Editor's Note: Information for this story was taken from several online sources includiing the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the official Major League Baseball website and the archives of the Washington Post.)
From 1946 through 1951 there were very few pitchers in the Major League that could match the pitching prowess and control of Johnny Sain, who while teamed with future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn on the Boston Braves was forever tagged with the memorable line " Spahn, Sain and pray for rain" because of the one-two punch the teammates enjoyed.
But not many know people that Sain, who played for four teams from 1942- 1955 (with three missed seasons because of WWII) began his life in the little hamlet of Havana in Yell County and returned "home" after his death in 2006 to be buried about a good throw from the outfield to the plate from his boyhood home.
Sain was born September 25, 1917 to John Franklin Sain and Eva Walker Sain, who already had a daughter by the name of Agnes. At least two generations of Sain's had live in Arkansas --John Franklin was from Monroe County--but the family originally came to Arkansas from Tennesee sometime before 1866.
Little is known about his boyhood. His father, an auto mechanic, is said to have taught him how to throw a curveball, which Sain later said served him well.
Sain’s professional baseball career began inauspiciously. In his first four years, playing in low (“Class D”) minor league circuits like the Northeast Arkansas League, he was released by four teams.
He finally reached the major leagues with the Boston Braves in 1942.
After the 1942 season, Sain enlisted in the Navy Air Corps. He served for three years and returned to the Braves in 1946. He won twenty games that season, and between 1946 and 1950, Sain was one of the best pitchers in baseball. A starting pitcher, he won twenty or more games four of those five seasons.
With teammate and future Hall of Fame member Warren Spahn, he became enshrined in a popular rhyme originally published in the Boston Post on September 14, 1948: “First we’ll use Spahn / then we’ll use Sain / Then an off day / followed by rain / Back will come Spahn / followed by Sain / And followed / we hope / by two days of rain.” This later became shortened to the popular phrase, “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.”
In 1948, the Braves won their first pennant since 1914. Sain led the National League with twenty-four wins and was named the league’s pitcher of the year by the Sporting News.
He was named to the All-Star team in 1947, 1948, and 1953.
On April 15, 1947, Sain became the first pitcher to face major league baseball’s first black player, Jackie Robinson. Robinson went hitless against Sain.
On August 29, 1951, the Braves traded Sain to the New York Yankees. Pitching as a starter and also in a new role as a reliever, he was an important element of the Yankees’ World Series championships in 1951, 1952, and 1953. In 1954, working exclusively out of the bullpen, he led the American League in saves with twenty-two.
The Yankees traded Sain to the Kansas City Athletics in 1955, and after that season, he retired at age thirty-seven. In eleven major league seasons, he had compiled a 139-116 record with a 3.49 earned run average.
In addition to being one half of the most endearing slogan in baseball history, Sain also had the distinctions of being the last pitcher to face Babe Ruth in a game in addition to being the first pitcher to face Jackie Robinson in the Major Leagues.
He returned to Arkansas and became a successful businessman, running his own car dealership in Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County), where he also purchased a 354-acre farm.
His business success enabled him to return to baseball on his own terms. In 1961, Sain accepted a job as the Yankees pitching coach. He quickly established himself as a “pitcher’s pitching coach,” a coach who had his own philosophies and coaching techniques.
The managers who hired him in the 1960s—Ralph Houk in New York, Sam Mele in Minnesota, and Mayo Smith in Detroit—agreed with his unorthodox approach, which featured an emphasis on experimenting with technique as much as possible, less rest between games for starters, a focus on pitchers’ strengths rather than opposing batters’ weaknesses.
He rarely made trips to the mound or paid much attention to scouting reports on other teams), and, perhaps most important, positive thinking and positive reinforcement. Sain became known as the most successful pitching coach of his era. Whitey Ford, who had never won twenty games during the nine years before Sain arrived, won twenty-five with Sain as his mentor.
However, the same managers who hired him often felt threatened by his independence and success, and he developed a reputation as a coach who could not get along with managers. His five excellent and uncontroversial years serving as Chuck Tanner’s pitching coach with the Chicago White Sox between 1971 and 1975 belied this view.
Between 1959 and 1986, Sain served as pitching coach for the Athletics, Yankees, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, and Atlanta Braves. All told, he coached nine different pitchers to a total of sixteen twenty-game-winning seasons, and a pitcher of his led the league in wins ten times.
He coached for five pennant winners during his career.
Sain was married twice. With his first wife, Doris, he fathered four children. They divorced in 1972, after twenty-two years of marriage. He married his second wife, Mary Ann, in 1972; they had no children.
Sain died November 7, 2006 at Resthaven West Nursing Home in Downers Grove, Ill., from the lingering effects of a stroke four years previous. He was 89 years-old.
He was laid to rest three days later in the Havana Cemetery in Yell County.