Addendum: Heading modified from catalog.
This incredibly rare collection of All-American Girls Professional Baseball League jewelry belonged to 4-time All-Star Doris Satterfield. The hard-hitting outfielder from North Carolina was a rookie in 1947 when she made her debut with the Grand Rapids Chicks. Led by deadball-era star Jimmy Rawlings, the Chicks featured AAGPBL legends Jane Stoll, Ruth Richard and Connie Wisniewski. In 1947 the Chicks and the rest of the league held spring training in Cuba, along with the Brooklyn Dodgers who featured Jackie Robinson before his first season as a major league player. Contemporary newspapers reported that the AAGPBL actually drew more spectators to their exhibition games than the Dodgers.
For the 1947 season, the Chicks finished five games behind Muskegon in the standings, but then won the league championship in the 4-team Shaughnessy playoffs. Doris Satterfield went on to have an eight-year career in the AAGPBL and she is 11th on the career list in batting average and 7th in RBI. After baseball, Satterfield opened a restaurant with teammate Connie Wisniewski and later worked as a registered nurse. In the popular 1989 Hollywood blockbuster "A League of Their Own," Satterfield is loosely depicted by Rosie O'Donnell's character with the same first name, Doris Murphy.
These three jewelry pieces belonged to Doris Satterfield and date from the Grand Rapids Chicks’ 1947 championship season. The key piece is the wonderfully ornate lapel broach given to the AAGPBL champions. The pin-back piece has “1947” in a dimensional baseball with two crosses bats and a ribbon heralding “Shaughnessy Winners.” The back has been engraved with “GRAND RAPIDS CHICKS” and “DORIS SATTERFIELD.” Two 10K gold rings, each engraved with “GR CHICKS ’47” complete this incredibly rare AAGPBL championship lot.
Includes letter of provenance from the sister of Doris' late partner.
Note: The Shaughnessy Playoffs is the playoff system invented by Frank Shaughnessy in 1933 that was used in the AAGPBL since it had no divisions.