Warren SPAHN
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Warren Spahn – Player Biography

 

 

Warren Spahn

Position: Pitcher
Bats: Left  •  Throws: Left
6-0, 172lb (183cm, 78kg)
Born: April 23, 1921 in Buffalo, NY
Died: November 24, 2003  in Broken Arrow, OK
Buried: Elmwood Cemetery, Hartshorne, OK
High School: South Park HS (Buffalo, NY)
Debut: April 19, 1942 (9,245th in major league history)
vs. NYG 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 SO, 0 BB, 0 ER
Last Game: October 1, 1965
vs. CIN 0.1 IP, 1 H, 0 SO, 1 BB, 0 ER
Hall of Fame: Inducted as Player in 1973. (Voted by BBWAA on 316/380 ballots)
View Warren Spahn’s Page at the Baseball Hall of Fame (plaque, photos, videos).
Full Name: Warren Edward Spahn
View Player Info from the B-R Bullpen
View Player Bio from the SABR BioProject

 

Nine Players Who Debuted in 1942

Warren Spahn
Larry Doby
Tommy Holmes
Johnny Pesky
Johnny Sain
Ewell Blackwell
Allie Reynolds
Willard Marshall
Jim Russell
Connie Ryan

The Warren Spahn Teammate Team

C: Ernie Lombardi
1B: Joe Adcock
2B: Red Schoendienst
3B: Eddie Mathews
SS: Johnny Logan
LF: Tommy Holmes
CF: Willie Mays
RF: Hank Aaron
SP: Johnny Sain
SP: Lew Burdette
SP: Bob Buhl
SP: Juan Marichal
SP: Gaylord Perry
RP: Ernie Johnson
M: Fred Haney

Notable Events and Chronology for Warren Spahn Career

Braves sign Spahn

Braves sign Spahn

Bob Lemon evens series 1-1

Bob Lemon evens series 1-1

Jackie Robinson congratulates Stan Musial after his homerun in the 1949 All Star Game at Ebbets Field.

1949 All Star Game

Ken Boyer is greeted at the plate by his teammates after his grand slam in Game 4 of the World Series, Oct 11, 1964

1956 All-Star Game

It is difficult to say which baseball scribe coined the term “crafty left-hander”, but it is easy to imagine that he had the great southpaw Warren Spahn in mind when he came up with the phrase. Armed with a dizzying delivery, a sharp-breaking screwball, and an even sharper mind, Spahn consistently baffled and bested major league hitters over the course of a glorious 20-year career, most of which was spent with the Boston/Milwaukee Braves. Widely regarded as the greatest left-handed pitcher in baseball history, Spahn is on the short list of the game’s greatest hurlers. Were his career not delayed by three years of distinguished military service, it is safe to assume that he would have finished his career second only to Cy Young as history’s winningest pitcher. As it stands, Spahn’s 363 wins are the most ever by a left-hander, and the most by any pitcher since the live-ball era began in the 1920’s. Almost a half-century since he retired, Spahn’s 5,243 innings and 63 career shutouts still stand as records for left-handed pitchers.

But those totals only tell part of the tale. The most remarkable thing about Spahn is not that he put up such stellar numbers, but that he was able to do so consistently throughout such a long career. Spahn won 20 or more games in a season a staggering 13 times, another record among left-handers. He notched the first such season at age 28, and the last at age 42, when he compiled a 23-7 record. Spahn won three ERA titles, one at 26, one at 32, and the last at 40. He threw his first no-hitter at age 39; his second came a year later. At the twilight of his career, a 42-year-old Spahn still had enough left in the tank to hold a scoreless tie with a young Juan Marichal for a grueling 15 innings. Spahn lost the now-famous contest only when Willie Mays homered in the bottom of the 16th. Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell, who was in attendance that night, was so impressed by Spahn’s incredible stamina that he quipped, “He ought to will his body to medical science.”

Such durability must have come as something of a surprise to those who grew up with Warren in his native Buffalo, NY. Born in 1921, the son of an amateur ballplayer, Spahn grew into a tall and lanky 170-pounder, hardly fitting the profile of a power pitcher. Indeed, Warren only turned to pitching when he failed to make his high school team as a first baseman. His father encouraged the shift in position by building his son a pitcher’s mound in the family’s back yard. It was on this makeshift mound, and under his father’s guidance, that Spahn developed his famous delivery, characterized by a deep bow followed by a sky-high leg kick. Such a motion was designed not only to keep runners guessing, but also to deceive the batter. Hitters who later faced Spahn often complained that, in the midst of all those flailing limbs, the ball seemed to just pop out of Spahn’s uniform.

