Hal Newhouser, the Detroit Tigers' Hall of Fame left-hander and the only pitcher to win two consecutive Most Valuable Player awards, died yesterday at Providence Hospital in Southfield, Mich. He was 77.
Newhouser, who lived in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., had been suffering from emphysema and heart problems, his family said.
Featuring a high fastball, Newhouser was the American League's top left-hander of the 1940's. He posted records of 29-9 in 1944 and 25-9 in 1945, winning the m.v.p. award each season, and had a 26-9 mark in 1946. Pitching for the Tigers from 1939 to 1953, then for Cleveland in his final two seasons, he had a lifetime record of 207-150.
He threw a complete game, striking out 10, in pitching the Tigers to a Game 7 victory over the Chicago Cubs in the 1945 World Series. As a reliever, he played a key role for the Indians' 1954 pennant winners.
A native of Detroit, Newhouser was thrilled to sign with his hometown team as a teen-ager when a scout offered a $500 bonus.
''That was during the Depression, and I was trying to earn money to go to a trade school by selling newspapers, setting pins in a bowling alley and collecting pop bottles to get the deposit on them,'' Newhouser recalled. ''I thought it was unbelievable to get that much money for playing baseball.''
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But he might have been better off waiting, since a representative of the Indians arrived at the Newhouser home 10 minutes later and ''told me they were going to give my parents $15,000 and a new car worth $4,000.''
Newhouser was often matched against the Indians' Bob Feller, the league's top right-hander of the 1940's. On the final day of the 1948 regular season, Newhouser bested Feller, 7-1, before more than 74,000 at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium to drop the Indians into a tie for first place with the Red Sox. Newhouser was pitching on short rest and had experienced arm problems, but ''I ended up throwing one of the best games of my life.''
Newhouser had planned to be sworn into the Army Air Forces on the Briggs Stadium pitching mound during World War II, but was deferred because of a heart problem. Because his two m.v.p. years came when baseball manpower was depleted by the war, he was labeled by some as a ''wartime player'' and was not selected for the Hall of Fame until 1992, when he was voted in by the veterans' committee. But he remained a dominant pitcher after the war, averaging more than 19 victories a season from 1946 to 1950.
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Following his retirement, Newhouser was a scout and a bank executive. In July 1997, he became the only pitcher whose uniform number (16) was retired by the Tigers.
He is survived by his wife, Beryl; a brother, Richard; two daughters, Charlene Newhouser and Sherrill Robinson, and a grandson.
Newhouser's determination complemented his talent: he completed 212 of his 374 starts.
''You couldn't get the ball away from him -- he hated to be pulled from a game,'' the former Tiger catcher Joe Ginsberg recalled.
''I remember one game when I pitched in Yankee Stadium and gave up five runs in the first inning,'' Newhouser once said. ''It would have been easy to quit, but I shut 'em out the rest of the way and we came back and won the game.''
His philosophy: ''Never give up and never give in.''
Harold Newhouser (May 20, 1921 – November 10, 1998), nicknamed "Prince Hal," was an American professional baseball player. In Major League Baseball (MLB), he pitched 17 seasons on the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians, from 1939 through 1955. Newhouser was an All-Star for six seasons,[a] and was considered to be the most dominating pitcher of the World War II era of baseball, winning a pitcher's triple crown for the Tigers in 1945. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.
