Tommy Brown, the last living member of the historic 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, died at the age of 97 this week.
Brown, who played nine years in Major League Baseball in the 1940s and early ’50s and parts of seven with the Dodgers, passed away on Wednesday at a rehabilitation center in Altamonte Springs, Florida.
“He had a nice life and he loved his sports,” his daughter Paula Brown Caplice told the Associated Press.
Brown debuted for the Dodgers on Aug. 3, 1944, at the age of 16 when he started at shortstop against the Cubs at Ebbets Field, and after stepping away during the 1946 season to serve in the United States Army, he came back and was part of the 1947 Dodgers club that featured rookie Jackie Robinson, who broke the color line.
Brown signed with the Dodgers following a tryout with the team in 1943 and played the first four months of the 1944 season in the minor leagues.
When he made his big league debut in the summer of 1944, he hit a double in what became a loss to the Cubs.
He became the youngest player to hit a major league home run on Aug. 20, 1945, when he hit a solo blast against Pirates pitcher Preacher Roe when he was 17 years, 257 days old.
It’s a record that still stands today.
“The Dodgers signed Preacher Roe a few years later. My dad joked his home run ability went down when Preacher Roe signed. They became good friends,” Brown Caplice said.
He hit one other home run that season, making him the young and second-youngest player ever to go deep.
He finished that season with a .245 batting average.
As a member of the 1947 Dodgers team, Brown’s daughter said that he stood up against a petition that circulated within the team protesting Robinson’s addition.
“He said, ‘I’m not signing anything like that,’” Brown Caplice said. “I thought that was pretty standup for a 20-year-old on a club with a lot of senior players trying to bully. That told me who he really was.”
Brown would go on to appear in the 1949 World Series against the Yankees and spent his time with the Dodgers until he was traded to the Phillies in the middle of the 1951 season.
He then had his contact sold to the Cubs a year later.
The Brooklyn native played in the majors until 1953 and continued his pro baseball career until 1959 in the minor leagues before he retired.
He ended his big league tenure with a .241 batting average and 31 home runs.
