Don Newcombe

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Don Newcombe
Newcombe in 1955
Newcombe in 1955
Pitcher
Born: June 14, 1926
MadisonUnited StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Died on: February 19, 2019
Los AngelesUnited StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Suggested: Left Threw: Right
Debut in Major League Baseball
  With the  Brooklyn Dodgers May 20, 1949
Last MLB assignment
October 1,  1960  with the  Los Angeles Dodgers
MLB statistics
(until end of career)
Win - Loss    149-90
ERA    3.56
Strikeouts    1,129
Teams

Negro Leagues

MLB

NPB

Awards
Last update: December 31, 2019

Donald "Don" Newcombe , nickname Newk , (born June 14, 1926 in Madison , New Jersey , † February 19, 2019 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American baseball player in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) at the pitcher's position .

Newcombe won the World Series with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955 . He was also elected to the All-Star Team four times . He was the first career pitcher to become Rookie of the Year (1949), Most Valuable Player (1956) and the Cy Young Award (1956). It would be 55 years before Justin Verlander became the second pitcher to be honored with these awards. In 1949 he was the first black man to appear as a starting pitcher in a World Series game . Newcombe was also the first black pitcher in the MLB 20 games in a season won .

biography

Early Life, Negro Leagues and Minor Leagues

Newcombe was born on June 14, 1926 in Madison, New Jersey, as one of five children of chauffeur Roland and housewife Saddie Newcombe. He grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey , and attended high school there.

In 1944, at the age of 18, he made his debut with the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues . After playing for another year with the Eagles, Newcombe signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers . Together with catcher Roy Campanella , Newcombe played from 1946 to 1947 for the first baseball team in the United States in which black and white played together, the Nashua Dodgers in the New England League.

Professional career in the MLB

At the age of 23, Newcombe made his MLB debut on May 22, 1949 against the St. Louis Cardinals . He became the third African American pitcher after Dan Bankhead and Satchel Paige in the MLB. The Dodgers lost the game 2 to 6. Nevertheless, Newcombe helped the Dodgers to first place in the NL after the regular season with 17 wins , five shutouts - most of the National League (NL) - and 32 consecutive innings with no opponent allowed points . In the same year he was elected to the All-Star-Team and became Rookie of the Year of the NL. In 1950 he won 19 games and 20 the following season, in which he led the MLB with 164 strikeouts .

Newcombe served in the Korean War in 1952 and 1953 and thus came back to the Dodgers in 1954, but could not build on his achievements before the war. He had nine wins and eight losses with an earned run average (ERA) of 4.55. In 1955 he got back to his old form and had 20 wins and 5 losses with an ERA of 3.20. In addition, Newcombe was elected to the All-Star Team for the fourth time in 1955 and won the World Series with the Dodgers. The 1956 season would be an even better season for Newcombe. In this he won 27 games, pitched 139 strikeouts with an ERA of 3.06, pitched five shutouts and played 18 full games. In the same year he was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) and received the Cy Young Award . The 1956 World Series contested the Dodgers against the New York Yankees , but lost them 3 to 4 games. The last and decisive game Newcombe lost by dropping five points in three innings.

In 1958, the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and became the Los Angeles Dodgers . There Newcombe could not win a game and lost for it seven, with an ERA of 7.86, so that he moved to the Cincinnati Redlegs in the same year . There he ended the season with a record of seven games won and seven lost, with an ERA of 3.85. Newcombe played two more years with this team, which was renamed Cincinnati Reds in 1959, but could not build on his previous performances with the Dodgers and moved to the Cleveland Indians during the current season . With the Indians he made 20 more games, but won only two.

1962 Newcombe signed a contract with the Chūnichi Dragons in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan and played there for a year before he finally ended his active career.

Outside the field of play

Newcombe came into contact with alcohol at an early age because his parents drank regularly. His father brewed beer in the basement of the house. He had alcohol problems in the 1950s and 1960s, but was able to overcome them in 1966.

Newcombe was married three times. He married his first wife Freddie in 1945. However, this marriage was divorced in 1960. In the same year he married Billie Roberts, whom he had met in Los Angeles. In 1965 Newcombe went bankrupt. His second wife divorced him in 1994. From these marriages there were three children.

Newcombe died on February 19, 2019 at the age of 92.

literature

  • AS: Don Newcombe - Baseball great wins . In: Ebony . tape 31 , no. 6 . Johnson Publishing Company, April 1976, ISSN  0012-9011 , pp. 54–62 (English, google.de [accessed December 31, 2019]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b A.S .: Don Newcombe - Baseball great wins . P. 55 .
  2. Brooklyn Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals Box Score, May 20, 1949. In: Baseball-Reference.com . Sports Reference LLC, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  3. 1949 Brooklyn Dodgers Statistics. In: Baseball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  4. 1956 World Series. In: Baseball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  5. 1956 World Series Game 7, Yankees at Dodgers, October 10. In: Baseball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  6. a b A.S .: Don Newcombe - Baseball great wins . P. 58 .
  7. AS: Don Newcombe - Baseball great wins . P. 60 .
  8. Dayn Perry: Don Newcombe, former Dodgers great and inaugural Cy Young Award winner, dead at 92. In: cbssports.com. February 19, 2019, accessed February 24, 2019 .