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Johnny Sain and the 1948 World Series Photo Gallery
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Today, we welcome back to Baseball History Comes Alive Michael Keedy, who makes an extremely convincing case that Johnny Sain (shown above with his teammate, the great Warren Spahn) deserves enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. Not as a pitcher, mind you – although he had a solid career – but as a coach, possibly the most successful coach the game has ever seen.  I hope you’ll read the essay all the way to the end. You’ll be as shocked as I was at Johnny’s accomplishments, including mentoring sixteen 20-game winners. I agree wholeheartedly with Michael that Johnny Sain deserves to be the first coach so enshrined in the Hall. See if you agree. –GL

Coach Johnny Sain for the Hall of Fame!

“I don’t know of a greater pitching coach in my career. . .he should be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame.” -White Sox GM Roland Hemond, speaking of Johnny Sain

When the recently revamped Braves mowed through New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and finally Houston on the way to their second World Series championship since moving to Atlanta 55 years ago, our thoughts might well have turned to their long, globe-trotting history of triumphs and disappointments down through the years. 

Spahn and Sain, And Pray For Rain!

This oldtimer remembered their World Series appearance way back in 1948, for example, before the Braves left Boston and had a staff of starting pitchers anchored by Vern Bickford, Bill Voiselle, (Warren) Spahn, (Johnny) Sain, and supposedly, (two days of) rain.

This was the third year in a row that Johnny Sain posted twenty or more wins, and in fact, led the majors in ’48, with 24. He also led in games started (39), complete games (28), innings pitched (314 2/3), was the Sporting News’s pick as Pitcher of the Year, and finished second to Stan Musial in the National League MVP voting.  He went on to outduel Bob Feller 1-0 in the opener of the Series, won by Cleveland in six games.

Johnny Sain (1917-2006) rang up a total of four twenty-win seasons in five years before becoming a relief specialist in the early ’50s for the Yankees. He was traded in ’51 for cash and a certain Lew Burdette, who found his own fame as a Braves’ pitcher after Sain’s playing days were over.  But in 1954 Sain, having led his league in wins six years earlier, paced the American League in saves, a rare feat. It was replicated many years later by the Braves’ John Smoltz, who became the only man in history to lead the league in wins and in saves in two different millennia (the things one can learn when reading Baseball History Comes Alive!).

Johnny Was A Solid Pitcher…

In all, Johnny Sain’s pitching career was impressive but unspectacular. Solid as his lifetime record of 139-116 was, even when enhanced by three trips to the All-Star game and appearances in four World Series, he is not quite worthy of a plaque in Cooperstown.  Never mind that he struck out only 20 times in 774 at-bats, was first among the league’s pitchers in RBIs five times, batted .245 across his career, and in ’48 became the first pitcher to lead the league in an offensive category (16 sacrifice hits). He still doesn’t qualify for induction.

Not as a pitcher, that is…

But Johnny Sain’s legacy of accomplishments as a pitching coach is something else again.  From where I sit, he deserves to become the very first coach ever to be enshrined in major league baseball’s Hall of Fame.

That’s right. More than 300 guys have been immortalized there over the years:  executives, managers, broadcasters, so-called “pioneers,” umpires, and the occasional ballplayer – to say nothing of Hilda Chester and countless anonymous concessionaires (All right – if you’ve read this far you’ve also caught me in a little white lie here – but you see the point!).

Not One Coach Among 333 Inductees!

I respectfully nominate for your consideration John Franklin Sain, pitching instructor without parallel for the Yankees, Twins, Tigers, and White Sox (among others), 1961-77.  In that span, he coached no fewer than sixteen 20-game winners. The list includes Whitey Ford, who gave Sain credit for revitalizing his career and helping him win his only Cy Young Award (1961); Ralph Terry, who was next to lead the league, with 23 wins (1962); and Jim Bouton, 21-7 in 1963, who called Sain “The greatest pitching coach who ever lived.” 

When he moved over to Minnesota in ’65 after taking a year off, Sain helped the ball club to its first pennant by coaxing a league-leading 21 victories out of Mudcat Grant.  Jim Kaat, another Sain protege, then followed up in ’66 with a league-leading 25 wins.

Inexplicably fired by Twins manager Sam Mele after a second-place finish, in 1967 Sain went to Detroit, where he transformed Earl Wilson into a 20-game winner for the only time in his career.  The next season he helped Cy Young Award Winner Denny McClain become the majors’ first 30-game winner in 34 years, and guided the Tigers’ staff to a World Series win over the Cardinals, whose starters were led by the great Bob Gibson.  The next year, again under Sain’s tutelage, McClain went 24-9, winning his second consecutive Cy Young Award (shared with the Orioles’ Mike Cuellar).

Off to the south side of Chicago in ’71 after being sacked by Detroit manager Mayo Smith, Sain coached Wilbur Wood, a one-time relief pitcher, to 20-win seasons every year, 1971, ’72, ’73, and ’74, plus a trophy as The Sporting News Pitcher of the Year in 1972.  He helped Stan Bahnsen to 21 wins, also in ’72.  Then Kaat, the former Twin now reunited with his Minnesota mentor, won 21 and 20 for the Sox in 1974 and ’75.

Mickey Lolich, another of Sain’s charges and a Cardinal-killer in 1968, likely reflected the views of dozens of hurlers in saying that “Johnny Sain loves pitchers.  Maybe he doesn’t love baseball so much, but he loves pitchers.  Only he understands them.”

In addition to calling him the greatest pitching coach of all time, Jim Bouton declared of Sain that he was “more than a great pitching coach to me.  He was a philosopher, a calming influence on struggling pitchers.”

Jim Kaat paid Johnny a great tribute:

“He meant more to my career than anyone I know. Johnny Sain knew more about the touch, feel, and mental side of pitching than anyone I’ve encountered in my 50 years of professional baseball.  I don’t even want to think about where my career would have gone without his help.  If there is a spot for a coach in the Hall of Fame, please put him in there.”

Indeed, why is there not a spot in Cooperstown for the game’s great coaches?—rather than “greatest” coaches?  More particularly, why is there not a spot in the Hall of Fame for Johnny Sain – the greatest of them all?

Michael Keedy

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