September 6, 1950: Don Newcombe hurls 16 innings in Dodgers’ doubleheader sweep of Phillies

“If you pitch the second game, Newk, I’ll give you tomorrow off to go fishing.” – Brooklyn Dodgers manager Burt Shotton1

With less than four weeks remaining in the 1950 regular season, the Brooklyn Dodgers boarded the train bound for Philadelphia to open a four-game series with the National League’s first-place Phillies. The Dodgers were arguably preseason favorites to repeat as National League champions, but they now found themselves in second place, 7½ games behind the Phillies.

The Dodgers brass did not hold back with their unhappiness over the team’s performance in a front-page story in The Sporting News in late August. For general manger Branch Rickey, the players’ attitude was one of  “complete satiety and complacency.”2 Manager Burt Shotton reflected on preseason expectations and, injuries aside, blamed it on the pitching. “The tools I’ve got to work with today aren’t as sharp as they were a year ago. I expected more from my pitchers. That’s been my big disappointment.”3

Their stats told the story.4 For example, Shotton had lost confidence in Joe Hatten, a 12-game winner in 1949. “He’s either very good or very bad. … It doesn’t take long to find out whether he got it or not.”5 Ralph Branca, a 13-game winner in 1949, was used mostly in relief by Shotton. A shoulder infection and a 7-9 record led Branca to characterize his 1950 season as a “waste.”6

But Shotton could count on Don Newcombe and Preacher Roe, so we should not be surprised that on the train ride to Philadelphia, both Shotton and Newcombe joked about pitching a doubleheader. The series began with a twin bill and it was Newcombe’s turn in the rotation. Shotton declared, “You can do two if you if you pitch a shutout in the opener.”7

Newcombe (16-8, 3.71 ERA), a two-time NL All-Star, was on a hot streak, having won five in a row without allowing an earned run in the last three. Nonetheless, four of his losses in the season were against the Phillies. His mound opponent in the first game was rookie Bubba Church (8-2, 2.16 ERA).

The Dodgers manufactured the only run that Newcombe would need when Pee Wee Reese walked with one out in the first, moved up on a walk to Gene Hermanski, took third on a wild pitch, and scored on Jackie Robinson’s groundout. They did add a second run in the eighth thanks to Robinson’s typical baserunning flair. After a leadoff single to center, Robinson hustled all the way to third on Carl Furillo’s sacrifice bunt. Gil Hodges’ fly to deep right-center scored Robinson.

Meanwhile, Newcombe breezed through the Phillies lineup with ease, yielding only three singles, two by Richie Ashburn, and one walk. No one in the home white uniforms even reached second base. The 2-0 shutout gave Newcombe three whitewashes in his last four starts and 17 wins for the season. Most importantly for what was to come next, he needed only 83 pitches.8

Newcombe was relaxing and playing cards in the visitors clubhouse at Shibe Park between games. Shotton approached the card game and suggested the possibility to Newcombe of a day off to go fishing if he pitched the second game. His alternative was the often-erratic Dan Bankhead (6-4, 6.07 ERA). Shotton later explained, “I figured [Newcombe] was hot right then, and ought to try again. Say, they all wrote us off too quick. This club is not through.”9 Newcombe realized that Shotton was serious, grabbed his glove, and headed out to warm up, greeted by a roaring crowd, and ready to face Curt Simmons (17-8, 3.47 ERA).10

In the first inning, the pesky Ashburn was at it again with his third hit of the day, a one-out single to center, advancing to second on a groundout. Both Newcombe and right fielder Furillo were a bit unlucky when Del Ennis hit a short fly-ball double to right, scoring Ashburn. Furillo just missed a shoestring catch, ending Newcombe’s streak of 41 consecutive innings without an earned run.11

Newcombe was similarly unlucky in the third inning when Eddie Waitkus opened with a fly to deep right. When Furillo slipped to his knees and the ball rebounded off the fence, Waitkus legged into third with a triple. Ashburn’s fly ball to center was deep enough to score the second run for a 2-0 lead.12

Meanwhile, Simmons was the definition of pitching perfection, retiring the first 14 Dodgers. In the fifth inning with two outs, Hodges hit a liner that shortstop Granny Hamner could not field and throw. It was the Dodgers’ first hit of the game.

Newcombe kept the game close, even though his pitching was not as sharp as in the first game. Ennis opened the sixth inning with a double to right, followed by Dick Whitman’s walk. When Ennis tried to score on Hamner’s single, he was thrown out at the plate on Roy Campanella’s diving tag after a wide throw from left fielder Tommy Brown.13 Newcombe ended the threat by getting Andy Seminick and Mike Goliat on groundouts.

