Betty Caywood

Betty Caywood
Caywood in 1964
Born
Betty Jean Congour

(1946-09-07)September 7, 1946
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedSeptember 3, 2020(2020-09-03) (aged 73)
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Radio sportscaster
  • Weather presenter
Known forFirst woman to regularly broadcast Major League Baseball games
Spouse
    Frank Caywood
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1951; div. 1957)​
    Jordan Bushman
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1965; died 2020)​
Children4

Betty Caywood Bushman (born Betty Jean Congour; March 10, 1931 – September 3, 2020) was an American sportscaster. She was one of the first female Major League Baseball broadcasters, providing color commentary on radio broadcasts for the Kansas City Athletics in September 1964.[1]

Caywood had previously worked as a weather reporter on a Chicago television station. On September 16, 1964, she was hired by Athletics' owner Charles Finley to provide a female perspective on the games.[2] Caywood provided color commentary while Monte Moore and George Bryson provided the play-by-play.[2] Baseball author Bill James wrote of Caywood in his 1986 Baseball Abstract "Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having a woman announcer but it would help if she was a baseball fan."[3] She did not return to the broadcasts in 1965.

Caywood was born in Chicago grew up in Kansas City, Missouri where she graduated from Westport High School in 1948[1] and graduated from Marymount College in Salina, Kansas. She later earned a master's degree in speech therapy from Northwestern University.[4]

Caywood, then known as Betty Caywood Bushman, returned to the baseball broadcast booth on August 16, 2008, joining the WHB radio broadcast of games for the independent baseball team, the Kansas City T-Bones.[5]

Caywood died on September 3, 2020, in Kansas City, Missouri.[6]

  1. ^ a b "First woman baseball commentator lives in the Plaza". 11 August 2015.
  2. ^ a b Finley Signs Woman As KC Broadcaster. Fresno Bee Republican, September 17, 1964.
  3. ^ James, Bill (1986). The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1986. Ballantine Books. p. 45.
  4. ^ Babe Invades Boyland. Gary Pauley. Fresno Bee Republican, September 29, 1964.
  5. ^ "Kansas City Athletics to Reunite at CommunityAmerica Ballpark". Archived from the original on October 2, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
  6. ^ Sandomir, Richard (September 22, 2020). "Betty Bushman, an Early Female Baseball Voice, Dies at 89". The New York Times.