What's With Big Newk in the World Series? (60 Years Ago, 1956)

A few days ago, on the 7th of October, Clayton Kershaw and David Price took the mound in post-season games having to live down mystifying questions as why, in the crucible of October baseball, they have been anything but the elite pitchers they are. Sixty years ago, on October 10, 1956, at Ebbets Field, the Dodgers' Don Newcombe did the same. 

(60 Years Ago):
What's With Big Newk in the World Series?

Don Newcombe was a 20-game winner for the third time in his six big league seasons, which were interrupted by two years of military service during the Korean War. He was, in fact, exceptional, with a 27-7 record—every one of his wins necessary for the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers to return to the World Series and have a chance to defend their world championship the year before. Pitching and winning the last game of the season on Sunday, September 30, by which the Dodgers secured the pennant by just one game over the Milwaukee Braves, the Brooklyn ace would not have been ready for Game 1 on Wednesday. He would start Game 2 instead on five days of rest. 

Despite having won 70 percent of his decisions (a 112-48 career record) so far in his career, Newcombe went into the '56 World Series having already earned a reputation for a big-time winner in the regular season turned batting practice pitcher / loser in the Fall Classic.

It all began in his rookie year of 1949, when he broke in with a 17-8 record, and led the Dodgers in starts (31), complete games (19), shutouts (5), innings pitched (244⅓), strikeouts (149), and fewest-hits-per-9 innings (8.2). He was first in the league in shutouts, second in strikeouts, and third in complete games and hits-per-9 innings.

He pitched like the ace he was in the opening game of the 1949 World Series, shutting out the Yankees on four hits through eight innings. At Yankee Stadium no less. But Allie Reynolds was even better, shutting out the Dodgers on just two hits, and Reynolds had two of the four hits Newcombe had given up. But Tommy Henrich, the Yankees' first batter in the ninth, homered. The game was over. The Yankees won. So far, the worst you could say about Newcombe in World Series competition was that he pitched brilliantly, Reynolds pitched better, and Tommy Henrich was ... well, Old Reliable.

Just three days after his anguishing loss, Newcombe took the mound again at Ebbets Field in Game 4, needing to win for the Dodgers to tie the Series at two games apiece. Although he struggled through the first inning, giving up two hits and two walks but being helped out by a double play, Newcombe shutout the Yankees through three. He got only one out in the fourth, however, giving up 3 runs on three doubles and a walk before being sent to the showers. The Dodgers lost the game. The next day they lost the World Series.

Because of his time in the US Army, Newk's next World Series did not come until 1955, a season in which he won 20, lost 5, and led the league in winning percentage and in WHIP. He started the opening game against Whitey Ford and gave up 6 runs on 8 hits before being taken out with two outs in the 6th. He did not pitch again in the World Series, most likely because his arm was sore and he had a bad back. Brooklyn nonetheless won in seven games without him. 

Going into his start in Game 2 of the 1956 Series, Newcombe's line in 3 World Series starts was an 0-3 record and 5.19 earned run average in 17⅓ innings. He was up against Don Larsen, a so-so pitcher whose historic date with fate would come in Game 5. Newk gave up a run in the 1st and 5 in the 2nd, leaving with two outs in the inning after Yogi Berra belted a grand slam to make the score 6-0. The only reason Newcombe did not lose the game was because Larsen couldn't get out of Brooklyn's half of the second as the Dodgers scored 6 runs to tie the score on their way to a 13-8 win and a two-games-to-none lead in the Series.

But Newcombe had now allowed 16 earned runs in the 19 innings he had pitched in four World Series starts. His World Series ERA was now up to 7.58, and over 9.00 since the Tommy Henrich game. And so his reputation for "choking" in the big games went to the mound with him in Game 7. 

The Dodgers' defense of their 1955 championship was on the line. Berra hit a two-run homer in the 1st and another 2-run homer in the 3rd to give the Yankees a 4-0 lead. Newk's day was done when Elston Howard led off the 4th with a home run. The Dodgers lost, 9-0, in what turned out to be . . . The LAST World Series game played in Brooklyn.

