Don Newcombe, 1926-2019

My grandmother grew up in Queens, and she was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. Sometime in the 1960s after the Dodgers and the New York Giants had moved to California, and had been replaced by the New York Mets, she was working on Broad Street in downtown Newark, and was waiting for an elevator. When the doors opened, there inside the elevator stood the biggest man she'd ever seen in her life. When she got over the shock of how big he was, she recognized him. It was Don Newcombe, one of her Dodger heroes. And for the rest of her life, Grandma told the story of how she shared an elevator with Don Newcombe.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, a website which is your friend whether you know it or not, Newcombe was 6-foot-4, and 220 pounds. Big by baseball standards of the time, but not nearly as tall as Randy Johnson, or as heavy as CC Sabathia. Nevertheless, not many pitchers who entered this year still alive had a bigger legacy in baseball than Don.

Donald Newcombe (no middle name), was born on June 14, 1926, in Madison, Morris County, New Jersey. He grew up in nearby Elizabeth, Union County. In 1944 and 1945, he pitched for a "hometown team," the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League.

Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had begun to racially integrate the team, having signed Jackie Robinson. Among the other players he signed were Newcombe and catcher Roy Campanella, then starring with the Baltimore Elite Giants. (And that's pronounced EE-lite, not Eh-LEET.)

For the 1946 season, Rickey assigned Robinson to the Class AAA International League's Montreal Royals; and Newk and Campy to the Nashua Dodgers of the Class B New England League. (This would be equivalent to Class A ball today.) This New Hampshire team thus became the 1st racially integrated professional baseball team in the United States, and won the Pennant in 1946, 1947 and 1948. Montreal also won the Pennant in 1946.

The Nashua Dodgers' home, the 4,000-seat Holman Stadium, was built in 1937, and renovated in 2002. It still stands today, although it hasn't hosted a professional team since 2009.

Campy played at Nashua with Newk in 1946, then was promoted to Montreal in 1947, as Jackie was brought to the major league Dodgers. In 1948, Campy would be promoted to Brooklyn, while Newk was promoted to Montreal, helping them win another Pennant.

Newark started the 1949 season at Montreal, which would win another Pennant, but he could be kept down no longer.  On May 20, 1949, he made his major league debut, at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. It didn't go so well: He entered the game in the 7th inning, got only 1 out, allowed 3 runs on 4 hits, and the Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 6-2.

He shrugged it off, though, "Old Number 36," as Dodger broadcaster Red Barber surely called him on a few occasions, went 17-8 despite missing the 1st month of the season, led the National League with 5 shutouts, and had a streak of 32 consecutive scoreless innings.

That year, for the only time in its history, the Dodgers' home field, Ebbets Field, hosted the All-Star Game, and the 1st 4 black All-Stars were named: Jackie, Campy, Newk, and the man who had become the 1st black player in the American League, Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians.

The Dodgers won the Pennant. Newk was named NL Rookie of the Year, and was started in Game 1 of the World Series. But his luck ran out: He battled Allie Reynolds of the Yankees for 8 1/2 innings of scoreless ball, and then, in the bottom of the 9th inning, Tommy Henrich hit a game-winning home run. It was the 1st time any player had ever hit what we would now call a "walkoff home run" in a postseason game. The Yankees won the Series in 5 games.

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That began an unfair reputation for Newk, that he was "not a big game pitcher." In 1950, he went 19-11, and the Dodgers took the Pennant race down to the last day of the season, facing the Philadelphia Phillies. If the Dodgers won, it would force a Playoff for the Pennant. If they lost, the Phils would be Champions. The game went to extra innings, and in the 10th, Newk's 267th inning of the season, he gave up a home run to Dick Sisler, and the Phils won the Pennant.

In 1951, he went 20-9, and the Dodgers were in 1st place most of the way. But their arch-rivals, the Giants, came from 13 1/2 games behind on August 11 to force a Playoff. Newk started the 3rd and deciding game, and was leading 1-0 going into the 7th inning. It was his 270th inning of the season, and when manager Charlie Dressen came out to the mound, Newk told him he was tired.

The entire infield was on the mound with them, and, in his high-pitched but firm voice, Jackie -- possibly concerned that someone might say a black pitcher couldn't take the pressure -- told Newk, "You keep pitching until your arm falls off." (That's the way I heard it. Something tells me Jackie may have added a profane adjective to the word "arm.")

The Dodgers made it 4-1 in the top of the 8th, but in the bottom of the 9th, the Giants made it 4-2, and put runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Newk was gassed. Dressen removed him, and brought in Ralph Branca, and the next batter was Bobby Thomson. And if you don't know what happened next, then you're new to baseball history, and you have a lot to learn.

Newk spent the 1952 and 1953 seasons in the U.S. Army, in the Korean War. In those seasons, Roger Kahn was the Dodgers' "beat writer" for the New York Herald Tribune. He included his recollections of those seasons in his 1971 book The Boys of Summer. But Newk wasn't there in those seasons, and that's why he wasn't one of the players Kahn sought out for their recollections as he was writing the book. Newk was a Boy of Summer, and yet he wasn't one.

Those were the seasons in which he turned 26 and 27. He should have been at his peak. But he was in Korea, not Flatbush. The Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees in both seasons. The '52 Series went 7 games, and the Yankees didn't have Whitey Ford, as he was also in the Army. Newk certainly could have made a difference that time. Ford was back in '53, and the Yankees won in 6 games, but Newk could still have made a difference.

Walter O'Malley, a part-owner of the Dodgers when Newk arrived, and having since bought Rickey out to become majority owner, was a powerful man, but not powerful enough to get any of his players a draft deferment.

