With little real news, I return to writing about what I love most about the Dodgers. Their history. Everyone knows the story, 1955 was a magical year for Brooklyn. And the Boys of Summer finally full filled all of the promise they had shown for years.
For the record, the Dodgers went 98-55-1 finishing first in the 8 team National League. Managed by second-year manager, Walter Alston. Alston had replaced Chuck Dressen after the 1953 season when Dressen demanded a multi-year contract. Alston over the course of his tenure as Dodger manager, 1954-1976, never signed more than a one-year deal.
The Dodgers were loaded with stars at almost every position. Catching was 2 time MVP, Roy Campanella. Campy was a rock behind the plate. He had a deadly accurate arm and was very good at cutting down opposing runners. He was no slouch at the plate either. He would hit .318 for the team with 32 HRs and 107 RBI’s. In 55 he threw out an impressive 52% of the runners trying to steal on him. His career number was 57%. Rube Walker and Dixie Howell provided backup. Hitting 2 HRs with 18 RBI’s between them.
First base was manned by recently elected Hall of Famer, Gil Hodges. Hodges was a solid defender and a steady bat in the lineup. He hit .289 with 27HR’s and 107 RBI’s giving Brooklyn a trio of 100 RBI players. Gil had turned 31 and would be a solid contributor to another Championship in 1959. 55 was his eighth season as Brooklyn’s starting first baseman. Frank Kellert, who appeared in 39 games hitting .325 with 4 HR’s and 19 RBI’s was Gils caddy.
Second base was the home of Jim Gilliam. The 1953 Rookie of the Year had what for him was a down year. His stats across the board are down from 54. But he hit .249 with 7 HRs and 40 RBI’s. He added 15 stolen bases, high on the team, but he was also caught 15 times. He was backed up at various times by Don Zimmer. Zimmer showed some pop with 15 HR”s and 50 RBI’s but hit only .239.
At third, most of the time was Jackie Robinson. Robinson, now 36 years old, was not the same player he had been in previous seasons. He played in only 105 games. He stole 12 bases and walked 61 times against only 18 strikeouts. He hit .256 with 8 HR’s and drove in 36. Hardly what Brooklyn fans were used to seeing. His main backup was 27 year old Don Hoak. Hoak hit .240 with 5 HRs and 19 driven in.
The SS was team Captain and 13 year Brooklyn veteran, Pee Wee Reese. Reese had joined the Dodgers in 1940. He lost 3 seasons to WWII. But Pee Wee was as solid a SS as there was in the league. Consistent with both bat and glove. He also was very respected by players around the league and his teammates. He was the Captain for a reason. The 36-year-old Reese had a solid season hitting .282 with 10 HRs and 60 driven in. Reese played in 145 games and was usually backed up by Zimmer.
The outfield was manned left to right by Sandy Amoros, Duke Snider, and Carl Furillo. Amoros was the kid in the group. The 25-year-old was playing in his first full season as a Dodger and his third with the team. He hit .247 with 10 HRs and 51 RBIs. Centerfield was the home of long-time Dodger slugger, Duke Snider. Duke, in his ninth season as a Dodger, had one of his better years. He hit .309, slugged 42 HR’s and drove in 136. He also stole 9 bases and walked 104 times against 87 K’s. All solid numbers. Duke also provided excellent defense in center. In right, you had 33-year-old Carl Furillo. He was nicknamed ” The Reading Rifle ” because of his cannon of an arm, Furillo had a solid bat. He hit .314 with 27 long balls and 95 driven in. He also only struck out 43 times in 578 plate appearances. Furillo was also affectionately known as Old Skoonj. A tribute to his love of the Italian dish, scunjilli. I would love to see a guy like Bellinger do that. George Shuba, Walt Moryn, and Bob Borkowski also got very little playing time in the outfield.
The pitching staff featured starters, Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine, Johnny Podres, Billy Loes, and Russ Meyer. The bullpen consisted of Ed Roebuck, Clem Labine, Karl Spooner, Don Bessent, Jim Hughes, and for short periods, Roger Craig, some kid named Koufax, Joe Black, Chuck Templeton, and long time minor leaguer Tom Lasorda. Labine and Roebuck got the bulk of the work appearing in 107 games between them. Newk won 20, Erskine 11, and Loes won 10. Podres 9 and Meyer 6. Labine won 13 out of the pen with 11 saves. Roebuck had 12 saves and 5 wins.
