcher in AAGPBL history. From 1946 through 1953, Faut set several all-time and single-season records. She compiled a lifetime record of 140–64 with a 1.23 earned run average in 235 pitching appearances, registering the lowest career ERA for any pitcher in the league. Besides hurling two perfect games, her league achievements include pitching two no-hitters, twice winning the Triple Crown and collecting three 20-win seasons. She also led in wins and strikeouts three times, set the league record for single-season winning percentage at .909 (20–2), and led the South Bend Blue Sox to consecutive championships in 1951 and 1952. Faut never had a losing season or an ERA above 1.51, being surpassed only by Helen Nicol for the most career wins (163). A four-time member of the All-Star Team, Faut was named Player of the Year in two out of eight possible seasons. Her baseball career, which spanned eight years, reflects the experiences of many girls who played in the competitive era of overhand pitching in the AAGPBL. But like several other players from the league, she coupled her professional playing career with a more traditional lifestyle as a wife and mother.〔''All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Record Book'' – W. C. Madden. Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2000. Format: Paperback, 294pp. Language: English. ISBN 978-0-7864-3747-4〕〔(Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC – Library Exhibit: The Girls of Summer )〕 ==AAGPBL history== By a new All-American Girls Softball League was formed, playing a hybrid form of softball and baseball that never really became baseball until overhand pitching began in . Women's softball was enormously popular in the early 1940s, and often drew good crowds. In June 1943, ''Time'' magazine estimated there were 40,000 women's softball teams in the U.S., including popular touring clubs such as Barney Ross' Adorables and Slapsie Maxie's Curvaceous Cuties. The new league was conceived by chewing gum magnate and Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley, who decided in 1942 to start a women's professional softball league, concerned that the 1943 major-league season might be canceled because of World War II. The circuit would eventually shift gears and become the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and was dissolved at the end of the season. About 500 girls attended the initial call. Of these, only 280 were invited to the final try-outs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where 60 of them were chosen to become the first women to ever play professional baseball. The 60 players were placed on the rosters of four fifteen-player teams: the Rockford Peaches, the South Bend Blue Sox, the Racine Belles and the Kenosha Comets. In its twelve-year history, the AAGPBL evolved through many stages, which started with baseball rules, including leading off bases. The pitching distance and the base paths were, however, longer than regulation softball. In 1943 the AAGPBL began by using a speeded-up game of fastpitch softball, with a ball 12 inches in circumference. The league introduced an 11½-inch ball in 1944 and 1945, switched to an 11-inch ball in 1946 and 1947, and a 10⅜ inch-ball in 1948. Midway through the 1949 season, a 10-inch ball was employed. In the final season of 1954, the AAGPBL's ball switched to 9¼ inches, the size of a regulation Major League baseball. After four years of fast-pitch motion, the circuit shifted to limited sidearm in 1946, which was modified to full sidearm in 1947, until overhand pitching became effective in 1948. During that time, only five perfect games occurred out of 9,578 opportunities (or once in every 1,916 chances), three of them during the underhand pitching period (1943–47), and two when overhand pitching style was adopted throughout the last seasons (1948–54). Notably, both of these latter games were hurled by Jean Faut.〔 Since the founding of the National League in to , opposing pitchers have had over 409,600 opportunities (204,800 games) to throw perfect games during a regular season, a feat accomplished by only twenty-three players in more than a century of Major League Baseball play. That equates to approximately one perfect game in every 17,809 opportunities, but no Major League pitcher has ever been perfect twice in his professional career, while many of the greatest have never done so even once. The feat is, indeed, one of the rarest of any athletic accomplishment. Some people would argue that it is more difficult to pitch a perfect game in the Major Leagues than it was in the AAGPBL. However, considering the conditions under which the All-American girls played, Faut's two perfect games are all the more remarkable. As mentioned previously, the dimensions of the field they played were smaller and the hitters less powerful and skilled with the bat, while equipment and rules changed continually throughout the existence of the league, often from year to year, sometimes even in midseason.〔〔''Perfect : The Inside Story of Baseball's Sixteen Perfect Games'' – James Buckley, Jr. Publisher: Triumph Books, 2002. Format: Hardcover, 292pp. Language: English. ISBN 978-1-57243-454-7〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jean Faut」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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