Lizzie Murphy

Mary Elizabeth Murphy Larivee

• Bats unknown, Throws Right

• Born April 13, 1894 in Warren, RI USA
• Died July 27, 1964 in Warren, RI USA

Biographical Information

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Murphy was the most famous female ballplayer of the late 1910s and 1920s and the first woman to play a game with major leaguers in a major league ballpark. She was born in Rhode Island to a mixed Irish and French Canadian family, worked as a spinner in a textile mill as a teenager, and was bilingual. She earned the nickname "The Queen of Baseball".

At a time when very few women played baseball - or most sports for that matter - she built a reputation as an excellent fielding first base player who could also hit a bit. There being no women teams to play on, she played with semi-pro men's teams around New England and eastern Canada and was an important gate attraction, to the point that her team, "Carr's All-Stars", named for Ed Carr, a Boston, MA-based businessman who was its main sponsor, was often billed in advertisements as "Lizzie Murphy's All-Stars". She wore a bespoke uniform with her name embroidered on the jersey front, where the team name would normally be, and also supplemented her income by selling postcards depicting her figure in uniform. She also played on a team called the "Providence All-Stars", based in Providence, RI.

Her most famous game took place at Fenway Park on August 14, 1922, when a team of American League All-Stars played an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox, the game being staged to raise funds for the family of popular 19th Century player Tommy McCarthy. When the game was planned, McCarthy was very ill, and he passed away a couple of weeks before it took place, but the profits raised were given to his widow and daughters. Lizzie started the game at first base and played a couple of innings, going to bat once against pitcher Allen Russell - she grounded out to shortstop - before giving way to Doc Johnston. All other players in the game were major league regulars, even if the biggest names of the day such as Babe Ruth (who was injured) or Ty Cobb (who declined the invitation to play but sent in a donation) were missing.

There are also stories of her playing against major leaguers in exhibitions or against Negro League teams, but no definitive proof of these games has been found. However, it is documented that she would play around 100 games each summer and that she was usually the main gate attraction, even when former major leaguers were involved in some of these games. She retired from the game when she turned 40 and returned to her hometown where she worked in textile mills and on oyster boats. She married one Walter Larivee, also of French Canadian background, in October 1937, but he passed away in 1946 and she never remarried. She shunned publicity after her retirement and refused invitations to make public appearances. She passed away in her hometown at the age of 70 in 1964. The 100th anniversary of her birth in 1994 was celebrated by the Red Sox who held "Lizzie Murphy Day" at Fenway Park and she was also posthumously inducted in the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame that year.

Further Reading

• Bill Nowlin: "Lizzie Murphy: An 'All-Star' at Fenway Park", Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Volume 51, Number 1 (Spring 2022), pp. 16-23.

Related Sites

• Lizzie Murphy at the SABR Bio Project