These are the players who contributed the most to the season. The Dodgers started the season on fire. They roared to a 10-0 start and after 24 games they were 22-2. 9.5 games in front. An eleven and a ten-game winning streak was the main reason for the hot start. At the end of May, they were 32-11 5.5 games in the lead. That was as close as any team would get the rest of the way. End of June, 52-19, 13 game lead, end of July, 71-32, 13.5 game lead. When the season ended on September 25th, they had the same 13.5 game lead. The Braves finished second and the hated Giants were third, 23.5 games back. Now it was on to the World Series against the Yankees.
1955 World Series
Game 1. Whitey Ford started for the Yanks, and Newcombe started for Brooklyn. Furillo homered to start the second inning, Robinson tripled and scored on a Zimmer single. But in the bottom of the second, after a walk, Elston Howard hit a 2 run homer. Snider led off the third with a booming HR to right, but the Yanks tied the score on a ground out. Collins hit a solo shot in the 4th putting the Yanks up 4-3 and his 2-run shot in the sixth made it 6-3. A McDougal error in the 8th put runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out. Zimmer hit a sac fly and Robinson stole home for the final tally. Grim shut the Dodgers down in the 9th for the 6-5 win.
Game 2. Tommy Byrne started for the Yanks and Loes went for the Dodgers. The Dodgers struck first for a run on a Snider single in the 4th. But the Yanks knocked Loes out with a 4 spot in the bottom of the inning. Brooklyn could only manage a run in the 5th on a Gilliam single. Byrnes pitched a complete game for the 4-1 win. The Yanks were up 2-0 heading to Ebbets Field.
Game 3. Bob Turley got the start for NY against lefty Johnny Podres. Brooklyn struck first on a 2 run shot by Campy in the bottom of the first. NY tied the score on a Mantle HR, his only of the series, and Rizzuto’s two-out single. Turley came unglued issuing two walks and hitting a batter before walking in the lead run. He was replaced by Tom Morgan who walked in the 4th run. In the 4th, the Dodgers added 2 more to go up 6-2. The Yanks scored a run on a triple by Carey in the 7th, but the Dodgers tacked on 2 more in the bottom of the inning and Podres cruised to a 8-3 win and a complete game. Side note, this game remains as the last series game ever played in September.
Game 4. Erskine started for the Dodgers and Larsen for the Yanks. Erskine was not sharp and the Yanks jumped on him for single runs in the first and second innings. Gilliam’s RBI double in the 3rd cut the lead in half. The Yanks knocked Erskine out of the game in the 4th getting 2 on, then Bessent gave up an RBI single putting the Bombers up 3-1. In the bottom of the 4th, Campy homered and then Hodges hit a 2 run blast to put them up 4-3. In the bottom of the 5th, Snider crushed a 3 run shot off of Johnny Kucks and they were up 7-3. Howard, Martin and Eddie Robinson made it 7-5 in the top of the 6th. But 3 consecutive singles in the bottom of the 7th got the lead back to 8-5. Labine shut the Yanks out the last 3 innings for the win. The Series was now tied 2-2.
Game 5. The Dodgers started Roger Craig, and the Yankees countered with Bob Grim. Amoros hit a 2 run homer off of Grim in the second. Snider hit a leadoff HR in the 3rd, his 3rd of the series making it 3-0. Yanks got a run off of Craig, a rookie, in the 4th on a Martin single. But Snider’s 2nd blast of the game, 4th in the series, got that run back in the 5th. HR’s by Cerv off Craig in the 7th and Berra off Labine in the 8th made it 4-3. But Brooklyn got an insurance run off of Turley in the 8th on a Robinson single, and Labine shut down the Yanks in the 9th for the win. Back to Yankee Stadium up 3-2.
Game 6. Ford vs. Spooner. Dodgers were never in this game. Karl Spooner, who was in a lot of pain and pitching with a bad arm, never got out of the first inning. 3 hits and 2 walks accounted for all five Yankee runs, the capper being Skowron’s 3 run shot. Dodgers managed a run on a single by Furillo in the 4th and Ford cruised to a 5-1 four-hit win forcing game 7.
Game 7, October 4, 1955. Podres vs Byrne. Brooklyn’s starting lineup. Gilliam LF, Reese SS, Snider CF, Campanella C, Furillo RF, Hodges 1B, Hoak 3B, Zimmer 2B, Podres P. Notable in his absence is Jackie Robinson. It would be the only time in his career he would not play in his team’s series game. For the record, Robinson was having an awful series. He was hitting .182 with 4 hits and 1 RBI. Byrne coming off of his complete-game win in game two with plenty of rest.
