Bobo Newsom: Have Glove – Will Travel

Picture credits: TCDB

In the history of major league baseball, no player has worn as many different uniforms as pitcher Bobo Newsom.

In the days before multi-year contracts, he changed teams 15 times in 20 years, and never spent more than three consecutive seasons with any team. Either he held out, forcing a trade or gaining his release, or set out to defeat a particular team so consistently, they bought him so they wouldn’t have to face him.

It wasn’t that he was eager to sign with potential pennant winners or the richest teams. He returned often to the chronic losing, impoverished St. Louis Browns (3 times), and Washington Senators (5 times).

His parents named him Louis Norman, but growing up in South Carolina, he was known as Buck, and the name stuck. Later, in the minor leagues, he had a hard time remembering the names of all the players he came in contact with, so he started calling them all “Bobo.” Throughout his major league career, he was known only as Buck or Bobo.

He grew to be two or three inches over six feet and 20 or 30 pounds over 200, wearing a size 52 jacket. So it’s a good thing he was a good-natured, fun-loving, garrulous guy, popular with teammates and the press wherever he went.

He was also a hard-working three-time 20-game winner who won a total 212 games (plus 146 in the minor leagues) and completed half his 483 starts with a 3.98 ERA in a 20-year career.

Ted Williams and 'Bobo' Newsom in the dugout at Fenway Park, 1946. Picture credits: Imgur

And he was tough. In 1935 he pitched the last seven innings of a complete game after a line drive broke his kneecap. He knew it was broken but refused to quit. The injury then sidelined him for six weeks. The next year he started the home opener in Washington. President Roosevelt threw out the first ball.

In the third inning the Senators’ third baseman made a great play and threw to first. Newsom forgot to duck and the ball hit him in the jaw. He refused to leave the game and stayed in to the end and won it.

Wherever he went, he was popular with teammates, fans and the press. The writers loved him; he was great copy, exaggerations and all. Even his boasts were light-hearted. “I can out-talk Dizzy Dean,” he declared. “And I can out-pitch Dean,” though he never had the chance to pitch against him.

During a game he might banter with the opposing team from the mound. On the long train rides, wherever there were loud voices and a lot of laughter, Bobo was in the middle of it. Unlike many veteran players, who considered rookies a threat to their jobs, he was kind and attentive to them, sometimes taking them out to dinner.

Bobo finally made it to a World Series in 1940, when he led the Detroit Tigers with a 21-5 record. 

Hal Newhouser was a teammate.

He was a lackadaisical, fun-loving guy, He could have fun on the mound, but was a bear-down pitcher. Once he said, ‘If Hank Greenberg ever hits a home run off me, I’ll shake hands with him at home plate.’ One day Greenberg did hit one off him, and Bobo met him at home plate. Of course, Greenberg wouldn’t shake his hand. That was Bobo.

The Tigers faced the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Newsom’s father came up from South Carolina to see it. Bobo said, “I am going to give those Cincinnatis speed and more speed. They see curve balls all year long, because that’s all the pitchers throw in the National League.”

Hank Greenburg, Barney McCosky, Bobo Newsom and Schoolboy Rowe. Picture credits: Digital Collections - Detroit Public Library

And he did, winning the opener, 7-2. That evening the Newsom family had a quiet celebration. The next day they found Bobo’s dad dead from a heart attack in his room. Four days later, on the day of his Dad’s funeral in Hartsdale, South Carolina, Bobo pitched one for his dad, a three-hit shutout. 8-0.

Detroit shortstop Dick Bartell described the scene in the clubhouse after the game:

He sat on a stool in front of his locker. His hair was soaked. We all filed by, shook hands with him. It was quiet.

Photographers poured in and asked Bobo to pose with his catcher. Newsom agreed. Flash bulbs were popping. Finally Schoolboy Rowe, sitting nearby, asked them all toclear out and leave Bobo alone.

Still in uniform, Bobo put his head in his hands and began to sob. His huge shoulders shook as he went into the trainer’s room and closed the door. In a few minutes he came out, looking calmer. 

‘I felt great out there,’ he told reporters.  ‘No kidding. Actually, I didn’t feel as good as I normally would. I did it for Dad. I was bearing down out there all the way. I don’t think anybody could have beaten me today. It was the game I wanted to win most.’

The Reds made it a 3-3 Series the next day, Newsom started Game 7 on one day’s rest. He took a 1-0 lead into the seventh, but the Reds scored twice and won it, 2-1. Newsom had pitched three complete games in seven days.

Newsom made it to one more World Series, with the 1947 Yankees. He started Game 2 against Brooklyn but lasted less than two innings and took the loss in an eventual 9-8 Brooklyn win. 

Bobo’s last stop in his 20-year big league career was the Philadelphia Athletics in 1952-53. He had appeared in 600 games and pitched 3,759 innings. 

A’s first baseman Ferriss Fain remembered him:

He had – or claimed he had – a complete memory of every game he pitched. He could tell you every pitch he ever threw – any year: what inning it was, what the count was, where the hitter hit it.