Dot Wilkinson
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Dot Wilkinson (born October 9, 1921) is a famous former softball and bowling player who is a member of the halls of fame of both sports. The Arizona native, a lifelong Phoenix resident, also played baseball for sometime, practicing with the ladies of baseball of the 1940s women's league that came back to the public light with the film A League of Their Own.
Wilkinson played softball for nineteen years, from 1946 to 1965, helping her team, the Ramblers, to the national title in 1957. She returned to the national finals in 1964, but the Ramblers lost the championship series that year. She was an All-American each of her nineteen seasons as a professional softball player. Among her feats, she batted an average of .455 in 1954, .450 in 1955, and .387 on the Ramblers championship year of 1957.
As a professional bowler, she won the Women's International Bowling Queen's Tournament (a bowling triple crown event) in 1962, and the WIBC singles in 1963.
She was inducted into the softball Hall of Fame in 1970, her first year of eligibility. She was inducted into the bowling Hall of Fame twenty years later, in 1990.
Ms. Wilkinson occasionally attends high school, college and tournament softball games in Arizona, where she and some of her former teammates are honored constantly. The Arizona Republic newspaper chose her at number eight among Arizona's all time greatest athletes in 1999.