In baseball, post-season failures when everything is on the line can be unforgiving because that is when the games are most visible. Charlie Dressen, the Brooklyn manager for whom Newcombe pitched in 1951, once derided his ace's failures in big games as a "terrible flaw." Perhaps Dressen was not remembering that Newcombe's pitching in the last week of that season is what enabled the Dodgers to finish the schedule tied for first, forcing the playoff that ended with Bobby Thomson's home run. Newcombe rose to the occasion in those "big" games. Specifically, Newk had two complete-game victories, including a shutout, and pitching 5⅔ innings of shutout relief in a Dodgers' win in their 154th game on the schedule—all absolute-must win games for Brooklyn—in the last five days of the season.

Perhaps if his World Series record was not 0-4 in 5 starts with an atrocious 8.59 ERA, that might have made a difference the times he has since been considered for Hall of Fame validation. It's not necessarily apparent why some elite players have had such great struggles in the post-season, but it almost certainly has nothing to do with any "terrible flaw"—unless that flaw is taking on the psychological burden of being perceived as, even having to be, the savior because of their excellence during the season. 

Just as few would question today the excellence of either Clayton Kershaw or David Price despite their post-season let-downs, Don Newcombe was an outstanding pitcher—one of the best of his era—without whom the 1949-56 Dodgers would not have been as successful as they were. 

And as we all know, in those two post-season games on October 7 of this year, neither Kershaw nor Price pitched to the level typically expected of them. Kershaw struggled through 5 innings and gave up 3 runs on 8 hits. He got the win and is now 3-6 with a 4.65 ERA in the post-season. Price had another terrible start, giving up 5 runs in 3⅓ innings and is now 2-8 in post-season games with a 5.54 ERA. 

60 Years Ago (1955): Before "Next Year"--the Dodgers Vexed World Series History

The Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees had vastly different post-season histories as they squared off in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series at Yankee Stadium on September 28. The Yankees had been to 20 World Series and won 16 of them. The Dodgers did not win any of the seven World Series they had played, the last five of which were all against the Yankees. And their Fall Classics history seemed particularly vexed, because it always seemed that some odd event—or Billy Martin—did them in.

Before "Next Year: Brooklyn's Vexed World Series History

1916: After the Dodgers—then known as the "Robins" after their manager, Wilbert Robinson—lost the opening game of their first World Series to the Boston Red Sox, the two teams battled into the 14th inning of Game 2 in Boston. Both starting pitchers, Sherry Smith for Brooklyn and some guy named Babe Ruth for the Red Sox, were still in the game. After Ruth retired the Robins in order in the top of the inning, Smith walked the lead-off batter, who went to second on a sacrifice bunt, from where he scored on a walk-off single by Del Gainer, pinch-hitting for veteran third baseman Larry Gardner. Gainer was strictly a bench player, but was sent up to hit for the left-handed-batting Gardner, whose .308 batting average was fifth in the league, as a percentage move against the southpaw Smith. Gainer's game-winning hit was his only plate appearance in the 1916 World Series.

Down two games-to-none, Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets caused some controversy by banishing the Red Sox' band of Royal Rooters (a real band) to the far reaches of his ballpark when the Series moved to Ebbets Field, which may or may not have helped his team win Game 3. The Robins took a 2-0 lead in the first inning of Game 4, only to watch the aforementioned Mr. Gardner slide under the catcher's tag with a three-run inside-the-park home run. (There was no New York review.) The Red Sox won the game, and the next day the Series as well when the teams returned to Boston, where the Royal Rooters put up a celebratory hoot.

1920: Now oh-for-one in World Series competition, Brooklyn was back in the Classic in 1920, against the Cleveland Indians. With the Series tied two games apiece in Game 5 in Cleveland, the Indians jumped off to a 4-0 lead in the first inning when their first three batters touched future Hall of Fame pitcher Burleigh Grimes for singles to load the bases and clean-up hitter Elmer Smith hit the first grand slam in World Series history. And the Indians still had all 27 outs to play with. 

