Maryland is rich in baseball heritage and one of its strongest histories is amateur baseball. There is the story of “Aunt” Mary Dobkin, a physically handicapped woman living in Baltimore in the 1940s. Dobkin was concerned that juvenile delinquency was destroying her neighborhood. She organized the “Dobkin Dynamiters,” a baseball team comprised of disadvantaged and minority children. A loving but strict coach, she was responsible for several firsts in the coaching industry: the first woman to coach little league in Baltimore, the first coach to integrate a baseball team (1950), and the first to put a girl on an all-boys team (1960).
The story of Aunt Mary traces more than two decades of her providing nearly 35,000 disenfranchised boys and girls the opportunity to escape the streets and play ball. The Amateur Baseball gallery also highlights Maryland’s high school championship baseball teams each year, as well as the local traditions of Johnnies Leonies and Sheriff Fowble.
