Joe Nuxhall – legendary baseball broadcaster and trivia answer (the youngest person ever to pitch in the majors) dead at 79

Nuxhall’s place in baseball lore was secured the moment he stepped onto a big-league field. With major league rosters depleted during World War II, he got a chance to pitch in relief for the Reds on June 10, 1944.

No one in modern baseball history has played in the majors at such a young age — 15 years, 10 months, 11 days old. He got two outs against St. Louis before losing his composure, then went eight years before pitching for the Reds again.

After which he had a 14 year career in the majors, followed by four more decades in the broadcast booth.

He retired as a full-time radio broadcaster after the 2004 season, the 60th anniversary of his historic pitching debut.

Nuxhall and play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman described the Big Red Machine’s two World Series titles in the 1970s, Pete Rose’s return as player-manager and then banishment for gambling in the 1980s, and another World Series championship in 1990.

The move to get him into Cooperstown – as a broadcaster – has already begun.

So will Hugh Hewitt pronounce the name right?

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 9:41 am and is filed under Memoriam, The Rare Sports Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.