The Spahns’ backyard bullpen sessions paid off when Warren was signed by the Boston Braves organization in 1940. Despite some early arm injuries, Spahn breezed through the minors, so that by 1942 he was invited to start the season with the big league club. His first tour in the majors was frustratingly brief, however: Spahn soon fell out of favor with manager Casey Stengel when the left-hander refused to throw a brush-back pitch at Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese. Angered by his young pitcher’s obstinacy, Stengel banished Spahn to the minors for the remainder of the season, a decision which Stengel later called the worst mistake of his managing career.

Rebounding from this demotion, Spahn once again shined in the minors, but his imminent return to the major leagues was put on hold by the war in Europe. Drafted by the 176th Combat Engineers Battalion of the United States Army, Spahn saw action in some of World War II’s most storied battles, including the Battle of the Bulge and the taking of the Rhine Bridge at Remagen, Germany. For his bravery and sacrifices on the battlefield, Spahn was awarded a battlefield commission, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. Though his service cost him three years of his physical prime, Spahn never regretted it nor fretted over what might have been. Rather, he felt that the hardships he faced on the battlefield put any troubles he might have faced on the ball field in perspective, and actually attributed his career’s longevity to the maturity he gained from his Army experience.

That career began in earnest when Spahn returned to the Boston Braves in 1946. The following year, he emerged as one of the league’s elite pitchers, winning 21 games and leading the league with a 2.33 ERA. In 1948, as Boston battled to win its first pennant in almost a generation, Spahn teamed up with ace right-hander Johnny Sain to form one of the most famous pitching tandems in baseball history. So dominant was the pair during the Braves’ pennant drive that one local sportswriter joked that the team’s plan for victory should be “Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain.” (In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that their staff mates, Bill Voisele and Vern Bickford, posted a more-than-respectable combined record of 24-18 that year.)  Spahn’s grit and guile helped Boston win the NL pennant that year, but his Braves lost the World Series to the Cleveland Indians in six games.

After a decade as perhaps the major league’s best regular-season pitcher, Spahn led the Braves (now in Milwaukee) to another World Series appearance in 1957. He won his only Cy Young Award that same year (in only the second year of the award’s existence), posting a 23-11 record. This time, the Braves emerged victorious, defeating the mighty New York Yankees in seven games. Spahn won 22 games the following year to lead the Braves to another World Series date with the Yankees. Though Spahn went 2-1 with a 2.20 ERA that postseason, it was in a losing effort, as Milwaukee fell to New York in another close seven-game series.

Spahn won 21 games in each of the next three seasons, leading the league each time, and he pitched no-hitters in 1960 and 1961. After going 23-7 with a 2.60 ERA in 1963, Spahn struggled in 1964, after which he was sold to the cellar-dwelling New York Mets. After splitting the 1965 season between the Mets and San Francisco Giants, Spahn finally retired, though for many years afterward he stayed connected to the game, coaching at various levels. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by an overwhelming margin in 1973, his first year of eligibility.

After many years as one of the game’s dignified elder statesmen, Spahn died of natural causes in his Oklahoma home in 2003, at age 82. He is memorialized not only by his plaque in Cooperstown, but also by a majestic bronze statue at Atlanta’s Turner Field. It depicts the lefthander in the middle of his trademark high-kicking wind-up, with his toes pointed skyward, left arm poised to explode on some unseen, unsuspecting hitter. But perhaps the most fitting tribute to Spahn can be found in his hometown of Buffalo, where Warren Spahn Street runs right near South Park High School, where he struggled in vain to get into the lineup, and not too far away from the homemade mound where he first fired that legendary arm.
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Factoids, Quotes, Milestones and Odd Facts

In a career that spanned three decades, Warren Spahn’s teammates included Paul Waner and Tug McGraw. A World War II veteran who missed four years of baseball while he was a foot soldier in Europe, Spahn still won 363 games – the most ever by a left-hander. He won 177 games after his 35th birthday, and anchored the Braves’ staff for 17 years.

Played For
Boston Braves (1942-1952)
Milwaukee Braves (1953-1964)
New York Mets (1965)
San Francisco Giants (1965)
Similar: None

Linked: Johnny Sain, who teamed with Spahn to form the famous duo that inspired the phrase, “Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain.”… Luke Appling hit a famous home run off Spahn in an old-timers game… Willie Mays: Spahn gave up his first home run, on May 28, 1951. It was also Mays’ first hit as a big leaguer.
Best Season, 1953
Spahn was 23-7, completed 24 of his 32 starts, and saved three games. He led the NL with a 2.10 ERA and also in WHIP.
Awards and Honors
1957 ML Cy Young
All-Star Selections

No-Hit Fame
9/16/1960: For MIL (N) vs. PHI (N), 4-0 at MIL. 9 innings pitched.
4/28/1961: For MIL (N) vs. SF (N), 1-0 at MIL. 9 innings pitched.

