The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-03)

C8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022

Obituaries

BY HARRISON SMITH

Joan Joyce, one of America’s
greatest female athletes, who set
records in basketball and golf but
was best known as a hard-throw-
ing softball pitcher, hurling 150
no-hitters and 50 perfect games
in addition to striking out retired
ballplayers Ted Williams and
Hank Aaron at exhibitions, died
March 26 at 81.
Her death was announced by
Florida Atlantic University,
where she was the head softball
coach and previously led the
women’s golf team. The school
did not say where or how she
died, but she had been away from
the softball team this spring after
undergoing a medical procedure.
Ms. Joyce was one of the most
intimidating players in softball
history, amassing a career pitch-
ing record of 753 wins and 42
losses over more than two dec-
ades, with a lifetime earned-run
average of 0.09. Standing about
5-foot-10, she was also a ferocious
hitter, with a lifetime batting av-
erage of .324, according to FAU.
Instead of a traditional wind-
mill pitching style, she used a
slingshot delivery, with her right
hand starting high behind her
back and swinging forward past
her hips. A study in the mid-1960s
found that she threw nearly 120
miles per hour, although Ms.
Joyce later told the Hartford Cou-
rant her pitches were never timed
with a speed gun and “were prob-
ably in the 70s” — fast enough to
confound most batters, especially
since she typically played on a
mound that was 40 feet from
home plate, rather than the Major
League Baseball distance of 60
feet 6 inches.
When she threw back-to-back
shutouts to lead the Raybestos
Brakettes to a women’s softball
championship in 1973, Sports Il-
lustrated declared that she “dom-
inates her sport as no athlete,
male or female, has ever dominat-
ed a sport.” John Bruno, the gen-
eral manager of the San Jose
Sunbirds, later joked that he and
his club would “have to spike her
Coke or something” if they faced
Ms. Joyce and her pro team, the
Connecticut Falcons, in a seven-
game playoff series.
Ms. Joyce was inducted into
the National Softball Hall of Fame
in 1983, the International Wom-
en’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1989
and the International Softball

Federation Hall of Fame in 1999.

Yet softball was far from her only

sport: She also competed on the

Ladies Professional Golf Associa-

tion (LPGA) tour for nearly two

decades, played on and coached

the Connecticut Clippers volley-

ball team and played basketball

for the U.S. women’s national

team, becoming a three-time

Amateur Athletic Union all-

American and scoring a record 67

points in a tournament game.

According to Sports Illustrated,

she also won the Connecticut

state bowling title just three

weeks after taking up the sport.

Sportswriters compared her to

Babe Didrikson Zaharias, an all-

American basketball player and

track and field star who won gold

medals at the 1932 Olympics,

played pro golf and pitched at

Major League Baseball exhibition

games. Like Zaharias, Ms. Joyce

reveled in pitching to current and

former ballplayers — notably Wil-

liams, one of the finest hitters in

baseball history. She was 20 when

she first struck him out in August

1961, drawing cheers from an

overflow crowd of some 17,000

people who filled the bleachers

and spilled out onto the field at

her hometown stadium in Water-

bury, Conn.

Williams, the “Splendid Splin-

ter,” was 42 and a year into retire-

ment when he was enlisted to

appear at the exhibition, a fund-

raiser for children with cancer.

He agreed to participate only

after taking a few pitches in ad-

vance from Ms. Joyce, who later

said that she held back during

their first meeting because of a

sore arm. He got a hit but was

impressed.

“How’d you throw that curve-

ball?” he asked, prompting Ms.

Joyce to demonstrate her tech-

nique.

“He looks at me and says, ‘Girls

shouldn’t know that.’ I looked at

him and I said, ‘This girl does

know that,’ ” she told ESPN in

2011.

She said Williams fouled off

three pitches during the exhibi-

tion and threw his bat down in

frustration before striking out,

misjudging her drop ball. “You

know, I had really mixed emo-

tions about it,” she recalled. “I

thought, ‘Maybe I should have let

him hit a couple — just for the

show.’ But I was too competitive.

I’ve always said that if my mother

put a bat in her hands and came

up to hit, I’d have to strike her out,

too.”

When Williams faced Ms. Joyce

a second time, at a fundraiser in

1966, he struck out once again.

“Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron fared

no better at an exhibition against

her in 1978, when he was 44 and

two years out of the big leagues.

“She was something else,” he

said at the time. “That softball

comes at you and rises up around

your head by the time you swing

at it.”

Joan Mary Joyce was born in

Waterbury on Aug. 18, 1940. Her

parents were factory workers,

and her father played softball and

encouraged his children to do the

same. She practiced throwing at

home by hurling balls into a

makeshift backstop, created by

stringing chicken wire between

two trees.

When she was about 12, she

successfully tried out for her

brother’s Little League team as a

catcher. “The first game that we

played, I hit a triple and a single

and did very well — and they

decided that girls couldn’t play on

the team after that,” she told

ESPN.

Ms. Joyce launched her playing

career in the Amateur Softball

Association (ASA) in 1956, joining

the Brakettes, a Stratford, Conn.,

club sponsored by a brake parts

company. She remained with the

team for almost all of her amateur

career, aside from a few years

playing with the rival Lionettes of

Orange, Calif., while studying at

Chapman College (now a univer-

sity). She retired after the 1975

season, having won 12 national

championships and eight MVP

awards, and was named to the

ASA all-American team 18

straight years.

In 1976 she partnered with a

group including tennis star Billie

Jean King, golfer Jane Blalock

and sports entrepreneur Dennis

Murphy to found the Internation-

al Women’s Professional Softball

Association. She was a player-

manager and part owner of the

Connecticut Falcons, but the

league folded after the 1979 sea-

son, shortly after she stopped

playing to focus on golf.

Encouraged by her friend Blal-

ock, she developed a powerful

golf drive, launching the ball

some 275 yards. She set a record

in 1982, when she needed only 17

putts to finish a round, and fin-

ished as high as sixth at LPGA

tournaments, where she said she

was often approached by pitchers

and coaches asking for softball

advice.

“Before you know it, I’ll be out

there showing them,” she told the

Associated Press in 1982. “They

do the throwing, I do the teach-

ing.”

Ms. Joyce settled into a long

career as a coach, joining FAU in

1994 and building the school’s

softball program from scratch.

Her teams won 1,002 games and

lost 674, winning 12 conference

titles and making it to 11 NCAA

tournaments. She was named

conference coach of the year eight

times and also coached the golf

team from 1996 to 2014.

Survivors include a sister and

brother.

“I’ve done the things I wanted

to do ... and I didn’t let anyone

stop me,” Ms. Joyce said, accord-

ing to the Connecticut Women’s

Hall of Fame, which inducted her

in 2007. “One thing, though —

when I grew up my biggest idol

was Mickey Mantle. Now kids can

also look to the women who play.”

JOAN JOYCE, 81

Softball great had l ong, successful career as a multisport athlete and coach

ERIC ESPADA/FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Joan Joyce, the longtime softball coach at Florida Atlantic University, in 2017. Ms. Joyce, who also was the school’s golf coach for nearly

20 years, was an admired softball player who had a career pitching record of 753 wins and 42 losses over more than two decades.

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