Tommy Brown, who made baseball history as the youngest-ever home run hitter and stood witness to one of the sport’s most important moments, has died at 97.
He passed away Wednesday after getting pneumonia while recovering from a fall, according to his daughter.
Brown’s baseball story reads like something out of a movie. He quit school at 12 to work the tough New York docks with his uncle, playing pickup games on cobblestones and pavement when he could find the time.
“We didn’t even have a real field,” he once said. “Sometimes we found a schoolyard to play.”
A friend’s suggestion to try out for the Brooklyn Dodgers would change his life forever.
Brown made his major league debut in 1944 at just 16 years old – a chance he got because many regular players were serving in World War II. But the teenager made the most of it.
The following year, he did something no player has matched since: he hit two home runs before his 18th birthday. The first came in his 66th game, about a month before he turned 18. The second followed just a week later.
No other player in MLB history has ever hit a homer before turning 18.
After serving his own stint in the military, Brown returned to the Dodgers in 1947 – just in time for Jackie Robinson’s historic breaking of baseball’s color barrier. When some teammates circulated a petition against playing with Robinson, Brown refused to sign.
“I didn’t like it, because he was a man,” Brown said simply. “Color didn’t bother me.”
He played nine seasons in the majors, mostly with the Dodgers but also suiting up for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies. He finished with a .241 career batting average across 494 games.
Brown was the last surviving member of that groundbreaking 1947 Dodgers team that changed baseball forever.
