Johnny Sain
| Johnny Sain | |||
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| Pitcher | |||
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Born: September 25, 1917 Havana, Arkansas |
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Died: November 7, 2006 (aged 89) Downers Grove, Illinois |
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| MLB debut | |||
| April 24, 1942, for the Boston Braves | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| July 15, 1955, for the Kansas City Athletics | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win–loss record | 139–116 | ||
| Earned run average | 3.49 | ||
| Strikeouts | 910 | ||
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As player As coach |
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
As player
As coach
John Franklin Sain (September 25, 1917 – November 7, 2006) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who was best known for teaming with left-hander Warren Spahn on the Boston Braves teams from 1946 to 1951. He was the runner-up for the National League's Most Valuable Player Award in the Braves' pennant-winning season of 1948, after leading the National League in wins, complete games and innings pitched. He later became further well known as one of the top pitching coaches in the majors.
Born in Havana, Arkansas, Sain pitched for 11 years, winning 139 games and losing 116 in his career and compiled an earned run average of 3.49. His best years were those immediately after World War II, when he won 100 games for the Boston Braves, before being traded to the New York Yankees during the 1951 season for Lew Burdette and cash.
Sain also had the distinction of being the last pitcher to face Babe Ruth in a game and the first in the Major League to throw a pitch against Jackie Robinson.
In 1948, Sain won 24 games against 15 losses and finished second in the voting for the Most Valuable Player Award behind the St. Louis Cardinals' Stan Musial, who had won two legs of the Triple Crown. Sain and teammate Spahn achieved joint immortality that year when their feats were the subject of sports editor Gerald V. Hern's poem in the Boston Post which was eventually shortened to the epigram "Spahn and Sain; then pray for rain." According to the Baseball Almanac, the original doggerel appeared in Hern's column on September 14, 1948:
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