Through the first three innings, the game was scoreless. A strange play in the third cost the Yanks a run when Phil Rizzuto was hit by a McDougald grounder and ruled out. Instead of being up 1-0, the game remained scoreless. This particular play was seen as an omen by Erskine who had seen so many similar plays go against the Dodgers. Campy doubled in the 4th and was knocked in by Hodges who singled. The Yanks wasted a Berra leadoff double in the 4th. But the biggest play of the game came in the 6th. Sandy Amoros had replaced Gilliam in LF for defensive purposes. Gilliam had moved to second. With runners on first and second with one out, Amoros speared a Berra line drive at the last moment and fired the ball in and Hodges tagged McDougald out before he could return to first for a double play.
The Yanks again missed a chance at scoring when McDougald could not score a runner from third with one out in the 8th. The Yanks went down in the ninth with Elston Howard grounding out, Reese to Hodges, and the celebration was on as Podres shut them out 2-0.
The Boys of Summer were finally redeemed. Snider hit .320 in the series with 4 homers and 7 driven in. Hodges drove in 5. Both teams had combined for 17 which was a series record at the time. Campy added two with Hodges, Furillo, and Amoros rounding out the Dodgers total of 9. It must be noted that Yankee star Mickey Mantle only appeared in three games due to injury. He did have one homer. Collins was the only Yankee with multiple HRs in the series. Robinson would play one more year, 1956, then retire when he was traded after the 1956 season to the Giants for Dick Littlefield and 30,000$. Robinson refused to report and the trade was voided. Jackie would enter the Hall as a first-ballot player. The Dodgers would leave Brooklyn after the 1957 season. They would have to wait far less of a time for the first series win in Los Angeles as a mix of the old Brooklyn team and LA’s new blood would beat the White Sox in the 1959 classic. For his performance in the series, Johnny Podres was awarded the first World Series MVP award which carried with it a new car presented by Sport Magazine.
Wow. I guess we have become irrelevant…
Nah, just maybe a subject that they have seen before. MLB and the MLBPA are going to meet on Thursday to discuss financial matters.
Thank you soooo much for taking me back to the days when you could forget to lock your car and /or front door and not worry about it. It put a lump in my throat to remember, again, The Boys of Summer. I became a Dodger fan in 1949 when a friend of my father took me to my 1st ball game at Ebbets Field. From then on I always listened to the game on radio and later on TV WOR channel 9.
Now at the age of 79 I may be one of the few Brooklyn Dodger fans left. I have to admit I sorta feel sorry for those who were born too late to experience Ebbets Field and all its memories like Hilda Chester, Happy Felton’s Knothole game(where I met Gil Hodges in person), Abe Starks sign in right field saying to the batters ” Hit the sign and win a suit”. Those days were GLORIOUS and VERY VERY SPECIAL to me and STILL ARE.
Once again Bear, thank you for making me feel young again!!
No problem Richie. My pleasure. My first exposure to the Dodgers was the World Series on TV. I had a few baseball cards. My first Dodger game was at the coliseum in late August 1958. Big D was pitching. Snider was my favorite player. I hit lefty also and copied his stance when I played. I met him at a card convention in Orange after he had been elected to the hall. Got an 8X10 autographed and it is on my wall next to a photo of Duke, Campy and Hodges. I am elated Gil was finally elected. He deserved it a long time ago. I have a couple of the old Brooklyn uni’s. A 55 Robinson and a road jersey with the number 7 on it. I also have a couple of Brooklyn caps. And I have a lot of Topps reprint Dodger cards, the originals are way out of my price range. I just got a Koufax rookie last week.
Brooklyn Dodger posts here still but not as much as he once did. If I’m remembering correctly he was an English teacher and thusly his posts were lengthy and easy for the reader. It seems he made an appearance not all that long ago, like maybe last week or so.
I have been writing a couple of articles on baseball, but not necessarily LA Dodgers.
Is there any interest in looking at the drafts?
I would prefer not to publish prior to your review and approval.
Send them to Marks email. He will advise you.
Mark: STOP THAT TALK!!! You and all who write here will NEVER be irrelevant. I may not post very often but I do read every day as to what is being said here
I know Mark appreciates that. It is a lot of work to keep his business going and monitor the site at the same time. I am going to be writing more since I am at home now. Just waiting for baseball to get off of it’s butt and get an agreement. My best friend is from Brooklyn. He quit supporting the team when O’Malley moved them. He lives in Lancaster now.
