Lucella MacLean

Who was Lucella MacLean?

Lucella MacLean [Ross] was a former utility who played from 1943 through 1944 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She batted and threw right handed.

A native of Lloydminster, MacLean was one of the fifty seven girls from Canada who played in the AAGPBL during its 12 year history. She also was one of the sixty original players in the inaugural season of the league.

MacLean was the fourth of nine children born to Anna and John Angus MacLean. She graduated from Lloydminster High School in 1940. Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, she began skating at the age of four and was soon involved in field hockey and softball. Throughout school she won awards for her sporting excellence at basketball and track and field. Softball belonged to the town and city leagues, where MacLean played from 1935 to 1942. She started to play with the Lloydminster nationals' senior team, who won the Ester Trophy in Saskatoon from 1937 to 1940. In that year, she joined the Saskatoon Pats and helped her team to the Provincial Hunking Trophy in 1941. When MacLean was not playing she worked as a telephone clerk until 1943.

The AAGPBL was introduced in the spring of 1943, featuring young women with both athletic ability and feminine appeal. Hundreds of girls were eager to play in the new league, and 280 were invited to final tryouts at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. Of those, sixty were selected as the first women to play on the first four teams: the Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox. MacLean was located to the Blue Sox, playing for them two season as a backup for catcher Bonnie Baker. She also saw action at first base and right field, appearing in 101 games while hitting a .204 average with 25 runs batted in. In addition, she started the first triple play in AAGPBL history.