Milwaukee’s Warren Spahn sets a modern National League record—his 601st start surpassing Grover Alexander—while going all the way to defeat the Dodgers for his 343rd career win, but only after spending the better part of the day in Los Angeles filming what will prove to be the first and last performance of his acting career, on the popular World-War-II-set TV series, Combat. Spahn, himself a decorated WW II veteran and avowed fan of the series, appears in an uncredited but heavily publicized bit part as a German patrol. As one refreshingly frank TV critic will warn us prior to the November 5 air date, “This is Warren Spahn’s much-heralded appearance as a German soldier. If the National League saw as little of him as you will, he probably never would have won a game.”

On August 23, 1963 — Milwaukee’s Warren Spahn sets a modern National League record—his 601st start surpassing Grover Alexander—while going all the way to defeat the Dodgers for his 343rd career win, but only after spending the better part of the day in Los Angeles filming what will prove to be the first and last performance of his acting career, on the popular World-War-II-set TV series, Combat. Spahn, himself a decorated WW II veteran and avowed fan of the series, appears in an uncredited but heavily publicized bit part as a German patrol. As one refreshingly frank TV critic will warn us prior to the November 5 air date, “This is Warren Spahn’s much-heralded appearance as a German soldier. If the National League saw as little of him as you will, he probably never would have won a game.”