As the fans stood for the traditional seventh-inning stretch, Newcombe came out to the mound for the 16th and last inning of a day’s work, retiring the side in order – Simmons, Waitkus, and Ashburn.14 When the Dodgers batted in the eighth, it was Newcombe’s turn to hit with two outs and the bases empty. Shotton sent Jim Russell to the plate as a pinch-hitter. Newcombe was an outstanding hitter with a .259 season’s batting average, but Simmons had already struck him out twice. Russell grounded out to short.

Now the Dodgers had to rely on Bankhead in relief for the eighth and perhaps the ninth. He did retire the Phillies in order in the eighth, but not before Campanella’s exposed right thumb was hit by a foul tip off the bat of Willie Jones. Bruce Edwards immediately replaced Brooklyn’s All-Star catcher behind the plate.

The Dodgers had one last chance against Simmons in the ninth. When he walked Reese with one out and allowed only his second hit, Brown’s single to left, Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer called on his relief ace, Jim Konstanty, to face Jackie Robinson. Konstanty, who also pitched in the first game, was making his 62nd appearance of the season.15 Robinson fouled off two pitches before his hard grounder between short and third was fielded by Hamner without a throw. The bases were loaded.

Konstanty struck out Furillo for the second out. When Hodges singled to left, Reese and Brown scored to tie the game. Left fielder Whitman fired the ball home to Seminick, and Robinson was hung up between third and home. Robinson was 15 feet from third when Seminick’s errant throw back to Jones at third allowed Robinson to score the unearned run.16 Dodgers 3, Phillies 2. It could have been worse for the Phillies, but after Edwards walked, Ashburn made a tumbling catch of Billy Cox’s short fly to center for the third out.17

Bankhead added some bottom-of-the-ninth drama after striking out the first two batters, Hamner and Seminick. He walked Goliat, and Sawyer sent in Bill Nicholson, who had more than 200 career home runs, to pinch-hit for Konstanty. Bankhead induced a pop fly to Robinson, ending the threat and giving him a seventh win and the Dodgers a doubleheader sweep.

The Dodgers were jubilant, having reduced the Phillies’ first-place lead to 5½ games, but their mood was tempered by the apparently significant injury to Campanella. Harold Parrott, the Dodgers’ road secretary, reported from the clubhouse that Campanella’s thumb was fractured and he “was through for the season.”18

They soon received better news that Campanella’s thumb was dislocated and cut but not fractured.19 He returned behind the plate for the last two weeks of the regular season and the final stretch of the pennant race between Philadelphia’s Whiz Kids and Dem Bums from Brooklyn.20

The Phillies had now lost two consecutive doubleheaders, but confidence remained high with baseball news remaining a front-page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.21 Despite the losing streak, sports columnist John Webster was even supremely confident about predicting a World Series outcome, noting that “our fabulous Phillies will whip the Yankees just as readily as the Detroit Tigers or even Boston’s Red Sox.”22

Newcombe pitched eight more times after the doubleheader, including the pennant-deciding last game of the season against the Phillies at Ebbets Field. He pitched brilliantly but lost 4-1 in the 10th inning on Dick Sisler’s three-run home run.23 The Whiz Kids were headed to the World Series, only to be swept by the New York Yankees.

What made Newcombe’s iron-man feat such a memorable one? After all, he fell short of starting and winning both ends of the doubleheader and duplicating its most recent occurrence by the Cleveland Indians’ Emil Levsen in 1926 against the Boston Red Sox.24 Joe King had an answer in his coverage of the games for The Sporting News. “Don [Newcombe] emerged as the stalwart ace of rugged proportions who could handle more than his share down the stretch, if the Dodgers, as they insisted, are yet to make the race exciting.”25

Perhaps if you had asked Newcombe the same question, he would have told you that he just wanted to go fishing.

Author’s note                                                              

Researching this essay reminded the author of the special relationship between a pitcher and his catcher, and in particular that of Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella – Newk and Campy – teammates, roommates, and friends, part of the Dodgers’ second wave of integrating their major-league roster.26 Years later, Newcombe recounted his iron-man feat and the dialogue with his manager.27 He did not fail to share that Campy thought starting both games was a great idea.

It was no coincidence that Branch Rickey paired the veteran catcher and the young hurler when they were signed by the Dodgers in 1946 and assigned to Nashua, New Hampshire, Brooklyn’s Class B farm team. It was Campanella behind the plate when Newcombe made his first big-league start for the Dodgers in 1949, as well as when he made his last start in Brooklyn.28 Newcombe, who later played with Cincinnati and Cleveland, won 123 games as a Dodger and Campanella was his catcher for 115 of them.29

The story of Newk and Campy is shared in more detail in another SABR Games Project essay: May 10, 1955: Don Newcombe faces the minimum and one-hits the Cubs.

