Obituary
Suzanne Doris (Parsons) Zipay, age 91, of Englewood, Florida, passed away peacefully at home on July 14, 2025. Born on April 1, 1934, in Medford, Massachusetts, she was the sixth of seven children of the late William Henry Parsons and Doris Emily Bartsch.
Sue grew up in Hingham, Massachusetts, and graduated from Hingham High School in 1952. After high school, she was recruited by the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) and played for the Rockford Peaches in Illinois for two seasons (1953-54) before the league folded as depicted in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. She was one of the last surviving members of the Rockford Peaches.
While playing baseball in Rockford, she met Thomas John Zipay, who was a summer groundskeeper at Beyer Stadium before beginning service in the U.S. Marine Corps. Sue and Tom married in 1954 and raised their three children in Marshfield, Massachusetts, where Sue was actively involved in the Marshfield Recreation Department and Tom pursued his career as a pilot for American Airlines. In the 70s, Sue developed a passion for tennis and became a USTA teaching pro at Pilgrim Tennis Club in Kingston, a nationally ranked player in the 40 division, and later the owner of White Cap Sports tennis specialty shop on Cape Cod before retiring to Florida in 1987. Retirement didn’t suit her, however, so she purchased the Englewood Tennis Club in 1988 and gave it new life with her son, Bob.
After Sue’s appearance in the movie A League of Their Own, she served on the board of the AAGPBL Players Association and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, along with other former AAGPBL players. In 2007, she was also inducted into the Hingham High School Athletic Hall of Fame. In 2019, at age 85, she founded American Girls Baseball (AGB) as an affiliate organization of the AAGPBL to support and promote women and girls who want to train, participate, and compete in the game of baseball at every level, with the ultimate goal of resurrecting a professional women’s baseball league.
Sue pursued her passions with grit. The bigger the challenge, the harder she dug in. Not surprisingly, her favorite poem was “It Couldn’t Be Done” by Edgar Guest. Sue lived a full life and is now peacefully watching down on her loved ones (and girls’ baseball) from the big diamond in the sky.
She was preceded in death by her parents and five siblings, Billy, Audrey, Bobby, Ronnie, and John, and her former husband, Tom. Survivors include her older sister, Dorcas (Parsons) Unger of Wayland, MA; her three children, David Zipay of Englewood, FL, Robert Zipay (Rachel) of Osprey, FL, and Judy Macdonald (Steve) of Tallahassee, FL; six grandchildren, Anna, Jennifer, Leah, David, Heather, and Benjamin; and several great grandchildren and dear friends.
Leave a reply