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After playing one season with the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues, Newcombe signed with the Dodgers. With catcher Roy Campanella, Newcombe played for the first racially integrated baseball team based in the United States in the twentieth century, the 1946 Nashua Dodgers of the New England League. He continued to play for Nashua in 1947 before moving up through the minor leagues.
He debuted for Brooklyn on May 20, 1949. He immediately helped the Dodgers to the league pennant as he earned seventeen victories, led the league in shutouts, and pitched 32 consecutive scoreless innings. He was also among the first four black players to be named to the All-Star team, along with teammates Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella and the Indians' Larry Doby. Newcombe was named Rookie of the Year by both The Sporting News and the Baseball Writers Association of America. In 1950, he won nineteen games, and twenty the following season, also leading the league in strikeouts in 1951. In the memorable playoff game between the Dodgers and the Giants at the end of the 1951 season, Don Newcombe was relieved by Ralph Branca in the bottom of the ninth inning before Branca surrendered the walk-off home run to Bobby Thomson. Continue Reading...