After his retirement from baseball Newhouser was away from the sport for 20 years, serving as a bank vice president. He later worked as a scout for several MLB teams, including the Houston Astros. Angered when they rebuffed his recommendation to draft future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter in favor of Phil Nevin, he quit shortly after.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Playing career
2.1 Early career
2.2 Later career
3 Later life
4 Personal life
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links
Early life
Newhouser was a schoolboy star at Wilbur Wright High School in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. Before he was approached by professional baseball teams, he had been saving money to attend a trade school by working several jobs. The young Newhouser sold newspapers, collected pop bottles and worked in a bowling alley before signing on in professional baseball.[1]
He was signed by the Detroit Tigers in 1939 at the age of 18. A Tigers scout offered a $500 signing bonus to Newhouser, who found the sum of money to be unimaginable. Ten minutes after he signed, someone arrived from the Cleveland Indians; that employee had been prepared to offer $15,000 to his parents in addition to a $4,000 car.[1]
Playing career
Early career
Newhouser made his debut for Detroit on September 29, 1939. In 1940, he earned a spot on the Tigers out of spring training. In his first two full big-league seasons, the young left-hander experienced control problems, walking more batters than he struck out while posting win-loss records of 9–9 and 9–11. He improved in 1942 and 1943, posting excellent earned run averages (ERAs), but he still lost more than he won on a team with a weak offense.[2]
As World War II got under way, the Tigers moved up in the standings because several of their top players, including Newhouser, were classified as 4-F (ineligible to be drafted). Newhouser was 4-F due to a leaky heart valve; he attempted to join the service anyway but was turned down several times.[3]
He blossomed in 1944, becoming a dominant pitcher in wartime baseball. That season, Newhouser rang up a 29–9 record, leading the league in wins and strikeouts (187).[4] His 2.22 ERA was second in the league, as were his 25 complete games and six shutouts. The Tigers jumped into contention, finishing second in the American League, with Newhouser named MVP. Newhouser won the first Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award in 1944.[5]
By the 1945 season, Newhouser had been selected for three consecutive AL All-Star teams. The 1945 All-Star Game was cancelled on April 24 because of travel restrictions and seven out of eight scheduled interleague games were played in place of the All-Star Game on July 9 and 10 to support the American Red Cross and War Relief fund.[6][7] Newhouser became the first pitcher to repeat as MVP that season and helped the team win the World Series. He won the pitcher's Triple Crown, leading the AL in wins (25, against nine losses), ERA (1.81) and strikeouts (212); he also led the league in innings pitched, games started, complete games and shutouts.[8] Newhouser pitched four innings of relief on the season's final day as Detroit rallied for the pennant. Newhouser won the second Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award.[5] He became the youngest player (24) to win the award in two consecutive years. In that year's World Series, Newhouser won two games, including a complete-game victory in the deciding seventh game.[9]
Later career
Newhouser DET.png
Hal Newhouser's number 16 was retired by the Detroit Tigers in 1997.
In 1946, he went 26–9 with a 1.94 ERA, again leading the league in wins and ERA.[10] His 275 strikeouts was second in the league. Newhouser was runner-up in the MVP race to Ted Williams. Newhouser continued to rate among the game's best pitchers for the next five years. He won 17 games in 1947, led the AL with 21 wins in 1948 and rang up an 18–11 mark in 1949. After a 15–13 season in 1950, he hurt his arm and his workload was cut significantly.
After being released by the Tigers following the 1953 season, Newhouser signed on with the Cleveland Indians and was their top long reliever in 1954, when Cleveland won 111 games and the pennant. In his final big-league hurrah, he posted a 7–2 mark with a 2.54 ERA, and got to pitch in his second World Series. He ended his career with a record of 207–150 and a 3.06 ERA. He is the only pitcher ever to win consecutive MVP awards.[11]
As a hitter, Newhouser had a .201 career batting average (201-for-999) with 70 runs, 2 home runs, 81 RBI and 89 bases on balls. Defensively, he recorded a .971 fielding percentage covering 488 games pitched.
Later life
A statue of Newhouser in Comerica Park
Newhouser spent his first twenty years after retiring from baseball away from the sport, working as a bank vice president in Pontiac, Michigan.[12]
Following this, he served as a scout for the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, and Houston Astros. As a scout with the Orioles, Newhouser discovered Milt Pappas, a Detroit high schooler who went on to win 209 games in an All-Star career — two more than Newhouser did. He also signed future Cy Young Award winner Dean Chance, who later earned the trophy with Cleveland.[13]
While with the Astros, Newhouser was credited with discovering Derek Jeter, whom the Astros passed over for Phil Nevin.[14] He quit his job with the Astros after they ignored his advice to draft Jeter,[15] though he had planned to retire after that season in any case.[16]
In 1992, he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His induction class included Tom Seaver, Rollie Fingers and Bill McGowan. The ceremony was attended by a then-record-setting crowd of 20,000 people.[17] The Tigers retired Newhouser's number 16 in 1997. He died on November 10, 1998 in a hospital in Southfield, Michigan. He had been ill with emphysema and heart problems.[1]
Personal life
During his playing days, Newhouser's teammates nicknamed him "Prince Hal" because of the way he carried himself.[18] His wife, Beryl Newhouser, said that she could not ever remember seeing him with his shirttail untucked.
