Baseball wasn't her life. But it set up her life.

Dorothy Kovalchick-Roark, 78, a native of Armstrong County, spent eight years playing men's baseball in the 1940s.

She played for a barnstorming team from Sagamore, managed by her father, John Kovalchick, and spent a year with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Daisies of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, the women's circuit that inspired the movie "A League Of Their Own."

"I was bored with it," she admitted. "The women's league was new and they weren't playing real baseball then. They were pitching underhand and it was a combination of baseball and softball.

"I knew the league would eventually play true baseball, but I was already there. I didn't want to wait."

So she resumed her career as a first baseman with Sagamore. Kovalchick-Roark played from 1940-48, missed an opportunity to become the first woman to ever play professional baseball and retired at age 22.

"Baseball gave me the confidence and the knowledge to succeed in a man's world," Kovalchick-Roark said. "I went on to do a lot of things."

She worked as a real estate agent for 22 years, was an accountant for four firms, had her own accounting firm, was a secretary and bookkeeper for an architect and worked for her father in the grocery and wholesale meat business.

Now she's written "Uncertain Destiny," a book detailing her career as a barnstorming baseball player in 64 towns in this region, including Butler.

"I was 14 when my dad asked me to help out during a practice and shag fly balls in the outfield," Kovalchick-Roark said. "I was a natural baseball player. The game was just inside of me. Nobody ever taught me to play.

"Dad saw how good I was and asked me to play on the team."

Her father and three brothers also played. Kovalchick-Roark originally played right field, but disliked it.

"I wanted to play first base because there was a lot of action there," she said. "Dad was against it, but I was a drawing card when we'd travel around because people wanted to see this girl play baseball.

"I threatened to quit. That was my bargaining tool. Dad put me at first and I was pretty good there."

The team was pretty good, too. Sagamore won 75 percent of its games and played doubleheaders every Saturday and Sunday from April through early November.

Eight members of the team went on to pro baseball and four - Alex Kvasnak, Billy Hunter, Mike Goliat and Steve Souchock - played in the major leagues.

The team played against the Olsons at Yankee Field in Butler Sept. 7, 1945. The game was tied 7-7 after five innings and was called because of darkness.

Kovalchick-Roark was hitless in two at bats and played the entire game with a dislocated knee. She made a running catch in foul territory down the first base line that elicited a big ovation from the crowd.

"Butler was very complimentary to me," she said. "They called my play spectacular in the newspaper.

"There was never any admission charge for those (barnstorming) games. We'd make money by passing the hat and splitting the take with the other team. Nobody objected to my playing because I attracted more fans and that meant more money.

"Nobody wanted to lose to us, though. Nobody took it easy on me. Losing to a team with a girl on it - you'd take a horrible ribbing," she added.

Kovalchick-Roark played with numerous leg, ankle and knee injuries. She was once beaned in the head by a pitch and knocked unconscious - by a team that was taking it easy on her."The catcher kept telling me what pitch was coming," she said. "I guess he felt sorry for me, but I was having none of that. I stepped out of the box, told him to knock it off, stepped back in and was promptly hit in the head."I was just coming to when I heard Dad say he'd have to get a pinch-runner. I got to my feet, told him I was no quitter and staggered to first base."Despite standing just 5-feet-2 and weighing 120 pounds, Kovalchick-Roark stood out on the diamond. She was allergic to wool and could not wear her team's uniform."I wore either shorts or a blouse similar to what women tennis players wear today," she said.Though she never batted higher than .240, she was adept enough with the bat and glove to become one of 74 players at a Pittsburgh Pirates tryout camp in Johnstown."I used to hit a lot of Texas Leaguers - short fly balls that would fall in - but I couldn't hit the ball far, so outfielders began playing way shallow and robbing me of those hits," she said."My dad turned me into a bunter. I practiced the art for hours and got so good at it that I could bunt the ball in any direction at any time. It always confused the defense."I pinch-hit with the bases loaded in the last inning one game and bunted home the winning run," she added.While the Pirates never offered her a contract, they did set Kovalchick-Roark up with a contract offer from Olean, N.Y., an independent team in the Class D minor leagues.The stipulation was her mother had to join her as a chaperone."They were worried about a woman being on a men's team unattended," Kovalchick-Roark said. "My mother and I had to be a package or it was no deal."I wanted to go. My dad wanted me to go. My mother stood firm. She feared her only daughter would get killed playing professional baseball."Kovalchick-Roark kept the contract as a souvenir. But she missed out on becoming the first woman to ever play pro ball.And what did other women of that era think of Kovalchick-Roark's baseball career?"They thought it would ruin my life," she said. "Other women would tell me I'd never get married, never have children. I wound up doing both."But I was a hero to little girls. They'd tell me they hoped to grow up just like me. That alone made it worth it to me."The book Uncertain Destiny is available by calling Kovalchick-Roark at 318-323-8756 or by logging on to www.uncertaindestiny.com