Alta Weiss

{{Infobox baseball biography

| name = Alta Weiss

| image = Alta Weiss.jpg

| position = Pitcher

| birth_date = {{birth date|1890|02|09}}

| birth_place = Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1964|02|12|1890|02|09}}

| death_place = Ragersville, Ohio, U.S.

| bats =

| throws = right

| debutleague =

| debutdate =

| debutyear = {{baseball year|1907}}

| debutteam = Vermilion Independents

| finaldate =

| finalyear = {{baseball year|1922}}

| finalteam = Weiss All Stars

| stat1label =

| stat1value =

| stat2label =

| stat2value =

| stat3label =

| stat3value =

| teams =

Vermilion Independents ({{baseball year|1907}})
Weiss All Stars of Cleveland ({{baseball year|1908}}–{{baseball year|1922}})

}}

Alta Weiss Hisrich (February 9, 1890 – February 12, 1964), born Alta Weiss, was an American minor league baseball pitcher from Ohio who drew large crowds to exhibition games at minor league and major league venues in the US state of Ohio and Kentucky. She was a semiprofessional female baseball player who went on to become a physician.

Early life

Born in 1890 in Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, she was the daughter of Dr. George and Lucinda Zehnder Weiss.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ragersville.org/altaweissnews03.htm|title=You Cant Play Ball In A Skirt: The Alta Weiss Story|publisher=Ragersville Historical Society|date=February 3, 2009|accessdate=September 26, 2009}} When she was five years old the family moved to Ragersville.{{Cite web|last=Eberle|first=Maxine Renner|url=http://www.ragersville.org/weiss04.htm|date=October 20, 2004|title=Ragersville Hall of Fame to induct Alta Weiss as first female semi-pro baseball player|accessdate=September 26, 2009}}Ragersville, in Tuscarawas County, is south-southeast of Sugarcreek, Ohio and east-northeast of Baltic.

Later career

She was the only female to graduate Starling Medical College with the class of 1914.{{Cite book|title=Baseball An Illustrated History|last=Ward|first=Geoffrey C.|author2=Ken Burns|date=13 August 1996|publisher=A.A. Knopf |isbn=0-679-76541-7}}

Weiss married John E. Hisrich in 1926; they separated in 1944."Files for Divorce." Coshocton (OH) Tribune, August 7, 1946, p. 2. She died in 1964 in Ragersville, Ohio, just three days after her 74th birthday."Alta W. Hisrich Dies at Dover." Coshocton (OH) Tribune, February 13, 1964, p. 13.

Honors

A picture-story book for children Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings, by Deborah Hopkinson, with illustrations by Terry Widener, was published in 2003 ({{ISBN|0-689-83300-8}}).{{Cite web|title=Deborah Hopkinson – Girl Wonder |url=http://www.deborahhopkinson.com/picture%20books/girl_wonder.html |last=Hopkinson |first=Deborah |author-link=Deborah Hopkinson |accessdate=September 28, 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100418135111/http://www.deborahhopkinson.com/picture%20books/girl_wonder.html |archivedate=April 18, 2010 }}The book was awarded a Jan Addams honor award for illustration in 2004. See {{Cite web|url=http://home.igc.org/~japa/jacba/previous_winners.html|title=Jane Addams Peace Association – Previous Winners of the Jane Addams Children's Book Awards Listed by Year|accessdate=September 27, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195125/http://home.igc.org/~japa/jacba/previous_winners.html|archive-date=2008-05-16|url-status=dead}} On October 20, 2004, she was inducted into the Ragersville Hall of Fame. Her uniform was sent to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York for exhibition in a Women's baseball exhibit that opened in 2005.