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Don Newcombe
Newk's Stellar Career
Wild Pennant Race
1951 Season Finale
Dodgers Struggle Early
Newcombe Returns
Newcombe Blanks Phils
Strategy of Pitching
Jackie Robinson's
Greatest Catch
Robinson Homer Wins It
Newcombe, Robinson
Heroes
Q & A



Don Newcombe - Newcombe Blanks Phils  
Q--As you enter the game in the bottom of the eighth inning, you pitched a nine inning shutout less than 24 hours earlier, the score is tied and the pennant is on the line. What are you thinking?
“This is what it is all about. If they brought me in and the guys are depending on me, I was going to give them everything I had. The players on the Dodgers knew that’s what I did all the time anyhow because of the games I had pitched before leading up to this game. I would have given all that I had.”

 

Q--How good is your stuff in the eighth inning?
“I felt good about my stuff. I felt that my command and velocity was as good pitching in the eighth inning as it had been the night before.”

Newcombe allows a leadoff single to Ashburn to start the eighth, but leaves him stranded. Ashburn’s single would be the only hit off Newcombe in 5 2/3 scoreless innings.
The teams are both scoreless in the ninth, 10th, and the 11th, and the Dodgers go out quietly in the top of the 12th inning. The two clubs had scored 16 runs in less than eight innings, but now, heroic relief pitching, fatigue and exhaustion are affecting hitters.
The Dodgers get the lead off man on base in the ninth and 10th innings, but cannot push a runner home. In the 11th inning, Dodger left fielder Pafko makes a running catch down the left field line with a runner on first and two out that might have been a game winner.

 

Q--You hold the Phillies scoreless in the eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th innings. What is your approach with everything riding on the line?
“You go from hitter to hitter. Not inning to inning. You go hitter to hitter. You get the hitter out and he comes to the plate and you do whatever you need to do to get him out. That was my approach.”

Dick Young of the New York Daily News wrote, “Newk had hurled nine innings of shutout ball the night before to keep the Brooks alive, and now he was dealing more zips with his long arm and strong heart. He had given up a hit to the first man to face him in the eighth and was to give no more through almost six innings of blank ball.....It was Newk versus Roberts in the payoff innings. Roberts, like Newk, had worked last night — and both men were magnificent as they tossed quoit after quoit onto the scoreboard.”
Phillie pitcher Roberts retires the Dodgers in order in the 12th. Newcombe begins the 12th inning and shows the first sign of the toll the enormous physical effort is taking. Pitcher Roberts walks to lead off the inning.






When he started Game 1 of the 1949 World Series, Don Newcombe was only the second rookie pitcher to accomplish this feat and he was the first African-American to start a World Series game.











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