Former Brooklyn Dodgers pitching great Don Newcombe dies

LOS ANGELES - Don Newcombe, the intimidating righthanded pitcher who was the first player in major league history to have won rookie of the year, Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards, died Tuesday. He was 92.

Newcombe, who cut short a brilliant baseball career with alcohol abuse then spent much of the rest of his life helping others beat that addiction, died after a prolonged illness, according to his wife, Karen.

Armed with a blazing fastball and excellent control, the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Newcombe played mostly for the Brooklyn Dodgers in his 10-year major league career. He posted a 149-90 record with a 3.56 earned-run average and 1,129 strikeouts. And in an era when pitchers were expected to finish what they started, he had 136 complete games in 294 starts.

He also compiled an impressive list of firsts: He was the first outstanding African-American pitcher in the major leagues and the first, in 1949, to start a World Series game.

He was the first black pitcher to win 20 games in a single season, 1951.

He was the first player, in 1956, to win both the National League MVP award and the major league Cy Young Award as outstanding pitcher.

At the end of his career, he was the first former major league player to sign a contract to play in Japan.

If he hadn't made the majors as a pitcher, he might have gotten there with his bat. Although he was a natural righthander, he swung lefthanded, and very effectively. He hit better than .300 in four of his 10 seasons, had a .271 career average and 15 home runs, seven of them — still a National League record for pitchers — in 1955, the year he also went 20-5 and the Dodgers won their only World Series in Brooklyn. Not many pitchers are called on to pinch-hit, but Newcombe was one of them.

In Newcombe's big season, '56, he won 27 games, lost only seven and posted a 3.06 ERA.

Then the slide began.

"In 1956, I was the best player in baseball," Newcombe once said. "Four years later, I was out of the major leagues, and it must have been the drinking. When you're young, you can handle it. But the older you get, the more it bothers you."

Newcombe turned to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1967, then rejoined the Dodgers in the 1970s, as director of community affairs and in that position delivered speeches on the pitfalls of drinking while helping others address their substance-abuse problems.