Bea Chester

Beatrice Chester

• Bats Right, Throws Right

• High School Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn)

Biographical Information

Bea Chester played briefly in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She was a back-up third baseman with the South Bend Blue Sox in 1943, hitting .190 in 18 games. In 1944, she played in 11 games for the Rockford Peaches, hitting .214 in 42 at-bats. She then retired from baseball to get married and gave birth to a son in 1948.

She was the daughter of Hilda Chester, who became famous as the number one fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, her father had died when she was a child and as Hilda was quite destitute, she had grown up at the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Hospital. She was a star athlete at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, NY and was also a talented amateur musician, playing the mandolin.

Nothing is known of her whereabouts after baseball. When her mother died, largely forgotten, in 1978, no family could be located and her funeral services had to be paid by a Jewish community association.

Further Reading

• Rob Edelman: "The Enigma of Hilda Chester", The Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Volume 44, Number 2 (Fall 2015), pp. 73-80.