Sports outlook

If you picked up either the Kansas City Star or the Joplin Globe in late November, the above-the-fold picture on the sports page featured a high-kicking, left-handed pitcher wearing the uniform of the Milwaukee Braves.

Over the years there have appeared pictures of Warren Spahn in newspapers often as his career in the majors spanned 23 years. Spahn performed legendary feats with startling regularity. The only difference in this most recent picture is that the great Spahnie is no longer with us.

He was the Spahn of the legendary refrain, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain," of 1948 when he won 21 games for the Boston Braves. Hard to believe it was the same guy they were praising for winning 23 games in 1963. He pitched 260 innings that year at age 42.

They often mention how much World War II took out of Ted Williams' place in the record books. The same happened to a pitcher who plied his trade a few miles from Fenway Park at Braves Field. Spahn ended his career with 363 victories, the most of any left-hander in history. After pitching briefly for the Braves in 1942, Spahn went into the Army and lost three full seasons while he dodged bullets in Europe. He was at the Remagen Bridge at the Rhine River crossing and extremely near the bridge when it collapsed, sending hundreds of men along with the bridge's superstructure into the roiling Rhine, far below. Spahn even suffered a shrapnel wound in the foot and earned a Purple Heart along with a Bronze Star.

It's been probably 20 years since Darry Miller took a Nevada Little League team on a road trip that included a stop at Spahn's Broken Arrow, Okla., ranch. Miller returned to Nevada with nothing but praise for the baseball great who treated the Nevada team so well.

If you are a part of the Baby Boomer generation, Spahn is undoubtedly an integral part of your youthful baseball memories. The year I was born, Spahn was pitching for the Braves. The summer I graduated from high school, Spahn was pitching for the Braves. He was a constant who teamed with first, Sain and Vern Bickford, and later, Lew Burdette and Bob Buhl, for some formidable pennant winning staffs.

In 1960, when he was leading the league in victories for the seventh time and winning 20 games for the 11th time, No. 20 was more significant than any other up to that time for, at age 39, he pitched his very first no-hitter. Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, Spahn pitched another no-hit game the following season at age 40.

What made Spahn so good? He had an excellent fastball to go with the other standard pitches -- change, slider -- and even developed a screwball later on when the heat began to fade a bit. The difference was command. Spahn had pinpoint control and once a study was taken to prove this. In one game he threw exactly three pitches that split the heart of the plate. Those three pitches proved to be the only three he threw that resulted in hits.

Just what happened to end the career of Spahn was never fully understood. After posting a 23-7 record at age 42, it seemed that there was nothing really to curtail his quest for 400 victories. Then, seemingly overnight, he lost it.

One thing he didn't lose was his ability. Spahn was one of those rare birds known as "pitchers who can hit." In the latter stages of Spahn's career, John Mooney and I hoped to see him pitch for the Giants when they were in St. Louis, but he never got in the game. Finally, in 1967 when he was 46 and managing the Tulsa Oilers, Spahn started the first game of a doubleheader against the Oklahoma City 89ers and we went to the game in order to see him. The familiar high kick was there, but the Spahn of old wasn't. At least we got to see him pitch in person -- something that can never be taken from us. And he did hit a double.

One more anecdote bears repeating. Back in 1956, men weren't supposed to cry. The sensitive male had yet to be invented. On the next to last day of the season, the Braves had to win or finish in second place. Spahn pitched brilliantly and gave up just three hits through the first 11 innings. In the 12th, a hit and error produced the winning run for St. Louis. Spahn sat in front of his locker after the game, crying. This caused gums to flap all over the place and St. Louis general manager Frank Lane couldn't believe they got so worked up over it, saying, "What the hell do they expect him to do after losing a game like that -- whistle?"