Jean Ardell, nationally-recognized baseball writer, passed away on October 7, 2022 at the age of 79.

Ardell earned her bachelor’s in English from UC Irvine in 1988 and later earned her master’s in nonfiction writing from the University of Southern California.

She was a strong supporter of anti-racist causes, gender equality, and safeguarding freedom of the press. She felt compelled to write about politics in Orange County and across the nation in a semi-monthly column, “Left of Center,” for the Newport Beach Independent. Outraged over the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, she resurrected the column and continued writing about the town until early 2022.

Her mother’s love for books and father’s love for baseball inspired her to become one of the leading female writers on the sport in the country. Her books Breaking into Baseball and Making My Pitch (Nebraska, 2017), coauthored with Ila Jane Borders, provided her opportunities to present to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, and NINE Spring Training Conference. As a long-standing member of the SABR Women in Baseball committee, Ardell served as a moderator for a number of panels.