Spec Shea

Two years before he ever threw a pitch in Yankee Stadium, Frank Shea was a sergeant in the Army Air Corps, stationed in Europe while the war finished its business. Baseball had to wait. When it didn't have to wait anymore, Shea made up the time in a hurry -- rookie sensation, All-Star Game winner, and a two-game World Series winner, all in the same remarkable summer.

From Naugatuck to the Bronx

Shea grew up in Naugatuck, Connecticut, freckled enough that everyone just called him "Spec." Yankees broadcaster Mel Allen later hung a second name on him -- "the Naugatuck Nugget" -- and it stuck the way good nicknames do. The Yankees signed him out of high school in 1940, and he climbed their farm system fast: Amsterdam, Norfolk, Kansas City. Then came three years in the Army Air Corps, and organized baseball simply went on without him.

He came back in 1946 sharp enough to win big for the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League -- under a manager named Casey Stengel, three years before Stengel ever set foot in a Yankees dugout. By April 1947, Shea was in the majors, pitching for Bucky Harris's Yankees alongside Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Phil Rizzuto.

The Rookie Who Beat Everybody but Two Guys

Shea opened his rookie year on fire -- 11-2, a 1.91 ERA at the All-Star break. Wrigley Field, July 8: he relieved Hal Newhouser, threw three innings and allowed one run, and got tagged with the win once the AL pulled ahead late -- the first rookie pitcher in either league to win an All-Star Game. Then arm and neck trouble set in down the stretch, and the second half cooled him off. He still finished 14-5, leading the American League in winning percentage.

There was only one Rookie of the Year award handed out that season -- the AL and NL splits didn't exist yet -- and Jackie Robinson ran away with it, 129 votes to 105 for Giants pitcher Larry Jansen. Shea finished third overall, one spot ahead of Philadelphia's Ferris Fain, which made him the top American League rookie in a year Robinson made sure nobody in that league was winning anything named after it.

Twice in October

Shea started three games in the 1947 World Series against Brooklyn and won two of them. Game 1, September 30 at the Stadium -- the first World Series game ever televised -- he went five strong innings in a 5-3 win. Game 5 at Ebbets Field, he scattered four hits over a complete game, drove in a run himself, and beat the Dodgers 2-1 to put New York up three games to two.

Game 7 asked for one more. Shea got through the first inning fine. In the second, a blister opened on his pitching hand, Brooklyn's Spider Jorgensen doubled home a run, and Harris came and got him. Bill Bevens held the fort, Joe Page slammed the door, and the Yankees won the game 5-2 and the Series in seven. Shea walked away with a no-decision and a ring anyway -- not a bad October for a 27-year-old who'd been stationed in a war zone two years earlier.

The Arm, and the Slow Fade

The rest of his Yankees tenure never matched that first year. He went 9-10 in 1948, barely pitched in 1949, spent 1950 in the minors entirely, and returned in 1951 as a reliever without ever reappearing in a World Series game, despite the Yankees winning two more championships while he was on the roster. In May 1952, New York traded him to Washington in a six-player deal built around Jackie Jensen for Irv Noren.

Shea found something in Washington for a couple of years -- 11-7 with a 2.93 ERA in 1952, 12-7 the year after -- before his arm finally gave out for good. By 1954 he was 2-9 and mostly pitching relief. He was done after the 1955 season, eight years removed from a rookie summer nobody in Naugatuck ever stopped talking about. He died in Connecticut in 2002, at 81, the Nugget who'd made good.

Naugatuck still remembers him as the kid who went from dodging the war to winning a World Series game inside of two years. Not many careers move that fast in either direction.