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1919–2001 · South Bend, 1945–1952
Lib Mahon was born November 18, 1919, in Greenville, South Carolina, and came to South Bend in Marty McManus's 1945 trade with Kenosha — the trade that sent Dottie Schroeder the other way. She played eight South Bend seasons, and her 1946 was one of the league's great all-around years: a league-leading 72 runs batted in, a league record at the time, 114 stolen bases in 116 attempts, and an All-Star selection. She led the league in runs batted in again in 1949, with 60, and was an All-Star that year as well — a playing card that credits her with All-Star selections across 1946–49 overstates it; the league record gives the two. Her career totals stand at 837 games, a .248 average, 721 hits, 432 runs, 364 stolen bases and 400 runs batted in, the last tied for fourth in league history behind Schroeder's 431.
Her ending was abrupt and her staying was permanent. On August 30, 1952 — in the walkout season the team history tells — she walked out and never played again. But South Bend kept her: she stayed in the city as a schoolteacher and counselor, the playing career folding into a working life in the place she had played. South Carolina put her in its Athletic Hall of Fame posthumously, on May 5, 2005, and a plaque in South Bend carries her name beside Schroeder's. She died in South Bend on September 6, 2001.
Sources
- Jim Sargent, SABR biography of Lib Mahon — the 1945 trade, the 1946 and 1949 league leads, the career totals, the walkout, the teaching career and the honors. Sargent's narrative gives her 1951 runs batted in as 60 where his own summary and the Baseball-Reference register give 68; the team history prints the register's figure, and the conflict is carried here as it stands there.
- All-American Girls Professional Baseball League records — the All-Star selections of 1946 and 1949 against the playing card's wider claim.