Literary birthday greetings: Early Wynn and…

January 6, 2011

Hall of Famer Early Wynn was born this date in 1920. He hung around for 23 Years, missing the whole 1945 season for military service. I was under the impression that he retired right after he won his coveted 300th game, but I was in error. He actually appeared in another15 games after his July 13 watershed victory.

Wynn, a seven-time All Star, won the Cy Young Award in 1959 for his 22-10 season for the pennant-winning Chicago White Sox. He was also a pretty fair hitter, with 17 home runs and a .214 lifetime average.

Lew Freedman published his biography —  Early Wynn, the Go-Go White Sox and the 1959 World Series — in 2009.

Honorable mention: Amazingly, I can find no stand-alone biography about Ralph Branca, who turns 85 today. Sure he’s included in every book about Bobby Thomson and/or the Giants and/or Dodgers of the era. Strikes me as something of an injustice for this gentleman who bore up so well publicly in the face of one of the worst disasters in sports history.


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