Announcing finalists for 2026 Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026 — We are pleased to announce the finalists for the 2026 Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by SABR’s Women in Baseball Committee. Each of these finalists has made important contributions promoting the participation of women in baseball, on the field and off.
The winner of the 2026 award will be announced during the SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference on October 9–11, 2026.
Here are the finalists:
Sarah Langs is a Senior Manager, Research and Content at MLB.com, a beloved member of the baseball community, and a SABR member since 2019. She graduated from the University of Chicago before beginning her career as a researcher at ESPN. Her work and regular appearances on Baseball Tonight led to a role as a writer and popular on-air contributor for Major League Baseball. Her Stats of the Week reports on MLB.com, along with her popular social media feeds, bring a fun, exciting perspective to the accumulation of statistics that remind us of the stars of the past and why we love baseball. She is known for saying “Baseball is the best!” In 2021 she was diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and has since become a leading advocate for ALS research.
Jeneane “Lefty” Lesko is a pioneering figure in women’s baseball whose career and contributions range from her playing days in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League through her extensive efforts to developing and promoting the sport. Jeneane, fondly known as “Lefty” was born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1935. She played as Jeanie (or Jean) DesCombes. Lesko joined the Grand Rapid Chicks of the AAGPBL in 1953 as a left-handed pitcher and right fielder. Although she had no previous experience in organized baseball, she proved to be a strong athlete and posted a 10-9 record in 1954. When the league disbanded in 1954, Jeanie was selected by Bill Allington and barnstormed across the U.S. with the Allington All-Stars. The team played over 100 games against men’s teams in 1955-56. Lesko earned degrees in science and mathematics from Ohio Northern University and became a teacher. After teaching for several years, she took up golf and decided to become a professional golfer. In 1974, she settled in Seattle, Washington, and became involved in local sports. She founded the Washington Women’s Baseball Association in 2003. She has been closely involved with the AAGPBL since 1992, serving on the Board of Directors from 2002-2010.
Maud Nelson, born Clementina Brida, played, managed, owned, and promoted women’s baseball from the late 19th century through the 1920s. She pitched and played third base for the Boston Bloomer Girls, Chicago Bloomer Girls, and the Star Bloomers of Indianapolis before joining a men’s team, the Cherokee Indian baseball club. Beginning in 1911 she became manager and scout for the Western Bloomer Girls, which she and her husband also owned. Though she stopped playing regularly around 1922, she continued to manage and promote women’s teams into the early 1930s. Her contributions to the game were recognized in 2001 with her election to the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. Nelson’s long and illustrious career has led some researchers to push for her election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Janet Marie Smith is the Senior Vice President of Planning and Development for the Los Angeles Dodgers, where since 2012 she has overseen modernization projects at Dodger Stadium, including a new entrance plaza in center field. She is well known in baseball for her work on Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which set the standard for a new wave of ballparks after its opening in 1992 and her oversight of renovations at Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox from 2002 to 09. She worked on the transformation of Ed Smith Stadium for the Baltimore Orioles spring training home in Sarasota in 2011 and for the Atlanta Braves’ conversion of the 1996 Olympic Stadium to Turner Field. She is trained as an architect and urban planner and served as the Edward P. Bass Fellow at the Yale University School of Architecture. Her work outside of sports has included projects such as Battery Park City in New York and the revitalization of Baltimore’s waterfront.
Lisa Turbitt is a professional baseball umpire who has called many national and international games over her long career. She was honored by Baseball Canada with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023 and inducted into the Burlington (Ontario) Sports Hall of Fame in 2024. She began umpiring at the age of 11 when an umpire didn’t show up for her brother’s baseball game. She has been showing up ever since. She worked the gold medal game at the inaugural Women’s Baseball World Cup in 2004 and became the first woman to work home plate at an international competition. She was the first woman to be honored with the Dick Willis Senior Umpire of the Year award. In 2012, she umpired at the Women’s Baseball World Cup. She was scheduled to work as the first female umpire at the World Baseball Classic in 2020 before those games were canceled due to the pandemic. Two years later, she joined an international roster of officials to work the WBC qualifier round in Panama City. She is also actively involved in the education and development of umpires, writing curriculum and planning development/training programs. In 2023, Turbitt was the first woman honored with Baseball Canada’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2024, she was inducted into the Burlington, Canada, Sports Hall of Fame.
In 2017 SABR’s Women in Baseball Committee established the Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award — “The Dorothy” — named in honor of Dorothy Seymour Mills and her lifetime of contributions to promoting women’s baseball.
Eligible candidates for the Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award include any person with a sustained involvement in women’s baseball or any woman with a longtime involvement in baseball in any fashion — player, umpire, writer, executive, team owner, scout, etc. Candidates do not have to be living; it can be awarded posthumously. Self-nominations are accepted.
Previous award winners were Jean Hastings Ardell (2025); Barbara Gregorich (2024); Maybelle Blair (2023); Justine Siegal (2022); Claire Smith (2021); Effa Manley (2020); Rachel Robinson (2019); and Perry Barber (2018).
Originally published: September 25, 2026. Last Updated: September 25, 2026.