Rudolph, 1946 (Courtesy State Journal-Register)
Eleanor “Rudy” Rudolph (1928-2022), the daughter of Giuseppe and Chiara Rodolfi of Springfield’s Devereux Heights neighborhood, played one season for Springfield’s Madison Furniture Co. softball team and then joined the famed Caterpillar Dieselettes of Peoria.
Rudolph, a catcher and sometime shortstop, batted .285 in 19 years with the Dieselettes and its successor team, the Pekin Lettes. She was the team’s co-captain from 1951 to 1962 and was named the most valuable player in the West Central Regional Tournament in 1961. Rudolph also helped coach the Illinois Central College women’s softball team when it won the 1982 National Junior Championship.
Rudolph is a member of the Illinois Softball Hall of Fame, the Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame (inducted into both in 1974), along with the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame (1990) and the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame (2015). She worked for Caterpillar for 30 years and retired at the age of 48.
She is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Springfield.
Contributor: Thanks to Anna Sielaff, local history librarian at Lincoln Library’s Sangamon Valley Collection.
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