Happy Black History Month! Today we’re celebrating Dodgers pitcher Don “Big Newk” Newcombe. Born in New Jersey in 1926, he played for the Newark Eagles, Nashua Dodgers, and the Montreal Royals before pitching his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers on May 20, 1949. Later that year he became the first Black pitcher to start a World Series game and was named Rookie of the Year. After completing two years of military service Newcombe returned to the Dodgers to a stunning 1956 season, which earned him MVP and the Cy Young Award. Newcombe was traded to the Cincinnati Reds shortly after the team's move to Los Angeles and played briefly in Japan before retiring from baseball.
Newcombe struggled with substance abuse but got clean in 1966 and is credited with helping several friends overcome their addictions. In 2008 he told the Los Angeles Times "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." Newcombe died in 2019 at the age of 92.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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