Don Newcombe Comes To Brooklyn

How the 1949 Dodgers became great.

Don Newcombe Comes To Brooklyn

While doing research for my 1949 replay, I came across this line in Don Newcombe’s SABR biography:

It’s pretty disheartening to read all of this — but, sadly, it looks even worse when you start digging into the newspapers.

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Newcombe in Montreal

First of all, there is no question that Newcombe was a huge star in Montreal. Anybody could see the incredible talent he had.

You can see it as far back as early spring training in 1949. There’s this quote, for instance:

From The Gazette (Montreal), March 2, 1949, page 18

I’m not quite sure how deeply we should read into the gossip from this period, but it does seem pretty clear that Burt Shotton was the one who didn’t want Newcombe to come up to the big club:

From The Montreal Daily Star, March 21, 1949, page 27

Now, there is a chance that Newcombe was left on the Montreal club for other reasons. There were some odd rumors in late March 1949 about Newcombe potentially being on the trading block, though they strike me as absolutely absurd. There was also apparently an injury that hindered his progress:

From The Montreal Daily Star, April 18, 1949, page 24

Even still, it’s really hard to come up with any reason for Newcombe’s scrub other than plain racism.

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Move to Brooklyn

Newcombe’s move to Brooklyn was a big deal. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the biggest minor league promotion in all of 1949.

Don apparently received word of his promotion before his start on May 13th. He didn’t pitch all that well on that occasion:

From The Montreal Daily Star, May 14, 1949, page 14

Apparently, the press in Brooklyn had been getting on management for not moving him up earlier, too, as we can see from the article below.

From The Gazette (Montreal), May 14, 1949, page 8

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, news of Newcombe’s pending arrival was so big that it overshadowed the Dodgers’ most recent game:

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 14, 1949, page 6

In fact, Newcombe’s picture in a Dodger uniform featured in the Brooklyn papers the next day, even though he didn’t play:

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 15, 1949, page 26

That gives you an idea of how big this was.

We’re right to celebrate Jackie Robinson successfully integrating the sport in 1947. However, racism was still rampant in 1949, and would remain so for years to come. One can only wonder how good the 1949 Dodgers would have been had their ace been on the roster the entire season.