#Shortstops: A Baseball Prodigy

Edith Grace Houghton was a baseball prodigy, playing professional baseball from the age of 10 in 1922.

After her playing days were done, she worked as a scout for a major league ball club, trailblazing the way for future women.

Trained by her father, a talented local ballplayer, Houghton loved baseball from a very young age and dazzled older players on Philadelphia’s neighborhood sandlots. In 1922, she tried out for a new women’s semi-pro ballclub, the Philadelphia Bobbies, who planned to barnstorm the area in identical bobbed haircuts. Though only 10 and the youngest on the field, she quickly became their starting shortstop and best player.

Houghton led the club in games against both women’s and men’s teams. A Lancaster, Pa., sportswriter reported, “Little Miss Houghton, 10-year-old phenom, covered the ground at shortstop for the team and made herself a favorite with fans for her splendid field work and at the bat.”

The Bobbies arranged a tour of Japan in 1925, adding two men to catch and pitch, and they attracted a great deal of publicity as they played their way across the U.S. before leaving. Once in Japan, as the host men’s college teams easily defeated the women, the tour unraveled, stranding the players. They were rescued by a generous English-Indian banker who paid for their return home. It was an amazing adventure for Houghton at 13.

While continuing in Philadelphia’s schools, Houghton was a two-time tennis champion and competed in other sports. But she also continued her baseball career, one season in New Jersey and six with arguably the top women’s team of the day, Margaret Nabel's New York Bloomer Girls. She also spent two seasons touring the southern U.S., with the Hollywood Girls.

In the mid-1930s, finding no opportunities for pro baseball, Houghton played with Philadelphia area ballclubs and turned to softball teams, playing and managing the popular New York Roverettes in 1939 and 1940.