Growing up in Prichard in the 1930s and ’40s, UM alumna Delores Brumfield wasn’t like the other girls. Instead of making paper dolls and hosting tea parties, the tomboy preferred having clay ball fights and pole-vaulting over the neighbor’s bushes. Better known as “Dolly” or “Dee,” the young athlete quickly fell in love with baseball, and she honed her skills in pickup games at the nearby junior high school. During World War II, while Little League teams began to pop up for the boys, Dolly played baseball with the shipyard workers at Alabama Village and the Prichard Housing Project. Though she was not even a teenager, the men would let her fill in if they needed another player.
Read her story at mobilebaymag.com.