1953: The Farewell Season

1953 · Manager: Karl Winsch

The six who walked out did not come back, and the 1953 Blue Sox could not replace them: 44–62, fifth of six, out of the playoffs. One widely repeated line about these years says South Bend finished last in both 1953 and 1954; it is wrong in both halves — Muskegon's 38–67 stood below South Bend in 1953, and the 1954 club finished second — and it is corrected here because it circulates. The season's events were a farewell tour conducted without announcement. On July 4, at Playland before more than 5,000 people, Sue Kidd won both ends of a doubleheader against Grand Rapids, a four-hitter in the seven-inning opener, 2–1. On September 2, a loss at Rockford dropped the club to 42–62 and eliminated it. The next day, September 3, 1953, at Kalamazoo, in the next-to-last start of her career, Jean Faut pitched her second perfect game, 4–0. On the Sunday that followed, Playland held the second Jean Faut Night: 1,500 fans, four hundred dollars in merchandise presented to her, and a 3–0 loss to Grand Rapids in her last appearance. Then she retired. Her season had been, on its face, undiminished — 17–11, a league-best 1.51 earned run average, 143 strikeouts to tie for the league lead, a .275 batting average with a career-high four home runs, leading her own club in average, home runs and runs batted in, and a second Player of the Year award. Her reason for leaving was the clubhouse itself: being managed by her husband, with the dissent of 1952 still in the room, had become too difficult, and she said so. The league's best pitcher walked away at twenty-eight, turned professional bowler by 1960, and bowled the women's professional tour for years. South Bend played one more season without her.

Sources

1. StatsCrew franchise record and Baseball-Reference Register — 1953, 44–62, fifth of six; Muskegon 38–67 below them (against the encyclopedia narrative's "last place" line, corrected in the text).
2. Jim Sargent, SABR Games Project and biography of Jean Faut — the September 2, 1953 elimination loss at Rockford; the perfect game of September 3, 1953 at Kalamazoo; the farewell Jean Faut Night; the 1953 line and second Player of the Year award; her stated reason for retiring.
3. Jim Sargent, SABR biography of Sue Kidd — the July 4, 1953 doubleheader sweep of Grand Rapids before more than 5,000 at Playland.