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1952
The regular season: South Bend finished second in 1952 at 64–45. There was no pennant; the championship, again, would have to come through the playoffs.
The walkout: Late in the season, manager Karl Winsch suspended Charlene Pryer after a dispute over a pinch-running order. Five of her teammates walked out in protest, and the Blue Sox entered the playoffs with only twelve players on the roster. Pitcher Sue Kidd became a two-way player for the postseason, patrolling right field when she was not on the mound.
The protest: In the championship series at Rockford's Beyer Stadium, after losing the first game, Winsch measured the right-field fence — recently shortened for the high-school football season — and found it 21½ feet short of the 210-foot minimum the league rules mandated. When Rockford's manager Bill Allington refused a ground rule, South Bend played the second game under protest. Rockford counter-protested that South Bend's twelve-player roster broke the league's fifteen-to-seventeen-player rule.
The ruling and the finish: The league's business manager, Earl McCammon, upheld South Bend's protest and erased Rockford's second-game win; the series was restaged from one game to none. Sue Kidd pitched into the twelfth inning and singled home the winning run in the replayed second game. The deciding fifth game was played at Read Park, a men's softball ground in Freeport, Illinois, seating 2,000, where Faut broke the game open with a two-run triple and pitched a complete game, 6–3. For the second straight year South Bend had beaten Rockford for the playoff championship after trailing two games to none.
Sources:
- Gary Belleville, "September 8, 1952: South Bend wins protest, new Game 2 to get back into AAGPBL championship series," SABR Baseball Games Project — the fence measurement, both protests, the McCammon ruling, the Freeport finish.
- Baseball-Reference Bullpen, Sue Kidd — the twelve-player roster, Kidd's two-way postseason, her twelve-inning walk-off single.
- SABR Biography Project, Elizabeth Mahon — the 1952 second place finish at 64–45 and the championship over Rockford.