Jean Anna Faut [Winsch/Eastman] (January 17, 1925 – February 28, 2023) was an American starting pitcher who played from 1946 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Listed at 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m), 137 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.
Jean Faut is considered by baseball historians and researchers as the greatest overhand pitcher in AAGPBL history. From 1946 through 1953, Faut set several all-time and single-season records. She compiled a lifetime record of 140–64 with a 1.23 earned run average in 235 games, registering the lowest career ERA for any pitcher in the league. Besides being the only professional baseball player to pitch two perfect games, her league achievements include pitching two no-hitters, twice winning the Triple Crown and collecting three 20-win seasons. She also led in wins and strikeouts three times, set the league record for single-season winning percentage at .909 (20–2), and led the South Bend Blue Sox to consecutive championships in 1951 and 1952.
Faut never had a losing season or an ERA above 1.51, being surpassed only by Helen Nicol for the most career wins (163). A four-time member of the All-Star Team, Faut was named Player of the Year in two out of eight possible seasons. Her baseball career, which spanned eight years, reflects the experiences of many women who played in the competitive era of overhand pitching in the AAGPBL, however like several other players from the league, she coupled her professional playing career with a more traditional lifestyle as a wife and mother.
A native of East Greenville, Pennsylvania, Faut grew up in the home of a working-class family. She was the second oldest daughter of Robert Faut, an automobile plant worker and park guard, and Eva (nee Gebert) Faut, a housewife. The young Jean, along with her two sisters and three brothers, were raised during the Great Depression era. The children were instructed by their parents to live frugally, save, and avoid debt. Unlike most AAGPBL players, Faut never played softball while growing up and had no previous professional experience. She attended East Greenville High School, where she excelled in track and field, basketball and field hockey. She also pitched batting practice for the school baseball team and hurled in exhibition games against the Cubs, a semiprofessional team in her hometown. In the process, she learned how to throw different pitches. After graduating from EGHS in 1942, Faut worked in a clothing factory until the spring of 1946, when she attended a tryout for the AAGPBL in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
As a result of the success of the league in its first year, two new teams were added in the 1944 season: the Milwaukee Chicks and the Minneapolis Millerettes. But both teams lost their franchises by the end of the year and were replaced by the Grand Rapids Chicks and the Fort Wayne Daisies in the 1945 season. The league added two more teams in 1946, the Muskegon Lassies and the Peoria Redwings. Faut was rewarded with a contract to play in the eight-team league and was assigned to the established South Bend Blue Sox, by then managed by Chet Grant, a former Notre Dame football player and the sports editor for the South Bend Tribune.
In 1946, the AAGPBL made significant changes in its rules, extending the length of the base paths and pitching distance and decreasing the size of the ball. Later in the season, the league allowed a sidearm pitching delivery, permitting the pitchers to add a curveball or sinker to their repertoire of fastball and changeup, all of which Faut had hurled before joining the league. All of these rule changes were designed to make the game more exciting and more like men's baseball. In her rookie season, Faut appeared in 101 games, mostly at third base, hitting a .177 (61-for-344) average with 40 runs batted in while scoring 37 runs. She committed 60 errors at third for a .893 fielding percentage. When the sidearm motion was approved, Blue Sox manager Grant included her on the pitching staff for the rest of the season. Faut posted an 8–3 record with 21 strikeouts and a 1.32 earned run average in 12 outings, including nine starts, eight complete games, and a pair of two-hitters in 81 innings of work, ranking third in ERA and winning percentage (.727).
That season, South Bend led the circuit in team batting with a .220 average, while finishing third in fielding with an average of .943. Grand Rapids' star Connie Wisniewski led the circuit in ERA (0.96) and shared with Racine's Joanne Winter the wins title (33), while Fort Wayne's Dorothy Collins topped in strikeouts (294) and shutouts (17). More than half of the batters averaged under .200, while the highest marks were recorded by Rockford's Dorothy Kamenshek (.316), South Bend's Bonnie Baker (.286), Racine's Sophie Kurys (.286), Grand Rapids' Merle Keagle (.284) and Kenosha's Audrey Wagner (.281). The Blue Sox finished in third place with a 70–42 mark, though lost in the semifinal round to Rockford, three games to one. In her first post-season, Faut went 0–2 with a 1.13 ERA against Racine. In Game 1 of the playoffs, she suffered the loss in a 17-inning pitching duel against Anna Mae Hutchison, when Maddy English knocked in the winning run in a 3–2 game.
Faut was a pitcher with an analytical mind, allowing her to remember pitching sequences from batter to batter and game to game. In pre-game team meetings, she would memorize the weakness of the opposite hitters and during the game vary the rotation of pitches she used. "Part of my success", she once reflected, "was that in my mind I could record the order of pitches I threw to each girl, so they never saw the same thing twice". She added "I was a mathematical whiz in school. They’d never know what was coming, so they’d start guessing".
The first AAGPBL spring training outside the United States was held in 1947 in Havana, Cuba, as part of a plan to create an International League of Girls Baseball. The All-Americans stayed at the Seville-Biltmore Hotel, and they played their games at the Gran Stadium.
The AAGPBL made the transition from underhand to full side-arm pitching in 1947. Before starting the season, Faut married Karl Winsch, a former Philadelphia Phillies pitching prospect from East Greenville, near her hometown. The couple established their initial residence in South Bend, Indiana, where she worked in the off-season for Ball-Band, a local division of the United States Rubber Company. Pitching in 44 games, Faut came through with a 1.15 ERA to go with her 19–13 record, allowing 56 runs (38 earned) on just 179 hits in a career-high 298 innings. She walked 67 batters and struck out 97, ending third in innings, fifth in ERA and eighth in strikeouts, while tying for fifth in wins. She also posted a .236 average in 56 games, ranking 19th in the league behind Kamenshek, who won her second consecutive title with a .306 mark. Her most durable performance came on July 31, when she defeated Eleanor Dapkus and the Belles in 22 innings by a 4–3 score. Faut spaced 16 hits, walked five, struck out eleven, and contributed two hits to her own cause.
In 1947 South Bend earned a respectable fourth place in the eight-team league with a 57–54 record, although was beaten by Grand Rapids in the first round of the playoffs, three to two games. Faut went 1–1 with one save and a 2.37 ERA in the postseason. At the time she was two months pregnant and gave birth to her first son, Larry, in March 1948.
The league moved fully to overhand pitching in 1948, which made the game close to regulation baseball. Such change adversely affected the performance of underhand pitchers, because many of them were experienced submariners who could not make the transition to the new pitching style. Consequently, many teams converted their outfielders to pitchers since they were used to throwing the ball overhand with power. Batters, too, had to make adjustments, since underhand pitches tend to rise, overhand to drop. In that season also were incorporated the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies, and the AAGPBL expanded to a historical peak of ten teams divided into Eastern and Western Divisions.