Pepper Paire Davis died on February 5, 2013, in Los Angeles at age 88, remembered as a pioneer of women's professional baseball.
LaVonne "Pepper" Paire Davis died on February 5, 2013, at the age of 88 in the Los Angeles area, where she had lived for most of her life. Her passing was widely covered by major outlets including the Los Angeles Times, which recognized her as one of the last surviving pioneers of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
By the time of her death, Paire Davis had become a celebrated ambassador for women's baseball history, having spent decades after her playing career advocating for recognition of the AAGPBL's legacy. She served as a technical consultant on the 1992 film A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall, which dramatized the league's story and introduced it to a new generation. Actress Rosie O'Donnell's character was reportedly partly inspired by Paire's tough, wisecracking persona.
In her later years, she published her autobiography, Dirt in the Skirt (2009), chronicling her experiences and preserving firsthand testimony of a unique chapter in American sports and women's history.
Her death marked the loss of one of the last living links to the AAGPBL's founding generation, but her legacy endures through the league's induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame's "Women in Baseball" permanent exhibit in Cooperstown, which she helped inspire and promote throughout her life.