Mary Jane Bramman Cooper
Hall of Fame Inductees
Softball (fastpitch) (2008)
Cy Greenlaw Old-Times Salute Award
(2022)
Mary Jane Bramman Cooper really was a girl in a boy’s world on the sandlots of Iowa. As a child aged 9-15, she honed her skills in sandlot hardball games playing against the best boys on the block.
To hear Mary Jane tell it, “My baseball days began on the sandlot. In the late 40’s I was fortunate to have a friend ask if I wanted to play ball with them. Our team was made up of working women and housewives….we were a motley crew! Annie Kauzlarich was a homemaker who pitched two games back-to-back with a no-hitter in regional play. She was short and stout and couldn’t run so she had to hit a triple to get on base- but she sure could pitch!”
“Mainly, I want to say how it was no comparison to the opportunities young girls have today. Once when we played in a tourney in Bremerton and the game went late, we had to drive for hours to get home because the Narrows Bridge was down. That made for a late night with work in the am. Nowadays I thoroughly enjoy watching the girls play on television. How different things are!”
From 1942-1951, Cooper played fastpitch for teams in Iowa, Texas and Western Washington. Between the years of 1948-1951 she played in four Washington State Tournaments, three regional tournaments and several invitational tournaments, representing the Sumner Maids-Sumner Athletic Club in 1948 and 1949, the Tacoma Fuelerettes in 1950 and Pacific Mutual Fuels in 1951. Her team-high batting average always landed somewhere between .350-.400, and she helped lead her teams to three state tournament championships playing shortstop and centerfield.
Cooper’s playing career ended in 1952 when she started to raise her family, but she found her way back into the game as a fastpitch coach in the early 1960s. She also received a plaque honoring her as the “Most Loyal Fan” of her grandson’s games, emblematic of her desire and commitment to support the sport any way she can.
Born on May 18, 1923, Cooper is a native of Davenport, Iowa, and graduated from Clinton High School in 1940. She was inducted into the Fastpitch Softball category of the Tacoma-Pierce County Baseball-Softball Oldtimers Association in 2008.