Sam Nahem

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sam Nahem
Pitcher
Born: (1915-10-19)October 19, 1915
New York City, New York
Died: April 19, 2004(2004-04-19) (aged 88)
Berkeley, California
Batted: Right
Threw: Right
MLB debut
October 2, 1938, for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Last MLB appearance
September 11, 1948, for the Philadelphia Phillies
MLB statistics
Win–loss record10–8
Earned run average4.69
Strikeouts101
Teams

Samuel Ralph "Subway Sam" Nahem (October 19, 1915 – April 19, 2004) was an American pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1938), St. Louis Cardinals (1941), and Philadelphia Phillies (1942 and 1948). His professional baseball playing was interrupted by military service (1942–1946) with the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.[1][2]

Early and personal life

Nahem was born in New York City, and was

Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.[7][8][9][10]

His father, who owned an import-export business, later drowned when the British passenger steamship SS Vestris sank off the coast of Virginia on November 12, 1928.[9] Nahem also was the uncle of Major League Baseball outfielder Al Silvera, who was the son of his sister Vicky.[3][7]

He rebelled against Hebrew school when he was 13 years old.[9] He later went to New Utrecht High School, where he was unable to make the baseball team.[1][11] Nahem then attended Brooklyn College, where he pitched for the school's baseball team and played quarterback and fullback for its football team, graduating in 1935.[10][12]

While in the college he also started participating in

Communist Party activities.[10] He quit the Communist Party in the mid-1950s after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary.[7]

He and his wife Elsie, whom he met after World War II and who died in 1974, had three children, Ivan, Joanne, and Andrew.[7][9][12]

Baseball career

After graduating from Brooklyn College, Nahem signed with the

de Maupassant in conversations.[10]

In the minor leagues in 1937 he was 15–5 with the

Columbus Redbirds of the American Association in 1941.[7][13] He joked that he played for so many teams, he became known as "formerly of ..., as in 'Sam Nahem, formerly of ..."[14]

He made his major league debut in 1938 at the age of 22.[3] Asked about his tenuous standing with the Dodgers after he was shelled in a spring training game in 1940, he responded to a reporter: "I am in the egregiously anonymous position of pitching batting practice to the batting practice pitchers."[15] In June 1940, he was traded by the Dodgers with Carl Doyle, Bert Haas, and Ernie Koy to the St. Louis Cardinals for Curt Davis and future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick.[3]

In 1941, he pitched a career-high 812⁄3 innings, and had a record of 5–2 with an ERA of 2.98 for the Cardinals.[3] February 1942 he was purchased by the Philadelphia Phillies from the Cardinals.[3] In 1942 Nahem was 9th in the NL in games finished (16), and in 1948 he was 7th in the league (17).[3] His career was interrupted by military service starting in 1943, when he volunteered to enlist despite being asthmatic.[3][7]

In four Major League seasons Nahem had a 10–8 win–loss record. In 90 games, he started 12 games and had 3

hit batsmen, 9 wild pitches, and a 4.69 ERA.[3]

Upon joining the military in 1942, Nahem spent two years at

racial integration of baseball.[10] He noted years later: "The majority of my fellow ballplayers, wherever I was, were very much against black ballplayers, and the reason was economic and very clear. They knew these guys had the ability to be up there and they knew their jobs were threatened directly and they very, very vehemently did all sorts of things to discourage black ballplayers."[12]

Nahem played winter ball with the Navegantes del Magallanes club of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, where he pitched 14 consecutive complete games in the 1946–47 season to set a league record that still stood as of July 2017.[10][16]

Nahem combined practicing law and working as a

longshoremen while playing semi-professionally with the Brooklyn Bushwicks, in 1947 pitching the team to a 3–0 one-hit victory over the World Series All-Stars, which included Major League players Eddie Stanky, Ralph Branca, and Phil Rizzuto.[10] After his second spell with the Phillies, for whom he pitched his last game in September 1948 at 32 years of age, he was released.[3]

He told an interviewer: "I’ve been mentioned in the same breath as Koufax. The breath usually is, ‘Sam Nahem is no Sandy Koufax.’"[7]

Later life

Nahem moved to the

East Bay in the San Francisco Bay area in 1955, and then to Berkeley, California, in 1964, partly due to McCarthyite blacklisting which made it difficult for him to secure employment.[9] He worked at the Chevron chemical plant in Richmond for 25 years, retiring in 1980.[9] During his time there he was also a rank-and-file organizer and leader for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union.[9][10][12]

Nahem died at his home in Berkeley, at the age of 88.[3][12]

See also

Sources

  1. ^ a b "Baseball in Wartime – Sam Nahem". BaseballinWartime.com. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
  2. ^ Drier, Peter. "Sam Nahem". sabr.org. Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Sam Nahem Stats". baseball-reference.com. sports-reference.com. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  4. ^ Burton A. Boxerman, Benita W. Boxerman (2006). Jews and Baseball: Volume 1, Entering the American Mainstream, 1871-1948, McFarland & Company.
  5. ^ "Sam Nahem from Assembly District 16 Brooklyn in 1940 Census District 24-1710". www.archives.com. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  6. ^ "Sam Nahem". Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Spaner, David (September 25, 2017). "Pitching Politics from the Mound". Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  8. ISBN 9781476605142
    . Retrieved June 11, 2019 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h "TheDeadballEra.com :: Sam Nahem's Obit". www.thedeadballera.com. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Dreier, Peter; Elias, Robert (July 11, 2017). "Out of Left Field". Jacobin. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
  11. ISBN 9781476605142
    . Retrieved June 11, 2019 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Eskenazi, Joe (April 23, 2004). "Subway Sam Nahem, ballplayer and union man, dies at 88". Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  13. ^ "Sam Nahem Minor Leagues Statistics & History". baseball-reference.com. sports-reference.com. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  14. ISBN 9781561719730
    . Retrieved June 11, 2019 – via Google Books.
  15. ^ "Jewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words: Oral Histories of 23 Players". Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  16. ISBN 978-980-6996-01-4

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Nahem&oldid=1192350178"