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Thomas Merrick and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for box scores/play-by-play information and other data:

• First game: baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI195009061.shtml; retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1950/B09061PHI1950.htm.
• Second game: baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI195009062.shtml; retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1950/B09062PHI1950.htm.

The 1951 Bowman baseball card for Don Newcombe was obtained from SABR’s Rucker Archive (sabr.org/rucker-archive).

Notes

1 Harold C. Burr, “Newk Earns Day Off on Iron Man Stunt,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 7, 1950: 20.

2 Joe King, “Mahatma’s Blast Has Alibi Ring,” The Sporting News, August 23, 1950: 1.

3 “Tools Aren’t as Sharp,” The Sporting News, August 23, 1950: 2.

4 In 1949, five Dodgers hurlers started 20 games or more, pitching to a 3.80 ERA as a staff: Don Newcombe (31 starts), Joe Hatten (29), Preacher Roe (27), Ralph Branca (27), Rex Barney (20). In 1950 only Newcombe (35 starts) and Preacher Roe (32) met that criteria for a staff whose ERA was below National League-average, 4.28 vs. 4.14, yielding a major league-leading 163 home runs. Other starters for the 1950 Dodgers included Erv Palica (19 starts), Ralph Branca (15), Carl Erskine (13), Dan Bankhead (12), Bud Podbelian (10), Joe Hatten (8).

5 Joseph Wancho, “Joe Hatten,” SABR Baseball Biography Project.

6 Paul Hirsch, “Ralph Branca,” SABR Baseball Biography Project.

7 Joe King, “Newcombe’s Iron-Man Effort Forges Desperate Dodger Bid,” The Sporting News, September 13, 1950: 8.

8 Phil Elderkin, “Don Newcombe’s ‘Iron Man’ Feat,” Christian Science Monitor, July 22, 1983, csmonitor.com/1983/0722/072234.html.

9 King, “Newcombe’s Iron-Man Effort Forges Desperate Dodger Bid.”

10 Burr. Roscoe McGowen reported a more muted reaction by the Shibe Park crowd, one of a mixture of cheers and jeers. Roscoe McGowen, “Brooks Overcome Leaders by 2-0, 3-2,” New York Times, September 7, 1950: 43.

11 McGowen.

12 Burr.

13 McGowen.

14 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 762. Seventh-inning stretch – “A time-honored baseball custom in which fans ritualistically stand and stretch before their team comes to bat in the seventh inning. This is done not only to relieve muscles that have begun to stiffen, but also to bring luck to one’s team.”

15 Konstanty pitched in 74 games in the 1950 season, all in relief, leading the majors in saves (22) and setting a modern-era season’s record for pitching appearances. Through the 2024 season, Mike Marshall’s 106 pitching appearances in 1974 stood as the record. Konstanty (16-7, 2.66 ERA) was named Most Valuable Player in the National League in 1950. 

16 Stan Baumgartner, “Phillies Lose, 2-0, 3-2; Brooks Cut Lead to 5½,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 7, 1950: 33.

17 McGowen.

18 “Campanella Out for Season,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 7, 1950: 33.

19 “Thumb Injury Puts Campy Out for Week or Ten Days,” The Sporting News, September 13, 1950: 8.

20 Dickson, 250, 681. Dem Bums – “Traditional affectionate nickname for the Brooklyn Dodgers, established and characterized by a bewhiskered, cigar-chomping cartoon tramp drawn by Willard Mullin.” Whiz Kids – “Nickname for the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, who took the National League pennant with a starting lineup of players all under the age of 30.”

21 Baumgartner, 1.

22 John Webster, “Sportscope,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 7, 1950: 33.

23 C. Paul Rogers III, “October 1, 1950: Dick Sisler’s 10th-inning home run clinches Phillies’ pennant on the last day of the season,” SABR Baseball Games Project.

24 McGowen.

25 King, “Newcombe’s Iron-Man Effort Forges Desperate Dodger Bid.”

26 Russell Bergtold, “Don Newcombe,” SABR Baseball Biography Project.

27 Elderkin.

28 Newcombe pitched a five-hitter against Cincinnati at Crosley Field on May 22, 1949, and shut out the Reds 3-0. He lost to the Chicago Cubs and Dick Drott, 9-4, on August 27, 1957, pitching 1 2/3 innings.

29 Elderkin.