Carl Braun

Carl August Braun Jr. (September 25, 1927 – February 10, 2010) was an American professional basketball and baseball player and professional basketball coach. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to a German American family that moved to Garden City for his senior year of high school, Braun stood 6'4" and weighed 185 pounds, with talent as both a right-handed pitcher and a basketball player. His high school nickname was "bean pole." As a senior at Garden City High School, he helped lead his team to its first-ever Nassau County baseball championship in 1945 and was a star basketball player, and he was later one of the inaugural inductees into the Nassau County High School Sports Hall of Fame. He enrolled at Colgate College and played for the Colgate University Raiders in 1945–1946. In the summer of 1947, while still only 19 years old, he was signed by the New York Yankees. He played two seasons for Yankee farm teams in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and then Amsterdam, New York, appearing in 35 games and compiling a 2–3 won-lost record. In between those minor league baseball seasons, he also joined the New York Knicks for their 1947–1948 season.