Mark,
I tried to e-mail you with a couple of questions.
I may not have the correct address.
I will email him your desire to ask a couple questions. He might be having a busy business period.
I sent Mark’s email address to you.
Thank you Bear
I enjoyed it
The first World Series I watched on TV was the Braves v Yankees in 1958. I loved watching the series back then. I can still hear the Gillett theme song.
Glad to hear that Bob. I remember that too. And you heard that every Friday on Gilette’s cavalcade of sports show. It was usually boxing. I remember seeing the Emile Griffith-Benny “Kid” Paret match. Was a tragedy that Paret died. There was no baseball on regular TV except the game of the week with Curt Gowdy. I remember Pee Wee was his co host for a year or so. My weekend watch list was The Game of the Week, Professional Bowlers Tour and ABC’s Wide Wide World of Sports.
Love the story of the 1955 Dodgers. Great job, Bear.
You are welcome. One of my favorite teams.
Thanks a lot Bear for that walk down memory lane with The Boys of Summer. As you know, I just love that era. That 7th game in the ’55 series was special for me with Gil Knocking in Both runs in a 2-0 game.
By the way, I believe that the Dodgers and the Yanks faced each other 6 times in the WS in a 10 year period. That would be ’47, ’49, ’52, ’53, ’55 & ’56. I wonder if that has ever happened before in WS play. Bear, I think that you would have the answer to that one.
My pleasure Hodges. Loved that team. No two teams have ever met that often in a 10 year span other than the Yanks and Dodgers. Overall, they met 11 times with the Yanks winning 8 of them. Dodgers won in 55, 63 and 81. Yanks have beaten the Giants 5 times in the series, the last being 1962.
Thanks Bear, I thought that you would have the answer.
I got a Gil Hodges card today that was made by the Ted Williams baseball card company. Pretty cool card.
One thing I remember from reading the book, Boys of Summer, was the amount of time George Shuba spent in his basement at his home swinging at a ball that extended from the ceiling by a string. Kahn had asked him how his stroke had developed. Shuba, nicknamed “Shotgun” replied that he swung at that ball 1000 times every day. I cannot imagine that. I remember when 20 minutes in a batting cage would leave my hands aching. 1955 was his last season in Brooklyn, He hit .275 in 44 games with a homer and 8 RBI’s. He spent 56 at AAA for the Dodgers and 57 at AA for the Cubs. Just a note, Campy hit 242 HR’s as the Dodger catcher, still the most by a long shot. Piazza had 177. No one else is even close. But when MLB decided to add the negro league totals to the career stats of players who played in the negro leagues, Campy gained 18 homers. So his career total is 260.
Rays bullpen catcher, Jean Ramirez passed away at age 28. RIP….way too young.
One pitcher that was mentioned was Karl Spooner. If not for an injury that ended his career, he may have been another LH super star pitcher. Check his record in 1954 when he pitched only two games when breaking in, but they were both complete game shutouts. He struck out 15 one game & 12 in the other. He only gave up 7 total hits in 18 innings. Think what might have been if he had stayed healthy. He could have been another Koufax. (If that is even possible!)
Spooner’s fastball was almost as fast as Sandy’s and he had better control at the time he entered the league. In 1954 he won 21 games for the Ft. Worth Cats with 268 K’s in 238 innings. That got him promoted to the big club at the end of the year. His first start on September 22 he struck out 15 Giants and allowed 3 hits shutting out the Giants, 3-0. Four days later he beat the Pirates 1-0 striking out 12 and allowing 4 hits in the last game of the season. Spooner also set a record by striking out 6 hitters in a row in the game against the Giants. He and Pete Reichert are still the only hurlers to do that in their MLB debut. However, in spring training in 1955, Spooner entered a game before warming up properly. He suffered a severe arm injury and was out of action until May. He was bounced between the rotation and the bull pen but was only marginally successful. He finished the year 8-6. He started game 5 of the series and was shellacked. It was the last major league game he would pitch. He bounced around the Dodger system until 1958 when he was exposed to the draft and taken by the Cardinals. He retired before the 1959 season began. Karl died in 1984 at the age of 54 of liver cancer. He was living in Vero Beach at the time.
Orioles are moving the fence at Camden Yards back 30 feet and raising the wall to 12 feet. Big change. Wall had been 7 feet high in left field. Pitchers are elated, hitters fuming.
Nice article Michael.
