Hudson entered baseball in 1938 with the Class D
Sanford Lookouts, who had a working agreement with the Senators. In his second year with Sanford, Hudson led the
Florida State League in games won (24),
winning percentage (24–4, .857),
earned run average (1.79) and
strikeouts (192). The following year, he won 17 games for a
second-division Washington team as a
rookie, and he was selected to the
American League All–Star team in both and . He appeared in the
1941 midsummer classic on July 8 at
Briggs Stadium and worked the
seventh inning, allowing a two-run
home run to
Arky Vaughan that put the rival
National League ahead, 3–2. (The American League would triumph in the ninth inning, however, on a three-run,
walk-off homer by
Ted Williams). Hudson's career was interrupted by three years (1943–45) of military service during World War II. A veteran of the
United States Army Air Forces, he served in the
Pacific Theater of Operations and attained the rank of
sergeant. Pitching for Washington's struggling late-1940s teams, he led the American League in games lost (17) in . On April 27, 1947, Hudson was the starting pitcher against the
New York Yankees on
Babe Ruth Day at
Yankee Stadium. In front of 58,000 fans in one of Ruth's last public appearances, Hudson threw a
complete game, 1–0
shutout, scattering eight hits and three bases on balls. He was traded to the rebuilding Red Sox in the middle of the campaign, and went 16–22 as a spot
starter and
reliever over 2 years. He retired from the field after the campaign. In his 12-season MLB career, Hudson posted a 104–152 record with 734
strikeouts, 123 complete games, 11 shutouts, 13
saves, and a 4.28 earned run average in 2,181
innings pitched. He allowed 2,384
hits and 835
bases on balls. A good-hitting pitcher, he
batted .220 with 164 hits and 75
runs batted in during his big-league tenure. Following his pitching career, he
scouted for the Red Sox from 1955 through 1960, then joined the
expansion edition of the Senators in
1961 as the team's first
pitching coach. He spent all or parts of 13 years over three different terms (1961–April 1965; 1968–1972; and mid-1975–1978) in that role for the franchise in both Washington and
Dallas–Fort Worth, where it moved in to become the
Texas Rangers. In between those assignments, Hudson served the team as a
minor league pitching instructor. After leaving professional baseball in 1985, he was a pitching coach for
Baylor University's varsity baseball team. At the time of his death, at 93 years of age, Hudson was one of the oldest living major league players. He died in
Waco, Texas. ==Highlights==