Post-Season Appearances
1948 World Series
1957 World Series
1958 World Series
Factoid
Spahn’s record by age:
21-29 (86-58, 3.07)
30-39 (202-124, 2.95)
40-44 (75-63, 3.44)

Feats: On September 16th, 1960 at the age of 39, Spahn earned his 11th 20-win season with a no-hitter against the Phillies. Spahn also sets a Milwaukee club record with 15 strikeouts in the victory… On October 5, 1958 Spahn shutout the Yankees on two hits in Game Four of the World Series. Spahn stopped Hank Bauer’s 17-game WS hitting streak… Five days past his 40th birthday, on April 28, 1961, Spahn became the 2nd-oldest pitcher (after Cy Young) to hurl a no-hitter, blanking the Giants 1-0. Hank Aaron drives in the only run off loser Sam Jones. It is Spahn’s 290th win and 52nd shutout… On August 11, 1961 Spahn’s 2-1 victory against the Cubs makes him the 13th 300-game winner… In 1963, at the age of 42, Spahn becomes the oldest 20-game winner. it is his 13th 20-win season, tying Christy Mathewson.

Milestones
August 11, 1961: 300th Win…

Pitching Feats
June 14, 1952: …

Notes
In 1949, Spahn chatted briefly with Commissioner Happy Chandler prior to a game. With a 97-degree heat beating down on the field, Spahn made a rules suggestion to the commish. “Why not shift the umpires every three innings? That would prevent one umpire from having to work the entire game behind the plate. It would make things easier, I think, for umpires, and it might result in better work, throughout the game, on balls and strikes.” Chandler agreed to pass the suggestion on to NL President Ford Frick, but the idea was never acted upon.

Transactions
Before 1940 Season: Signed by the Boston Bees as an amateur free agent; November 23, 1964: Purchased by the New York Mets from the Milwaukee Braves; July 22, 1965: Signed as a Free Agent with the San Francisco Giants; July 22, 1965: Released by the New York Mets; October 15, 1965: Released by the San Francisco Giants.

Data courtesy of Restrosheet.org

Cracker Jack Old-Timers
In the first annual Cracker Jack Old-timers Classic at Washington’s Robert F. Kennedy Stadium on July 19, 1982, 75-year-old Luke Appling hit a 250-foot homer off Spahn to help the AL to a 7-2 win over the NL in a five-inning battle of baseball legends. As Appling rounded the bases, he shouted “Thanks Spahnie!”

Factoid
On April 15th, 1952, in the last home opener in Braves Field in Boston, 4,694 fans saw Warren Spahn lose 3-2 to Brooklyn’s Preacher Roe.

June 14, 1952
On the same day that the Braves signed Henry Aaron to his first ML contract, Spahn tied Jim Whitney’s NL record of 18 strikeouts in a game. In a 15-inning, 3-1 loss to the Cubs, Hal Jeffcoat’s two-run triple wins it, while Spahn’s homer is the only Braves’ score.

Forty-Year Old 20-Game Winners
Cy Young, 1907 (age 40)… 21-15
Cy Young, 1908 (age 41)… 21-11
Eddie Plank, 1915 (age 40)… 21-11
Pete Alexander, 1927 (age 40)… 21-10
Warren Spahn, 1961 (age 40)… 21-13
Warren Spahn, 1963 (age 42)… 23-7
Gaylord Perry, 1978 (age 40)… 21-6
Phil Niekro, 1979 (age 40)… 21-20
Jamie Moyer, 2003 (age 41)… 21-7

Quotes From Spahn
After what I went through overseas, I never thought of anything I was told to do in baseball as hard work. You get over feeling like that when you spend days on end sleeping in frozen tank tracks in enemy threatened territory. The Army taught me something about challenges and about what’s important and what isn’t. Everything I tackle in baseball and in life I take as a challenge rather than work.

All-Star Selections
1947 NL
1949 NL
1950 NL
1951 NL
1952 NL
1953 NL
1954 NL
1956 NL
1957 NL
1958 NL
1959 NL
1961 NL
1962 NL
1963 NL

Replaced
Spahn was one of a number of pitchers who stepped into the Braves’ rotation in 1946 after returning from the war.

Replaced By
Bobby Bolin

Best Strength as a Player
Command of his pitches.

Largest Weakness as a Player
None

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