ICON | Alice Marble

Photo of actress Carole Lombard and tennis pro Alice Marble via Historiful.

As a young child, Marble was always interested in sports, especially baseball. She wrote in her memoir that she and her brother Tim attended SF Seals games, going early “so we could play catch in the bleachers before the game.” Thinking Marble was a boy, a player one day asked her to play catch with him. “I kept expecting someone to tell me to leave,” Marble wrote. “Instead, my hero, Lefty O’Doul, asked me to shag flies for him. Joe DiMaggio, beside me in center field, yelled encouragement.” Before long, local newspapers printed stories about the new “Seals mascot,” and a San Francisco Examiner sportswriter dubbed Marble the “Little Queen of Swat.” —Lorri Ungaretti, A Remarkable Life: Alice Marble