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Saturday, February 08, 2003

By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Mildred Martin Allen, who organized, played and coached in a long-running softball league for hundreds of black women and girls in the area, died Wednesday at Mercy Hospital.

Mrs. Allen, of Polish Hill, suffered the latest in a series of strokes three weeks ago and died from it at age 79.

She was a strong and commanding presence with two favorite passions in life: athletics and children. Raised in the middle Hill District, she was a familiar presence on baseball diamonds and volleyball courts both while attending Fifth Avenue High School and long after she graduated in 1941.

Her hub of activity was the Ammon Recreation Center on Bedford Avenue. Mrs. Allen and others there helped develop the Tri-Boro Softball League, which she served as commissioner during much of its existence in 1960-76.

The slow-pitch league pitted various teams from the Hill District, East Liberty, North Side and other city neighborhoods against one another and teams from suburbs such as Duquesne and McKeesport.

Mrs. Allen played second base at the outset, when already in her late 30s, for a middle Hill team called the Satellites that played home games at the Ammon field and was repeatedly among the league's top finishers. The team attracted plenty of spectators, who didn't mind wagering dollar bills on the outcomes of games, or even of individual at-bats.

Mrs. Allen also coached the team for many years, with her three daughters who inherited her athletic genes among the 25-woman roster. She was no-nonsense around the field, with strict rules that team members who wanted to play had better take practice seriously.

"She was very outspoken," one daughter, Beatrice M. Harper of Verona, said with a laugh. "You did what she said, and if you didn't, you'd get cussed out for it."

Mrs. Allen showed her softer side when surrounding herself with many children, including her nine grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. She was also talented in ceramics and produced numerous vases, bowls, platters, figurines, nativity scenes and more objects that sit today in the homes of relatives and friends.

She is also survived by her husband, Thomas C. Allen of Polish Hill; two other daughters, Deborah L. Comans of Arlington Heights and Carrie E. Reed Jackson of Penn Hills; and two sisters, Beatrice Mahaffey of the Upper Hill and Thelma Martin of Silver Spring, Md.

Funeral arrangements by Samuel J. Jones Funeral Home, Hill District, are private.