First softball hall of famer remained a North Yorker

A star pitcher whose wizardry on the mound won her fans across Canada and the U.S., she was the first person inducted into Canada’s Softball Hall of Fame. For all her travels, North York is the place Marion Fox always called home.

Fox, 73, passed away in Toronto on Jan. 3 due to complications following cancer surgery.

It was as a teenager on her family’s Kingsdale dairy farm near Bayview Ave. and Finch Ave. East that her stellar pitching career began. The youngest of five children, she often played ball with her older brothers, and with the hired help.

Fox would gain renown in the 1950s as a veritable wizard on the pitcher’s mound. She is considered legendary in the softball world for her no-hitters and perfect games, amassing strikeout after strikeout without ever using a glove.

She was discovered in 1950 when, at age 17, she pitched for Agincourt Maplewood Intermediates. Spectators would soon learn that they could count on Fox for an entertaining show.

At the 1951 Ontario finals “Foxy”, as she was nicknamed, insisted on pitching in the key game even though she was wearing a cast on a broken ankle. She struck out seven of the final nine batters as her team won the championship game 3–1.

In 1953 she pitched 30 innings in the World Championships held at the Canadian National Exhibition. It would be the first of 10 consecutive appearances at the worlds.

Statisticians worked out that throughout her career Fox pitched more than 800 games, struck out some 3,000 batters and recorded less than a walk a game. Always modest, Fox preferred to speak about her teammates, and had no time for the numbers.

“I just stood out there and threw that ball,” she was quoted as saying.

She was determined to do it her way. When she threw “that ball” it was without a glove on the other hand.

“She never wore a glove,” says Joy Collict, Fox’s catcher for 10 years and fellow Hall of Famer. “She said it put her off-balance.”

One day while playing at Coxwell Stadium, her coach asked her to try pitching while wearing a glove.

“She did, but after two balls she just threw it away and proceeded to strike the player out,” recalled Collict. “There was no more mention of it after that.”

Fox’s love of the game was undeniable. She once even pitched a few innings in an evening gown.

After going out for dinner, Fox decided to swing by Coxwell Stadium to see how her team was doing, remembers Bette Kalailieff, who sits on the board at Softball Ontario and was good friends with Fox. Her team down by one run, Fox decided to get into the game.

“The next thing you knew she was out on the ball field,” said Kalailieff.

Unlike their American counterparts, who were paid, Canadian players were out there for the sheer love of the sport, and some had day jobs, said Collict.

During the day Fox worked as a bookkeeper for a grocery store. It was a day at work in 1963 that would spell the end of her softball days and almost ended her life.

While engaged in a conversation at the store Fox leaned against a plate glass window. It broke and she fell through the glass.

Her injuries left her clinging to life. In the weeks after the accident Fox would require more than 100 stitches, three operations and numerous blood transfusions. Her injuries were so severe she was given the last rites of the Catholic church.

But Fox recovered and made a comeback in a Richmond Hill league, leading the team to the semifinals at the 1973 women’s championships. She then coached briefly before leaving the game altogether that same year.

While she may have been famous for her strong pitching arm, Fox was just as well known for her big heart among family and friends.

Niece Patricia Murphy fondly recalls the day in 2000 when Fox was to be inducted into Richmond Hill’s softball Hall of Fame. It was the same day that Murphy’s brother was to be ordained as a priest. At first Fox refused to attend her own event, since it would likely mean missing her nephew’s big day. She managed to attend both.

It was only after her passing that Murphy learned that in the 1980s her aunt had welcomed a young family who had been evicted from their apartment into her Patricia Ave. home for several weeks.

Murphy said her aunt is remembered as a woman of integrity — both on and off the field.

“She was a very modest woman,” said Murphy. “She did a lot of great things.”