Whit Wyatt

John Whitlow Wyatt (September 27, 1907 – July 16, 1999) was an American professional baseball pitcher. He played all or part of sixteen seasons in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers (1929–33), Chicago White Sox (1933–36), Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers (1939–44), and Philadelphia Phillies (1945). While injuries sidetracked much of Wyatt's early career, he is most famous for his performance in 1941, when his team (the Dodgers) won the National League pennant.

Early years Wyatt was born in Kensington, Georgia, in 1907. As a high school pitching phenom at Cedartown High School, he once struck out 23 college hitters in a game. Joe DiMaggio only faced Wyatt in one World Series yet called him "the meanest guy [he] ever saw."

Post-playing career After retiring from the mound, Wyatt was a successful minor-league manager (his 1954 Atlanta Crackers won the Double-A Southern Association championship and Dixie Series), then spent over a decade as a pitching coach in the majors with the Philadelphia Phillies (1955–57) and the Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves (1958–67), notably serving on the pennant-winning 1958 Milwaukee Braves and as the first pitching coach for the relocated Atlanta Braves of 1966. He died of complications from pneumonia at the Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton, Georgia, at age 91.