NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla., July 24 (UPI) -- Professional baseball player Mildred "Millie" Deegan, who played second base for a team featured in the movie, "A League of Their Own," has died at her home in New Port Richey. She was 82.
She had been writing an autobiography but had to stop when she was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. Her family said once the movie came out, she told enough stories so they knew all about her career.
Deegan played for the Rockford Peaches in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from 1943, when it was founded, until 1952, two years before it folded.
Not much was known about the league or the team until the 1992 movie starring Madonna, Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell and Tom Hanks.
"When the movie first came out, I never got off the phone," Deegan told the St. Petersburg Times in an interview in 1992. "To me, it felt like being reincarnated. I felt like grabbing my duffel bag and going off to play."
Although O'Donnell played second base in the movie, the actors didn't represent specific players, said Joan Barker, Deegan's niece.
"I don't think that was supposed to be Aunt Millie," Barker said.
Deegan had told her, however, the movie was largely an accurate depiction of those days. The players actually were required to go to charm school, they wore dresses and former big league stars served as their field managers.
Deegan once worked out with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden, she hit a softball so far, former New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth posed for a picture with her and squeezed her biceps.
