George Thomas "Shotgun" Shuba (December 13, 1924 – September 29, 2014) was a utility outfielder and left-handed pinch hitter in Major League Baseball who played seven seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers. His seven seasons included three World Series as well as a World Series championship in 1955. He was the first National League player to hit a pinch-hit home run in a World Series game. Shuba is often remembered for his symbolic role in breaking down Major League Baseball's tenacious "color barrier". While playing for the AAA Montreal Royals in 1946, Shuba offered a congratulatory handshake to teammate Jackie Robinson, who went on to become the first African American to play in a major league game since the late 19th century. The moment was captured in a well-known photograph dubbed A Handshake for the Century for featuring the first interracial handshake in a professional baseball game. In 1972 Shuba's major league career was featured in a chapter of Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, a tribute to the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. Kahn observed in his book that Shuba earned his nickname, "Shotgun", by "spraying line drives with a swing so compact that it appeared as natural as a smile". Early life Shuba was born the youngest of 10 children to Slovak immigrants in Youngstown, Ohio, a steel-manufacturing town with a strong tradition of amateur and minor league baseball. His father, Jan Shuba, emigrated from eastern Czechoslovakia in 1912. Jan Shuba was 45 years old at the time of George's birth, and he did little to encourage his son's interest in sports. As a child, George Shuba attended Holy Name Elementary School, a parochial school on the city's heavily Eastern European west side. Shuba was an avid baseball player throughout his youth, and he usually served as a second baseman in neighborhood games. In 1943, when he was 17 years old, he participated in a tryout for the Brooklyn Dodgers and eventually signed a contract. As Shuba later recalled, an ear injury sustained while being disciplined by a teacher prevented him from entering the U.S. Army during World War II. He would gain valuable experience playing for minor league clubs throughout the war years. Baseball career After signing a contract with the Dodgers, Shuba played for farm teams in New Orleans and Mobile. He later recalled that his father opposed the move, because he "thought I should go and work in