Sask. woman enters Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

A baseball player from Ogema, Saskatchewan is officially a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame after an induction ceremony over the weekend.

Arleene Noga was a player, coach and mentor throughout her life, including her career in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). As a member of the Fort Wayne Daises and the Muskegon Lassies, she was regarded as one of the best players in the league.

While playing for Muskegon, she set a record for fielding percentage by a third baseman en route to a pennant-winning performance in 1947.

Her daughter, Carol Lee Scott, was present for the posthumous induction on her mother’s behalf in St. Mary’s, Ont. on Saturday.

“A good majority of (my mom’s) life was involved with baseball,” Scott told CTV News in February after this year’s class was announced. “She was almost embarrassed by it. But she’d be asked to help the boys out.”

“She was that good,” Scott added.

After her AAGPBL career, Noga returned to Regina, coaching and playing softball for three decades. She led teams to nine provincial championships and five Western Canadian Championships. She also worked as an advisor for the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”

Noga was one of six inductees in this year’s class, which included Toronto Blue Jays icon Jose Bautista, Érik Bédard, Canadian Junior National Team head coach Greg Hamilton, Women’s National Team star Amanda Asay and Gerry Snyder, the Montreal city councillor who played a crucial role in bringing Major League Baseball to Canada.

Arleene Noga was inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 1988, the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Regina Sports Hall of Fame in October of 2004. She died on March 14, 2017 at the age of 93.

She has technically been inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame twice, once as an honorary inductee with all Canadian AAGPBL players in 1998 and individually in 2025.

The grandstand in the Town of Ogema now bears her name.

With files from Donovan Maess and Darrell Romuld