Whenever I think about the greatest players of that era, I can never think of an NL pitcher, so who am I forgetting about?
Warren Spahn
:smack: OF Course! Only the guy who retired as the winningest live-ball era pitcher!
Which leads to…Johnny Sain.
Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.
Robin Roberts, 20 game winner 6 seasons in a row.
Dizzy Dean too early for your time period?
“Greatest Generation”-WWII-era players
Fun fact: Sain’s birth name was Zornado, but he changed it because he was tired of meteorologically based puns. If only he had thought his plan through!
Bob Feller’s your man.
Cleveland is not in the National League.
Don Newcombe?
Warren Spahn
Robin Roberts
Carl Hubbell
Johnny Sain
Sal Maglie
A few other good ones, though probably not of the same caliber as those already mentioned:
Bucky Walters
Rip Sewell
Preacher Roe
Dutch Leonard
No one would ever think of Harry Brecheen. Pitched for the Cardinals back in the 40’s. Great in his day.
I actually considered including Brecheen in my list in the prior post (I was going through WARP for pitchers, year-by-year for the 1940s, on Baseball-Reference.com). He only had 133 career wins, which is what misled me at first. He had a sub-3.00 ERA, and finished in the top 20 in MVP voting 3 times. Not a long career, but a very good run from '44 to '48 or '49.
Mort Cooper. The only NL pitcher other than Bucky Walters to win the NL MVP between '39 & '45.
I think maybe you’re being whooshed here. I mean…Zornado?