Educator, Ballplayer Known as Visionary Pioneer

RIO GRANDE – “No matter where you grow up, if you have a dream and put your mind to it, you can achieve it.”
That’s the legacy Jane Moffet left, according to her niece, after 42 years as a successful educator and one of 15 players born in New Jersey to join the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAPBGL) in its 12-year history.
Moffet, 87, who died March 16 at Cape Regional Medical Center, was a member of the Kalamazoo Lassies, one of the original teams depicted in the 1992 movie, “A League of Their Own.” 
“She was a pioneer, visionary, and dream maker,” her niece, the Rev. Jacqueline Heitmann, of Muncy, Pa., said about her aunt, who was born in Pitman.
Pitman, whose mottos are “The Small Town with a Big Heart” and “Everybody Likes Pitman,” has about 9,000 residents and is on the National Register of Historic Places for its history as a Methodist summer camp. 
“She grew up in a poor family in Pitman and was the only one in her family to go to college.
“She always wanted young women to know they had options,” she added. “She always wanted her students to know that if they had a dream, they could achieve it,” Heitmann continued.
Moffet was a 1948 graduate of Pitman High School and attended East Stroudsburg University for her undergraduate degree in Health and Physical Education.
In addition, she received her master’s from Rutgers University in Administration and Guidance. Before her retirement in 1994, she spent 42 years as an educator, 23 of which she was principal of Saddle Brook High School from 1971-94.
“I loved to read her yearbooks over the years and see what the students wrote,” her niece said. “I remember in the 1960s and 1970s when drugs were big. She found the pot in the brownies before they came out of the oven! The students thought she had eyes in the back of her head.”
At 5-feet 10-inches tall, Moffet towered over her students as she wore high heels, boosting her to stand over six-feet tall.
“You didn’t mess with Miss Moffet,” her niece said chuckling at the memories. “She lived by the rules, but the students respected her fair treatment of everyone.”
Before the 1992 movie, Heitmann said Moffet’s students were unaware of their administrator’s role in women’s baseball.
In 1950, she gained experience on two teams, played 21 games, mostly as a catcher who hit .161 with 11 runs and nine RBIs (runs batted in).
In 1951, she was promoted to the Kalamazoo Lassies and played 94 of 100 games and finished her rookie season with a .205 average (64 for 312), including 11 doubles, one triple, 23 stolen bases, driving in 23 runs while scoring 35 times.
She was one of 600 women to play in the league that was active from 1943-54.
“A League of Their Own,” tells a fictionalized account of the Rockford Peaches, another of the original teams in the league.
“Her students never knew she was a baseball player,” Heitmann said, “until the movie came out and they started locating the ballplayers.”
Heitmann recalled that her aunt’s favored sports in the 1940s were actually basketball and field hockey.
Moffet went along with a friend, who wanted to try out for the women’s baseball team but didn’t want to go alone.
“She was helping out chasing balls, and one of the organizers asked her where her glove was and she said she didn’t have one,” Heitmann said. “They gave her a bat and glove, and she ended up being chosen for the team, not her roommate.”
Moffet was a member of the Women’s Baseball Center in Rockford, Ill., across from Beyer Stadium, home of the Rockford Peaches.
In 1988, she was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and the East Stroudsburg Hall of Fame in 1990.
“My aunt brought her administrative and organizational skills and was very active in the league for years,” her niece noted.
She toured the country doing personal appearances for the league and Heitmann said she “loved” receiving fan mail, meeting fans, signing baseballs and baseball cards, and other items.
She also loved to regale listeners with stories about life in the league, attending Helena Rubenstein’s evening charm school classes, and life on the road.
“She believed in empowerment through education, which inspired her passion for the vision committee of the AAGPBL,” Heitmann said. “She was instrumental in the creation of the ‘Woman at Bat’ statue, which stands in the Garden of Legends at Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Fame.”
When Moffet turned 80, her niece said she wanted to honor her aunt by “paying it forward,” something her aunt did her entire life.
A plaque was placed at her hometown’s baseball field, and Moffet threw out the first pitch at a baseball game.
At 11 a.m. opening day ceremonies, April 7, a moment of silence will be held after which a 12-year-old female softball player will lay a wreath at her plaque.
“Pitman is a pretty small town,” said Tony Tartaglia, president of the Pitman Little League. “Last year, during our Fourth of July parade, we had a float for Jane. It was done up like the movie, ‘League of Their Own.’ One of the girls on the float will be laying the wreath at her plaque in Alycon Park.
“Pitman has had some famous people, and Jane is high on the list,” Tartaglia added. “She’s a proud daughter of Pitman.”
Despite its small size, about 220 children play in the borough’s league, about one-third girls now playing softball, according to the league president.
Over the years, however, he said girls had played baseball in the league if they desired.
“For women to play baseball at that time (the 1940s), it was pretty much a big deal,” Tartaglia said.
The name of the AAGPBL was something of a misnomer, however, as the AAGPBL never played regulation baseball. In the first season, the league played a game that was a hybrid of baseball and softball.
The ball was larger, and the pitcher’s mound was closer to home plate than in baseball, pitchers threw underhand windmill as in softball, and the distance between bases was longer than in softball but shorter than in baseball.
By the final season in 1954, the ball was regulation baseball size, the mound was nearly the same distance as in baseball, but the base paths were still shorter than in regulation baseball.
After Moffet retired, her niece said she lived in the Smoky Mountains region for about three years before moving to Cape May in 2004. Growing up in the South Jersey area, she had spent time in Wildwood Crest when she was younger.
She continued to be active in her local community by serving on the board of directors at Cape May Legacy. As health issues arose, she wanted to “get back to her roots,” Heitmann said.
“She was never intimidated by anyone,” Heitmann noted. “She ran the bases with determination and commitment and hit the grand slam home run in life.”
Funeral services were held April 2 in Cape May and interment followed at Ocean County Memorial Park, Toms River. Donations in her memory can be made to the International Women’s Baseball Center, PO Box 1253, Cathedral City, CA 92235.
To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.