1944 Lind and Pomeroy Florists World Softball Champions

Just 11 years after a softball championship tournament had been established, a team of Portland-area fast-pitch softball all-stars made headlines for Oregon’s women by winning the championship game.
Sponsored by Erv Lind and Seley Pomeroy Florists, the team won all five of its tournament games by shutout and beat the Arizona Ramblers in the final in Cleveland, Ohio. The tournament was referred to as the World Championship prior to 1969.

The title came a year after the team reached the championship tournament for the first time, powered by a standout battery of pitcher Betty Evans Grayson, who graduated from Franklin High in the summer of ’44, and catcher Dorothy “Dotty” Moore, who graduated from Willamette University in 1941.

Other players on the team included Norma Eby, Pat Carson, Nira Deputy, Nadine Hoard, Irens Maas, Jerry Burroughs and Martha Howell. Prior to the tournament, the team added three all-stars from the Seattle area: Alyce Johnson, Vivian Bonner and Kay Gianini.

The Lind and Pomeroy Florists ’44 championship came three years into a stretch of five titles in six years for the Jax Maids of New Orleans, and put the team at the highest level of national competition with team such as the Raybestos Brakettes of Stratford, Conn., Fresno Rockets, Orange County, Calif., Lionettes and the Ramblers.

The team’s success, during an era when women’s sports were beginning to blossom, helped bring the national tournament to Portland in 1948, ’49, ’55 and ’61.

The team was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.