Sid Hudson, 93, All-Star pitcher for Senators in '40s
WASHINGTON - Sid Hudson, a tall, lanky right-hander who was a popular Washington Senators pitcher throughout the 1940s and who later worked as the pitching coach for the expansion Senators, died Oct. 10 at Heart and Home, an assisted-living facility in Waco, Texas. He was 93.
A son-in-law, John Fisher, said Mr. Hudson, a longtime Waco resident, had suffered a series of strokes and had been diagnosed with melanoma.
Mr. Hudson began his professional baseball career in 1939 with the Sanford Lookouts of the Class D Florida State League. He was 6-foot-4 with a good fastball, and he posted a 24-4 record and an earned-run average of 1.79. He also hit .378.
The Senators bought his contract in 1940 for $5,500.
Manager Bucky Harris called him "the cleverest young fellow I've seen come along since Schoolboy Rowe broke in under me with the Tigers in 1931. Fellows like him don't learn how to pitch in a couple of years. He's in an advanced stage because he's just naturally a pitcher."
Harris started Mr. Hudson during the first week of his rookie season. He was knocked out of the box. Eight times in a row, Harris sent the young right-hander to the mound. Eight times, Mr. Hudson trudged back to the dugout as the losing pitcher.
The manager's patience finally paid off in Mr. Hudson's ninth start, when he shut out the Detroit Tigers. He won four more in a row and wound up the season with 17 wins including two one-hitters, but suffered 16 losses.
He was nervous early in the year, he told Post columnist Shirley Povich. "They were hitting everything I threw up there, and that makes a fellow wonder about himself," he said. "The seventh- and eighth-place hitters began to look just as rugged to me as the clean-up men."
"Then when I started winning, things became different," he said. "I got some confidence in myself and began to realize that I was beginning to look tough to the same hitters I thought were so tough."
"That's a nice feeling for a pitcher."
Mr. Hudson made the American League All-Star team in 1941 and 1942. Although the American Leaguers won the 1941 game on a memorable ninth-inning home run by Ted Williams, Mr. Hudson's stint on the mound was anything but memorable. He gave up two runs in the seventh inning when his first four pitches were tagged for three hits.
He missed the next three seasons while serving in the Army. A shoulder ailment during the 1947 season turned him into a sidearm pitcher in 1948. Three years later, he became a submariner, the knuckles of his right hand nearly scraping the ground as he threw from down under. Harris suggested the change when he realized Mr. Hudson "could make his curve ball climb - the hardest kind of pitch to hit."
Traded to the Boston Red Sox in 1952, he retired after the 1954 season with a lifetime record of 104 wins and 152 losses. He scouted for the Red Sox in Texas before being named the Senators' pitching coach in 1961. He was with the organization, in various capacities, for 25 years.
The Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, and Mr. Hudson served as the team's first pitching coach, under Williams as manager. He concluded his baseball career as the pitching coach at Baylor University, retiring in 1992.
Sidney Charles Hudson was born in Coalfield, Tenn. His wife of 63 years, Marion Ferguson Hudson, died in May.
He leaves two daughters, Carolyn Fisher of Waco and Nancy Fields of San Antonio, and six grandchildren. 