(1899-1973)
Inducted into Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, 1984
Sam Hyman grew up in Hartford and became the most famous baseball player of the area.
At Hartford High School, he played football, basketball and baseball but is most remembered as a pitcher with an explosive fast ball. Largely through his efforts, Hartford High became state champion. He went on to Georgetown University for pharmacy school, where during his four years he was undefeated. He was touted by the New York Tribune as one of the best pitchers in college baseball in 1920 and is honored in Georgetown’s Sports Hall of Fame for 1924.
From Georgetown, Hyman went into professional baseball, first with the Detroit Tigers in the American League, then to Allentown of the Eastern League, and finally to New Haven, where he was the pitching mainstay of the team for many years. While he was with the Detroit Tigers, he established a league strikeout record in 1922.
After his days as an athlete, Hyman worked as a pharmacist in the south end of Hartford. He continued to maintain his interest in baseball and sometimes threw batting practice to the local minor-league team, the Hartford Senators, a Boston Braves affiliate in the Eastern League. In 1943 he took to the mound again when the team was short-staffed and helped propel the team to a win. Hyman made brief end-of-season appearances as a fill-in with Hartford minor-league teams in 1946 and 1949 and pitched in local exhibition games throughout the 1940s.