Joan Joyce died on March 26, 2022.
…the greatest female softball player ever: a 753-42 win-loss record, 150 no-hitters and 50 perfect games, a record 42 wins in a season (including 38 shutouts), a lifetime earned run average of 0.09, and a batting average of .324.
…19 years on the LPGA tour, a sensational run in basketball as a member of the U.S. national team (including setting a single-game scoring record in 1964 with 67 points), a volleyball stint as a player and coach for the Connecticut Clippers.
But she was tops at everything — volleyball, basketball, bowling, shooting pool, ping-pong, cards — it didn’t make any difference. She’d always beat you.”
In 2 exhibitions Joyce pitched to Ted Williams. Williams never got a hit.
The balls came whipping in at a speed Williams wasn’t prepared for. Joyce says her pitches, from some 40 feet away, were in the 70-mph range — and a test later conducted at the University of Southern California calculated her pitch speed at the baseball equivalent of 119 mph.
“I had him up there for 10 to 15 minutes, and he fouled off three pitches,” she said. “And finally, he threw the bat down and said, ‘I can’t hit this.’ I gave him some rise balls, but they were out of the zone and I knew he wouldn’t swing at those ’cause his eyes were so good. Then, I went to my drop ball.”
He swung — and missed — repeatedly.
“You know, I had really mixed emotions about it,” she said. “I thought, ‘Maybe I should have let him hit a couple — just for the show.’ But I was too competitive. I’ve always said that if my mother put a bat in her hands and came up to hit, I’d have to strike her out, too.”
Years later, Joyce met a man who fished with Williams in the Florida Keys. The man said he had once asked Williams to name the toughest pitcher he ever faced. “And he said, you won’t believe this, but it was a girl.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RIP Joan Joyce
Was she pitching soft balls or regulation baseballs to Williams? Either way though, that’s amazing. And her recored is unreal. 50 perfect games, an era of .09(that’s impossible isn’t it?) and a .342 batting average!
Should I make a swimming joke…nah.
God Speed Joan, I’ll bet her kids are solids.
Back when Women were women!
The era is the stat that stood out to me most.
And it’s ironic—ERA; earned run average/equal rights amendment.
Not trying to make a political statement, was just an observation.
For the record, if women supported women’s sports like men support men’s sports, then they would get equal pay. But no one, for the most part, pays attention to women’s sports. Women want to watch men.
Another great athlete who didn’t take a knee during our national anthem.
I noticed on her jersey the sponsor was Raybestos – the nation’s largest brake shoe manufacturer at the time, making the brake shoes of out of (you guessed it) asbestos…
Joan Joyce Tribute video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc9wNO_9dOc
” volleyball, basketball, bowling, shooting pool, ping-pong, cards”
Great story. RIP Joan. I’m no athlete, never played cards, she would have smoked me easily. However, I would have liked the opportunity to challenge her to a 9 ball race to 9.
I couldn’t hear her obit over the cheering the media was doing over some dude on a woman’s swim team.
She’s nothing compared to the most dominant professional athlete in world history – Joey Chestnutt! Let’s see her eat 75 hot dogs in ten minutes LOL! (Troll haha)
Nice story. Amazing stats.
Fur — It’s probably more accurate to say that men want to watch men and women want to spend time with their men — even if it’s just to serve the beer or make the game party food.
I’ve never been a team sports watcher and I thank God Geoff C. isn’t married to tee vee sports (though he’d watch golf every weekend if I wasn’t around).
One of these years during the annual 4th of July gluttonous hot dog eating contest I want to see joey Chestnut go full Lardass or Mr. Creosote and let loose with biggest barfarama (and the Hershey squirts as well) ever witnessed on live TV. And once it starts all the gluttons would simultaneously puke all over each other.
This is where we decide which demon to pay. Because we refuse to extirpate our neighbors, who worship demons.
Joyce is the current record-holder of the fewest-putts-in-one-round on the LPGA Tour.
When they defrost Ted Williams’ frozen head, Caitlin Jenner better be miles away.
Most impressive lady.
Her obit was the only mention of her during Women’s month. That’s odd, she’s amazing. Did anybody hear anything about Vivian Thomas during Black History month? I’ll bet not. Mr. Vivian Thomas was a black, high school educated janitor who developed a heart surgical method to correct a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. He saved my brother’s life. Google Thomas, it’s an amazing story but nobody mentions him during Black History month.