Pat Wolf Little League Trailblazer

“I was just one of the guys. I had the same training as every boy on the team. The coach didn’t say, ‘Well, look, because you’re a girl, you don’t have to have sliding practice this morning.’ I had to slide just like the rest of them.” – Pat Wolf Dixson 

Kofman, Nadine. (1974, April 17). Girls in Baseball? It’s Old Hat In Howard, p21. 

Little leaguer married the left fielder

Girls in Baseball? It’s Old Hat In Howard

“This game of baseball isn’t a man’s sport – at least not at Howard. Currently, holding her own on the Howard midget team is third basegirl Pat Wolf, 10.”

That was the lead in a story in the Centre Daily Times 25 years ago, when Pat Wolf, now Mrs. Pat Dixson, played on the Howard team in the Centre-Mifflin Little League.

“I was just one of the guys,” said Mrs. Dixson, daughter of Mrs. Ruth R. Wolf and Richard K. Wolf, both of Howard.

“I had the same training as every boy on the team. The coach didn’t say, “Well, look, because you’re a girl, you don’t have to have sliding practice this morning.” I had to slide just like the rest of them.”

The coach, Leonard Moll, now deceased, commented on Pat Wolf’s playing ability in the 25-year- old Times article: “You should see the way she fields; she covers her territory well and has a good arm.” Though her weakness was hitting, “she socks a nice long ball when she does hit. She can play on my team anytime.”

She was on a team I helped manage; she played third base and she wasn’t bad,” recalls John E. Heverly of Howard, assistant coach at the time.

Pat Wolf play one year, the first year of the team’s existence, as she recalls. Before the second season started, she was told she couldn’t come out for the team again.

I was very disappointed; personally I always thought I was as good as any of the boys,” she said.

“We took it as a rule. We thought boys are boys and girls are girls. We never thought to fight it,” said her mother.

Pat Wolf’s Little League days ended , as did her schooling in the Bald Eagle Area School District, and then, the Howard Little League third basegirl married the Howard Little League Left fielder, Ron Dixson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Dixson of Jacksonville.

The Dixsons, who now live in Rochester, N.Y., have three children, two girls who are not interested in baseball (“one’s too small and the other’s too much of a lady”) and a son who’s eligible this spring to try out for Little League.

“If he can get on a team, I’m going to see if I can go along as a member of the coaching staff,” Mrs. Dixson said.

Howard Girl Ardent Hunter. (1953, November 19). Centre Daily Times, p13.