Dodgers great Don Newcombe dies at 92
Pitcher won rookie, MVP and Cy Young awards
LOS ANGELES — Don Newcombe, the hard-throwing Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher who was one of the first black players in Major League Baseball and who went on to win the Rookie of the Year, MVP and
Cy Young awards, has died. He was 92.
The team confirmed that Newcombe died Tuesday morning after a lengthy illness.
“Don Newcombe’s presence and life established him as a role model for major-leaguers across the country,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. “He was a constant presence at Dodger Stadium, and players always gravitated to him for his endless advice and leadership. The Dodgers meant everything to him, and we are all fortunate he was a part of our lives.”
Newcombe, like Dodgers teammate Jackie Robinson, was signed by Branch Rickey from the Negro Leagues and went on to make a huge mark in the major leagues.
“Newk” was a fierce presence on the mound, a six-foot-four, 225-pound bear of a man who stared down hitters and backed up anyone foolish enough to crowd the plate.
He was a four-time all-star and won 20 games three times.
His greatest year was 1956 when he went 27-7 and won both the Cy Young Award, then only given to one pitcher for both leagues, and the National League MVP award.
Newcombe, Robinson and catcher Roy Campanella were a trio of black stars for the Dodgers who often supported each other.
“We came up with a strategy,” Newcombe later recalled. “We knew the impact we were attempting would have. We had to endure. (Robinson’s) character, his backbone, his guts — those were the keys. Jackie was the leader under Mr. Rickey.”
The three talked frequently, Campanella and Newcombe from the Dodgers’ Nashua, N.H., farm team and Robinson from
Brooklyn. “We talked about how things were going,” Newcombe said. “What if somebody charged the mound on me? What would I do? Nobody did.
“I remember in the New England league, a catcher threw dirt in Roy’s face. He said, ‘If you do that again, I’ll personally take your arm out of its socket.’ They challenged us. They did anything they could to break down the idea.”
Newcombe’s Dodgers were perennial also-rans who specialized in winning the National League pennant then losing the World Series to the Yankees. Newcombe played on three pennant winners with the Dodgers and the World Series champions in 1955, the year they finally beat the Yankees.
Born June 14, 1926, in Madison, N.J., Newcombe pitched in the Negro Leagues starting in 1944 at age 18. In 1945 he had an 8-3 record with the Newark Eagles and won the attention of the Brooklyn Dodgers organization.
Newcombe played in Nashua of the New England League and for teams in Montreal, Venezuela and Cuba before joining the parent club in 1949.
He went 17-8 in 1949, his first season with the Dodgers, and was named NL Rookie of the Year.
Newcombe, Robinson and Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians became the first black players to appear in an All-Star game that season, when the Dodgers hosted the midseason contest at Ebbets Field.
On July 8, 1949, Newcombe and Hank Thompson of the New York Giants became
the first black pitcher and hitter to face each other in a major-league game.
In 1950 Newcombe went 19-11, and in ’51 went 20-9, but he failed to win the season’s most important game. He was the starting pitcher in the decisive playoff series between the Dodgers and the Giants, and he held a 4-1 lead going into the ninth inning. But he gave up three hits to the first four batters and was replaced by Ralph Branca, who quickly achieved baseball infamy when Bobby Thomson lofted a pennant-winning home run, “the shot heard ’round the world.”
Like many ballplayers of his generation, Newcombe lost some prime years to military service, giving the army the 1952 and ’53 seasons. “Wait until next year” had become a virtual mantra in Brooklyn as the Dodgers won the National League title in ’47, ’49, ’52 and ’53, only to lose the World Series every time.
Then came ’55, “the year next year finally came” in Brooklyn parlance.
The Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in the World Series and Newcombe went 20-5 during the regular season, winning 18 of his first 19 decisions. On the day of his 20th win he hit his seventh home run of the season, a National League record for a pitcher at the time.
But Newcombe always struggled in the post-season. He lost the first game of the 1955 series to the Yankees and was passed over in favour of Johnny Podres after preparing to pitch in Game 7.
He was 0-4 with an 8.59 ERA in career
World Series appearances.