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The former Brooklyn Dodgers star is a three-time 20-game winner and the first player to win the Cy Young Award in 1956. Newcombe also became the first African-American starting pitcher in a World Series game.
Donald Newcombe
(June 14, 1926 – February 19, 2019),
“Newk”,
He was an American professional baseball pitcher in Negro leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for the Newark Eagles (1944–45), Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers (1949–1951 and 1954–58), Cincinnati Reds (1958–1960), and Cleveland Indians (1960).
Newcombe was the first pitcher to win the Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and Cy Young Awards during his career. This distinction would not be achieved again until 2011, when Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, who was Rookie of the Year in 2006, won the Cy Young and MVP awards. In 1949, he became the first black pitcher to start a World Series game. In 1951, Newcombe was the first black pitcher to win 20 games in one season. In 1956, the inaugural year of the Cy Young Award, he became the first pitcher to win the National League MVP and the Cy Young in the same season.
Newcombe was an excellent hitting pitcher who compiled a career batting average of .271 with 15 home runs and was used as a pinch hitter, a rarity for pitchers.
Newcombe died on the morning of February 19, 2019, at the age of 92, following a long illness. His death was announced on the Dodgers’ Twitter account. He’s interred at the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Los Angeles.