Johnny Sain Stats

Did you know that Johnny Sain - who went 20-14 in 1946 , 21-12 in 1947 , and 24-15 in 1948 - was the first Braves ' pitcher in franchise history to record three consecutive twenty-win seasons? Too easy:

Did you know Johnny Sain started 245 games and threw 140 complete games, 57.1% of the games he pitched in (try to find a modern pitcher who has completed 5% of their games)?

Did you know Johnny Sain had 774 at-bats across four-hundred thirty-three games and struck out only 20 times in his entire career?

Did you know Johnny Sain once threw nine complete games in a 29 day span? Compare that to the complete game year-by-year leaders to see each pitcher who led their entire league across the entire season?

Did you know Johnny Sain won three World Series rings as a pitcher ( 1951 , 1952 , 1953 ) and three additional World Series rings as a coach ( 1961 , 1962 , 1968 )?

Did you know Johnny Sain spent 14 years as a pitching coach and helped sixteen 20-game winners, and four times his skipper won the Manager of the Year Award ?

Warren Spahn & Johnny Sain | Twin Peaks California Oranges Advertisement | [ Spahn & Sain ]
Baseball Almanac came online in 1999 and one of the first baseball poems we ever researched and preserved online was Spahn & Sain . During the 1948 season, Warren Spahn threw a 14-inning complete game win on Labor Day [ box score ]. During game two of the doubleheader [ box score ], Sain threw a complete game shutout which ended in the seventh inning due to rain. That was September 7th, and the remaining home games versus the Dodgers were rained out. When the Braves took the field again, it was in Philadelphia - four days later - and Sain pitched a complete game 3-1 victory [ box score ] followed by a complete game 13-2 win [ box score ] by Warren Spahn on the same day.

After The Man of a Thousand Curves hung up his cleats, he moved into the dugout and put on a new uniform - pitching coach. Admired and successful, Johnny believed a pitching coach should "mentor, don't dictate; emphasize the positive; avoid harping on the struggles; give advice and suggestions, but never orders." The coaching philosophy worked as he served as the Kansas City Athletics Pitching Coach in 1959, New York Yankees Pitching Coach from 1961 through 1963, the Minnesota Twins Pitching Coach from 1965 through 1966, Detroit Tigers Pitching Coach from 1967 through 1969, the Chicago White Sox Pitching Coach from 1971 through 1975, the Atlanta Braves Pitching Coach in 1977 and from 1985 through 1986. While with the Yankees Sain coached Jim Bouton , who said, "Johnny Sain is the greatest pitching coach -- ever. I admire him more than any man I've ever met. All players like him: white, black, conservative, liberal, loud, quiet, they all do. Johnny Sain gets a pitcher's allegiance before any manager."