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South Bend, 1946–1953
Jean Faut was born January 17, 1925, in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, and died February 28, 2023, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, at ninety-eight — time enough to be honored by the Hall of Fame, to be written into the league's permanent exhibit, and to tell her own story to its historians. She came to South Bend in 1946 as a third baseman and left it in 1953 as the defining pitcher of the overhand era. Her career line, all of it with South Bend, is 140 wins against 64 losses and a 1.23 earned run average — the lowest in league history among pitchers with 500 innings — with 913 strikeouts, third in league history, and the second-most wins, behind Helen Nicol Fox's 163. She threw four no-hitters, two of them perfect games; she is the only pitcher in the league's history with two perfect games, and hers are the only perfect games of the overhand era, 1948–54. She was an All-Star in 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1953, and Player of the Year in 1951 and 1953. The seasons are laid out in the year entries above; what belongs here is the shape of the whole. She was a complete player besides: a .291 hitter in 1949, a cleanup hitter in 1952 (.291 again, 67-for-230), a third baseman in the 1952 playoffs, and in 1953 her club's leading hitter in average, home runs and runs batted in while she was its leading pitcher too. In the two championship postseasons she won four games in the 1951 playoffs alone, beat Rockford in the 1951 decider in relief, won twice in the 1952 final and hit two triples in the game that ended it.
The human record around the pitching is as well documented as the pitching. She married her manager. She worked off-seasons at Ball-Band, South Bend's big shoe factory, as many of the players worked local jobs. She pitched a full season the year her son was born. She retired at twenty-eight over the strain of being managed by her husband, divorced him in 1968, turned professional bowler and toured for years, and married Charles Eastman in 1977. The verdict of the player who faced her most is the one her biographer closes with. Dottie Schroeder, who played in every season the league had, said of her in 1995: "Jean could do it all and with excellence… I can't remember ever getting a hit off her pitching." Her name stands on a plaque at Coveleski Stadium in South Bend, and her oral history, recorded at the players' 2010 reunion in Detroit, is among the league's preserved testimonies.
Sources
- Jim Sargent, SABR biography of Jean Faut — the full career: signing and conversion, the season lines, the no-hitters and perfect games, the All-Star and Player of the Year honors, the career totals (140–64, 1.23 ERA, 913 strikeouts), the marriages, the bowling career, the Ball-Band off-seasons, and Schroeder's 1995 testimony.
- All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, player profile of Jean Faut, aagpbl.org — career framing and the Coveleski Stadium plaque.
- SABR Games Project, September 3, 1953 — the second perfect game and the final season.