Later in the 5th inning, as if that World Series first was not enough to victimize the Dodgers—still called the Robins—they hit into the first and only unassisted triple play in World Series history. With runners at first and second, and behind 7-0 in the score, Clarence Mitchell, a very good-hitting pitcher who had relieved the ineffective Grimes, hit a line-drive that seemed destined to land safely in center field—except that second baseman Bill Wambsganss leaped to his right and snared the drive for the out. Both Robins took flight for the next base when the ball was hit—it sure looked like a hit—allowing Wambsganss to touch second to double-up the lead runner and tag out the runner from first, standing just off the keystone sack, for unassisted out number three.

The Robins were shut out the next two games and were now oh-and-two in World Series play. Brooklyn did not return to the Fall Classic for 21 years, during which time the Robins went back to being called the Dodgers once Wilbert Robinson retired.

1941: With the Yankees and Dodgers tied at a game apiece, Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher called upon his ace reliever, Hugh Casey, to hold the Yankees at bay in a scoreless tie in Game 3 at Ebbets Field. Casey gave up four consecutive singles and wound up the losing pitcher.

The next day, having entered the game in the sixth inning, Casey was protecting a 4-3 lead that would have tied the Series and had the Yankees down to their last strike—which he got, except that strike three got passed catcher Mickey Owen and Tommy Henrich reached first base, whereupon Casey proceeded to unravel, surrendering a single, a walk, and a pair of doubles that resulted in the Yankees winning the game. The Series mercifully ended the next day, the Dodgers never again with a lead.

1947: Jackie Robinson tormenting the Yankees with his base-running, Al Gionfriddo’s robbery of Joe DiMaggio causing the normally unflustered Yankee Clipper to kick the dirt, and Cookie Lavagetto’s two-out last-of-the-ninth double not only breaking up Bill Bevens’ no-hitter but turning him into the losing pitcher were Brooklyn highlights in the 1947 World Series. But Yogi Berra had the first pinch-hit home run in World Series history, Bobby Brown went three-for-three as a pinch hitter, and Joe Page pitched five scoreless innings allowing only one runner to reach base to win Game 7 and send the Dodgers to their fourth straight World Series defeat.

1949: Don Newcombe, 17-8 in his rookie year with Brooklyn, was dominant for the Dodgers in Game 1 of the World Series, making history as the first black pitcher to start in the Fall Classic. He shut out the Yankees through eight innings, giving up just four hits and striking out 11. Unfortunately, Allie Reynolds was just as good for the Yankees. Henrich led off the bottom of the ninth for the Yankees and hit a home run to defeat Newcombe, 1-0. The Dodgers won the next day by the same score, but Brooklyn lost the Series in five games. This game was the undeserved beginning of criticism that Newcombe had a tendency to choke in big games.

1952: The Yankees and Dodgers met again in the 1952 World Series. The Dodgers had a 3-games-to-2 advantage, lost Game 6, and in the bottom of the 7th of Game 7, trailing by 4-2, loaded the bases with just one out . . . and did not score a single run. Their last hope died on a popup around the pitcher’s mound that looked for sure like it would drop for a cheap game-tying hit when the Yankee first baseman lost the ball in the sun and the pitcher just stood there. But to the rescue came Billy Martin, charging in from his position at second base, losing his hat racing to the interior of the infield, and making a knee-high catch to end the threat. The Dodgers did not threaten again, and were now oh-for-six in World Series play.

1953: It was Billy Martin to the Yankees’ rescue again the next year. This time it was the Yankees batting in the bottom of the 9th of Game 6 with a 3-games-to-2 advantage, the score tied 3-3, runners at first and second, one out, Dodgers ace reliever Clem Labine on the mound, and darned if Billy the Kid doesn’t slap a game-winning, World Series-winning, single up the middle. It was his 12th hit of the Series, tying a record, and his 8th run batted in.

The Ebbets Faithful always consoled themselves with, "Wait till next year."

But the Dodgers were up against the Yankees once again in 1955. And wasn’t it just their luck that Billy Martin had returned from his service commitment in September, just in time to help the Yankees win the ’55 pennant and play in the World Series.