Newk returned in 1954, but was only 9-8. But in 1955, he had an extraordinary season. He went 20-5, and also hit 7 home runs -- a feat matched in baseball history only by Wes Ferrell, who did it twice, with the 1931 Indians and the 1935 Boston Red Sox; and by Don Drysdale, with the Los Angeles version of the Dodgers in 1965. No, Babe Ruth never did both in the same season.

The Dodgers finally won the World Series in 1955, beating the Yankees. Newk lost Game 1, and did not appear in the Series again, but still got his ring.

Cy Young died that year, and the next year, 1956, the Cy Young Award for most valuable pitcher was established, since many people didn't think it was right that a pitcher, who appeared once every 4 days, should get the MVP. Newk won both awards anyway, going 27-7. He thus became the 1st player ever to win a Rookie of the Year, a Cy Young Award, and an MVP. Only 1 player has achieved that since: Justin Verlander.

Newk's 27 wins in 1956 have not been matched by a New York-based pitcher since. Not by Whitey Ford, not by Tom Seaver, not by Ron Guidry, not by Dwight Gooden, not by anyone. But he ended up getting knocked out early by the Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series, the last postseason game played by a National League team from New York until 1969.

That would be his last All-Star season, at age 30 -- and he'd already missed his age 26 and 27 seasons in the Army. Injuries and heavy drinking began to take their toll. He went 11-12 in 1957, the last Brooklyn season.

In 1958, the 1st Los Angeles season, he lost his 1st 6 decisions, and the Dodgers traded him to the Cincinnati Reds. He went 13-8 in 1959, but was shaky in 1960. He was traded to the Cleveland Indians, was sent down to Triple-A for 1961, pitched and played outfield and 1st base in Japan in 1962, and called it a career at 36.

His major league totals: 149-90, in only 10 seasons; an ERA of 3.56, an ERA+ of 114, and a WHIP of 1.203. Occasionally used as a pinch-hitter, he batted .271, and hit 15 home runs. Today, baseball Twitterers would call him one of the #PitchersWhoRake.

But it's not enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. Baseball-Reference.com puts him at 78 on their Hall of Fame Monitor, for which 100 represents a "Likely HOFer." They have him at 28 on their Hall of Fame Standards, which is weighted more toward career stats, and for which 50 represents the "Average HOFer." On their Similarity Scale, only 1 of his 10 most similar pitchers is in the Hall, and that's Dizzy Dean, who won 150 games before his own career was shortened by injury, and is in the Hall as much for being a cultural icon as for being a great pitcher.

And while there are players in the Hall of Fame who appeared in the majors but did more in the Negro Leagues (the late Monte Irvin is a good example, having done great things in both), Newk wasn't in the Negro Leagues for very long (11 games in 1944 and 1945, before the Dodgers signed him at age 19), so he can't get a boost that way: Like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Ernie Banks, he was in them, but pretty much all of his great moments came in the majors. So he's not going to get in that way.

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Don Newcombe was married 3 times: To Freddie Cross from 1945 to 1960, to Billie Roberts from then until 1994, and to Karen Kroner, which lasted for the record of his life. He had 3 children, including Don Newcombe Jr., briefly played in the Dodgers' minor-league system.

Newk described himself as "a stupefied, wife-abusing, child-frightening, falling-down drunk." In 1965, he pawned his 1955 World Series ring to fund his habit. In 1966, Billie threatened to leave him, and he was finally able to quit.

He became a substance abuse counselor, assisting athletes and, through the USO, military personnel. A Dodger legend from the early L.A. years, Maury Wills, credits Newk with getting him clean after years of boozing and cocaine use.

"What I have done after my baseball career and being able to help people with their lives and getting their lives back on track and they become human beings again, means more to me than all the things I did in baseball," he has said.

Newk joined the Dodgers' front office, as Director of Community Affairs. In the 1977 and 1978 World Series, he wheeled out Roy Campanella, who'd been paralyzed in a 1958 car crash, and assisted him in throwing out the ceremonial first ball. In 2009, he went into semi-retirement, and was named a special adviser to the team's chairman -- Basketball Hall-of-Famer Earvin "Magic" Johnson. And yet, he maintained his residence in the Colonia section of Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey.

In 2010, he attended a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator from California. So did President Barack Obama, who kidded nobody when he called Newk "someone who helped America become what it is," and added, "I would not be here if it were not for Jackie, and it were not for Don Newcombe."

He became one of the go-to guys for interviews about the Brooklyn Dodgers, including in Ken Burns' recent documentary Jackie Robinson. On April 15, 1997, on the 50th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut, Jackie was honored with a ceremony during a Mets-Dodgers game at Shea Stadium. Among the ex-Dodgers on hand was Newcombe. I won tickets to that game, and took Grandma. About 30 or so years after she saw him in that elevator, we saw him together.

Don Newcombe died today, February 19, 2019, at age 92, after a long illness. He has not yet been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Perhaps the Golden Era Committee, one of the successors to the Veterans Committee, will have a sympathy vote for him the next time they meet.

With his death, there are now 17 living former Brooklyn Dodgers: Chris Haughey, Eddie Basinski, Tommy Brown, Wayne Terwilliger, Glenn Mickens, Bobby Morgan, Tim Thompson, Tommy Lasorda, Jim Gentile, Randy Jackson, Joe Pignatano, Don Demeter, Carl Erskine, Fred Kipp, Bob Aspromonte, Roger Craig and Sandy Koufax.

Erskine, Lasorda and Koufax are the last 3 surviving members of the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers.

And Willie Mays is now the last living player who appeared in the Bobby Thomson Game in 1951.

UPDATE: Newk's final resting place is not publicly known.