Athletes

Jeneane Lesko is a pioneer in women's professional baseball. From 1953-54, she was a pitcher for the Grand Rapids Chicks of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), the subject of the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own." As a left-handed pitcher, she compiled a 10-9 record. After the League folded in 1954, she was chosen to join the Allington All-Stars, a group of 11 elite players from the AAGPBL who barnstormed the United States and Canada for the next three summers playing men's teams from triple A to local town teams while attending Ohio Northern University, where she received her bachelor's degree in science. Upon graduation Lesko spent the next 10 years teaching dependent children at U.S. Air Force bases at schools in Puerto Rico, France and the Philippines, where she also took up flying and the game of golf. Upon returning to the United States, she established a 4 handicap in Grass Valley, Calif., and joined the LPGA. She played on the tour in 1968 and '69. She married in 1969 and has raised three sons. In 1992 she re-joined her former AAGPBL teammates by attending a reunion in South Bend, Ind. Since that time, she has been active in the player's association as the newsletter editor for six years and the AAGPBL Web site coordinator and development liaison. She has served on that board of directors for five years and is the current secretary for the association. Additionally, Lesko has re-connected with today's youth in promoting women's baseball for future generations. She has attended many women's tournaments and given clinics and coached in her current state of residence in Washington and organized women's baseball in that state. She served as vice president and coached Washington Women's Baseball Association and its tournament team, the Washington Stars, from its inception in 2001 through 2004. She took her newly formed team to Tucson, Ariz., where it participated in a National Women's Baseball 24-hour game of baseball, at which she coached and played the entire 24 hours, setting a world record for a continuous baseball game. In 2004 and 2006, she served as a guest coach for the Australian baseball teams visiting the United States and attended the Disney World Tournament in Florida. This winter she was an invited guest to Australia, where she spent two weeks touring the country, visiting women's baseball clubs, giving clinics and telling the AAGPBL story to hundreds of young people all over Australia. She is still in the game and plays first base with the Kirkland Classics, a coed softball team, teaches golf and spends much of her time as liaison for the AAGPBL by responding to hundreds of emails from students and interested people who write in to learn more about the real players and the movie "A League of Their Own."(11/07)