Samuel Ralph Nahem (October 19, 1915 – April 19, 2004), nicknamed "'Subway Sam", was an American pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1938), St. Louis Cardinals (1941), and Philadelphia Phillies (1942 and 1948).

His professional baseball playing was interrupted by military service (1942–1946) with the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.

[3][4] His parents Jacob and Esther Nahem had immigrated from Aleppo, Syria, to the United States, firstly to the Lower East Side in Manhattan where he was initially raised, and then moved to Brooklyn.

[5][6][7] His first language was Arabic, as his family were Arabic-speaking Syrian Jews, and he and his seven siblings grew up on Ocean Parkway and in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.

[7][8][9][10] His father, who owned an import-export business, later drowned when the British passenger steamship SS Vestris sank off the coast of Virginia on November 12, 1928.

"[15] In June 1940, he was traded by the Dodgers with Carl Doyle, Bert Haas, and Ernie Koy to the St. Louis Cardinals for Curt Davis and future Hall of Famer Joe Medwick.

[3] Upon joining the military in 1942, Nahem spent two years at Fort Totten, where he pitched for the Anti-Aircraft Redlegs of the Eastern Defense Command.

[10][16] Nahem combined practicing law and working as a longshoremen while playing semi-professionally with the Brooklyn Bushwicks, in 1947 pitching the team to a 3–0 one-hit victory over the World Series All-Stars, which included Major League players Eddie Stanky, Ralph Branca, and Phil Rizzuto.