[1] An All-Star and a member of two championship teams, Betty Wagoner played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the final seven years of its existence.

For most of her career Wagoner hit for batting average, moving along baserunners as an occasional slugger and often appeared among the league's top twenty hitters.

She posted an 8–20 record in 32 pitching appearances, while her .271 batting average ranks her eleventh in the AAGPBL all-time list.

South Bend, with Marty McManus at the helm, ended in third place with a 57–69 record and lost to Grand Rapids in the first round of the playoffs, three to two games.

Throughout the regular season, South Bend, now managed by Dave Bancroft, waged an up-and-down battle with Rockford for first place.

By edict of league president Max Carey, the playoff victory also made Rockford the regular season champion team.

She led the league in strikeouts (135), tied for seventh in wins (15), and ranked third in earned run average (1.33) and in shutouts (seven).

Faut reached her peak of the season on July 21, when she hurled a perfect game against the visiting Rockford Peaches at Playland Park.

That was a tremendous catch, adding that Wagoner ran a long way on a dead run to snag it justoff the ground.

She also recorded a career-best 0.93 ERA and led all pitchers with 114 strikeouts, but the fact that her husband managed the team created friction between Faut and many of her teammates.

Dissension within the South Bend team peaked just before the season ended, when flashy infielder Charlene Pryer was disciplined following a dispute with Winsch.

The incident occurred when he suspended Pryer from the team after she responded slowly to his order to pinch-run late in a game.

In protest, five South Bend teammates joined Pryer in a walkout, leaving Winsch's team short-handed for the playoffs.

[5] Wagoner saw limited action in 1954, but she still batting for average and went 48-for-150 to collect a .320 mark in just only 48 games, joining the All-Star team as a reserve outfielder.

South Bend finished second (48–44) and advanced to the playoffs, but was beaten in the first round by the Kalamazoo Lassies, who would end the season defeating Fort Wayne to become the winning team of the last championship in the league's history.