See also
Biography portal
icon Baseball portal
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
Major League Baseball Triple Crown
List of Major League Baseball annual strikeout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
Major League Baseball titles leaders
Best pitching seasons by a Detroit Tiger
Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award
Sporting News Player of the Year Award
Paul Howard "Dizzy" Trout (June 29, 1915 – February 28, 1972) was an American professional baseball player.[1] He played in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher from 1939 to 1952, most notably as a member of the Detroit Tigers team that finished either in first or second place in the American League pennant races between 1944 and 1947 and won the 1945 World Series. The two-time All-Star player was the American League wins leader in 1943 and, was the league ERA leader in 1944. In 1957, Trout made a brief comeback attempt at the age of 42 with the Baltimore Orioles. He also played for Boston Red Sox.
Contents
1 1939–1942
2 1943–1947
3 1947–1952
4 Retirement
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
1939–1942
Trout was born in Sandcut, Indiana.[1] He first played professionally in 1935 with the Terre Haute Tots in the Three-I League before signing with the Tigers in 1939. In his first four seasons (1939–1942), Dizzy Trout never had a winning record and totaled 33 wins and 44 losses.[1] Even in 1940, as the Tigers won the American League pennant, Trout finished 3-7.
1943–1947
Dizzy Trout was classified 4-F due to hearing impairment [1] and was not accepted for military service during World War II. It was during the war years that Trout had his best seasons.
Trout had a losing record in his first four seasons, but in the next four years (1943–1946) he turned into one of the best pitchers in the American League, winning 82 and losing 54.[1]
Dizzy Trout led the American League in wins (20) in 1943, but his best season was 1944, when he won 27 games and lost 14. He led the American League that year in ERA (2.12), complete games (33), shutouts (7), and innings pitched (352-1/3). He also finished second in the league to his Detroit teammate, Hal Newhouser, in wins (27) and strikeouts (144). The Tigers' pitching duo of Trout and Newhouser won 56 games in 1944 and finished 1-2 in ERA, wins, innings pitched, strikeouts, complete games, and shutouts. Newhouser and Trout also finished 1-2 in the American League MVP voting, with Trout trailing Newhouser in the voting by only 4 votes.
Trout's pitching totals were not as impressive in 1945, but he was a workhorse in the pennant drive. He pitched six games and won four over a nine-game late-season stretch. In Game 4 of the 1945 World Series, Trout beat the Cubs 4-1 on a five-hitter. The Tigers won the 1945 World Series, and Trout went 1-1 with an ERA of 0.66 in the Series.
1947–1952
From 1947–1949, Trout's performance dropped off, as he failed to achieve a winning record, and had a total record of 23-31. Aside from his pitching, Trout could hit for power. He hit 20 home runs, tying him for 11th all-time in home runs by pitchers. He hit a 9th inning grand slam against the Washington Senators on July 28, 1949, helping the Tigers to a victory.
In 1950, Trout and the Tigers both turned things around. Trout won 13 and lost only 5, and the Tigers won 95 games and narrowly lost the American League pennant to the Yankees.
On June 3, 1952, Trout was sent to the Boston Red Sox in a blockbuster trade that sent Walt Dropo, Don Lenhardt, Johnny Pesky, Fred Hatfield, and Bill Wight to the Tigers for Trout, George Kell, Hoot Evers, and Johnny Lipon. Trout started only 17 games for the Red Sox, and retired at the end of the 1952 season.
Trout was a very good hitting pitcher in his 15-year major league career. He posted a .213 batting average (205-for-961) scoring 99 runs with 28 doubles, 7 triples, 20 home runs, 110 RBI and drew 59 bases on balls. He was in double figures in RBI in five seasons, with a high of 24 RBI in 1944.
Retirement
After retiring from baseball, Trout called play-by-play for the Tigers on radio WKMH and TV WJBK-TV from 1953–1955. He also hosted The Knot-Hole Gang, a sports show aimed at children. Trout broadcast the Tigers games with Van Patrick and became popular with Detroit fans for his self-effacing humor, scrambled syntax, and folksy demeanor.
In 1956, Trout ran unsuccessfully for sheriff in Wayne County as a Republican, losing to long-time incumbent Andrew C. Baird.
He attempted a return to baseball with the Baltimore Orioles in 1957 at age 42. Trout made two appearances, allowed three earned runs, and retired one batter, for an 81.00 ERA. After being released by Baltimore, he joined the Chicago White Sox as a pitching instructor and then worked with that organization's front office until his death from stomach cancer at the age of 56 in 1972 at Harvey, Illinois.
He was inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.[2]
Trout's son, Steve, pitched for 12 years in the major leagues.