Lonnie Stark, 88; played baseball, owned company

The Chicago Sun-Times May 2, 2003

Lonnie Stark was in a league of her own.

In a baseball career that spanned a dozen years in the 1940s and '50s, she pitched several no-hitters.

One season, she won 22 games, leading her team, the Chicago Bluebirds, to a National Girls Baseball League championship.

Ms. Stark, 88, died March 7 at her home in Ocala, Fla., where she moved from northwest Indiana after retiring in the late 1980s.

Born Lucille Stark in Berwyn, she attended Hiawatha Elementary School and Morton High School.

She played for the Bluebirds, whose stadium was on 75th Street, and the Parichy Bloomer Girls, named for a window company whose ballpark was at Harrison and Harlem.

The National Girls League was a contemporary of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which inspired the 1992 Tom Hanks-Geena Davis film "A League of Their Own." All of the National's teams were in the Chicago area.

Later in her career with the Bluebirds, she was honored at a "Lonnie Stark Night" at which she was presented a television set.

In 1947, she was featured in a 10-minute movie newsreel about women's baseball, "Woman Speaks." It notes her "fast-breaking curve and backbreaking slow ball" and calls her "one of the league's outstanding pitchers." Her family is passing out DVD versions to friends.

After her career in sports, Ms. Stark worked for Lakeside Laboratory, a film-processing lab in Gary. Later, she owned a company in Gary that manufactured men's and women's gloves.

She resided in Ogden Dunes, Ind., and Miller Beach, Ind., before retiring to Ocala, where she lived in the On Top of the World retirement community. She won prizes in the Senior Olympics and competed in men's and women's billiards events.

"She loved talking about her family, especially her mom and dad, who came over from Germany," said a nephew, Frank Petrovic. "She was kind of a corker. She used to make up her own words in Scrabble."

Survivors include her companion of 50 years, Cele Acord; a sister, Lillian Petrovic, and a brother, Walter.

A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. Saturday at Berwyn United Lutheran Church, 2400 S. Harvey, Berwyn.