Noella Leduc was born on River Street in Graniteville on December 23, 1933. Her house on River Street is directly across from the Graniteville ball field. It was at this ball field where Noella first started playing baseball at the age of five.
By James VanBever (April 2020)
She continued to play baseball until she entered high school, but once in high school she was forced to play softball because girls were not allowed to play baseball. However, Noella was a baseball player and not a softball player and continued to play sandlot baseball with boys on the Graniteville field.
In 1951, Noella was spotted by Rita Briggs, a catcher for the All-American Girls Professional League. Rita recommended that Leduc attend the league’s spring training camp in Peoria, Ill. It was Rita Briggs who gave Noella the nickname “Pinky”. “Pinky” did attend spring training and was assigned to the Peoria Redwings. Noella played very little for Peoria, but it did give her an opportunity to play the game she loved, and she planned on playing the following season.
The following season Noella joined the as a pitcher and compiled a 3-4 record with a respectable 3.11 earned run average in 19 pitching appearances. During the ’52 season she pitched and won a 14-inning complete game while also scoring the winning run. Leduc remained and pitched for the franchise in ’53 when it relocated to Muskegon and was now called the Muskegon Belles.
During the 1954 season which was Noella’s (she was now playing for the Fort Wayne Daisies) final year of professional baseball; she went 9-10 but was tied for fourth in games pitched. “Pinky” was also the winning picture in the All-American Girls Professional League all-star game. This would be the league’s final season.
Following her baseball career, Noella Leduc returned to Graniteville and coached baseball for girls through the St. Catherine’s Youth Organization. Noella’s daughter, Betsy Alverson stated that her mother was “hesitant on becoming a coach but grew to love it because it gave her the chance to share her passion with the game she loved to young players. Betsy also said that her mother did not care about the record of her team, but only that they had fun and in Noella’ s eyes that was the most important thing.
Noella would later marry and move to New Jersey where she would spend most of her adult life. In 1988, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York added a permanent display entitled “Women in Baseball”. The display includes the name of Noella “Pinky’” Leduc from Graniteville, Massachusetts.
Sadly, Noella passed away in August of 2014. But in May of 2016 the Westford Baseball & Softball League unveiled her name engraved into the stone Coaches Bench at its opening day ceremony. The bench is very near the Geoffrey D. Hall field where the girl from River Street began playing the game she loved. (James Van Bever, 2020)