Reading your pieces always seems to take me to a better time, a better place, when everything and everyone seemed nicer. Gives me a nostalgic warm glow so thanks for all your efforts.
Was thinking earlier about how quickly time is passing as I’m getting older.
I’m sure everyone feels the same as you are counting the years down and not up.
I’m 56 soon, and had my kids late in life, and it certainly seems that it was from the moment the first was born that time seemed to accelerate.
It got me thinking about this place and how it’s been 10 years since I first commented here in 2012.
It really doesn’t feel like 10 years, and I’ve learned so much about Baseball (and water) from LADT ( and a bit of US Political stuff lol).
This place plus MLB.com has taken my enjoyment to a new level.
Time flies. It’s over 2 years since I had Covid, right at the start of the Pandemic – not really knowing what it was at the time – but even with the various Lockdowns and interference to
our lives, time has gone incredibly quickly.
Many commentators have come and gone from here over the decade, but this is a particularly dull period, with no baseball matters to discuss.
Mark, please don’t lose your MoJo for LADT – this will pass -,and remember that the last year or two have been great on here with lots of fresh writers and articles, and numerous new knowledgeable Posters.
Soon, the parties will come to some resolution and we’ll be off and running
And this will just seem like most passages of time, like a dot in the rear view mirror.
Know what you mean Watford
Growing up I found the 50’s to be boring
Now I would be happy to go back!
Thank you Watford. If you think time is passing by fast for you, trust me, I am in the hyperdrive lane. The last two years even with the pandemic have flown by. Not helped much by the passing of so many friends and fellow musicians. But baseball and music have kept my mind busy and alert, When I tell younger people that we used to see two movies, cartoons, a newsreel and previews and it only cost a quarter, they look at me like I am nuts. My mom gave me a buck to go to the movies and I always had 20 or so cents left. But what really made me feel old was the other day when I went to my doctor, and she did not know who Lawrence Welk was.
Would you really want a doctor who was old enough to know who Lawrence Welk was?
And a one, and a two………………………………….
Actually yes.
The mention of baseball’s Game of the Week remInded me of the Saturdays when I watched it with Dizzy Dean calling the games. For you who never had the chance to watch the telecasts, I share with you this paragraph from Wikipedia that will give you a taste of Dizzy:
“While doing a game on CBS, Dean once said, over the open mic, “I don’t know why they’re calling this the Game of the Week. There’s a much better game, Dodgers and Giants, over on NBC.” Every so often, he would sign off by saying, “Don’t fail to miss tomorrow’s game!” During rain delays, he was famous for off-key renditions of the “Wabash Cannonball”. These manglings of the language only endeared Dean to fans, being a precursor of such beloved ballplayers-turned-broadcasters as Ralph Kiner, Herb Score, and Jerry Coleman.
I do not know if you have ever seen Pride of St. Louis. It is a biopic of Dean with Dan Dailey playing Ol Diz, and Richard Crenna plays Daffy. Pretty cute movie, not totally factual, but fun to watch. Better than The Winning Team about Grover Cleveland Alexander who was played by former President Ronald Reagan.
He was a classic….
Thanks for the memories… even though I didn’t live them.
I became a Dodgers fan as a kid in Southern California marvellng at Koufax and Maury. But if you became a Dodgers fan, you could claim Brooklyn as part of your heritage. So Jackie, PeeWee, Campy and the rest became favorites long after they had retired. The school library carried thin “biographies” of sports stars and of course I read about the Bums including lesser stars like Carl Furillo and the sad tale of Pete Reiser. Loved Campy’s autobiography…. In a weird way, I was not all that enthralled by Roger Kahn’s “Boys of Summer,” perhaps because I felt like I already knew these guys. (For a class assignment in the 4th grade, I encouraged my baseball mad son wrote a short story imagining himself as a Brooklyn batboy in Jackie’s rookie season . Yeah, he hit it out of the park.)
As for ballplayers turned announcers…. Bob Uecker!
I was always into westerns and remember watching Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson, etc. Later on my favorites were in order John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Sam Elliot, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Lee van Cliff, Jack Elam, Steve McQueen, Ben Johnson, Walter Brennan and of course Gabby Hayes. I also watched a lot of Audie Murphy westerns but I just couldn’t wrap my arms around him being a cowboy.
Most of Murphy’s films were B westerns. But he made a couple that were pretty good. Guns of Fort Petticoat and Destry Rides Again. His autobiographical To Hell and Back was an ok war movie. But he really shinned in The Red Badge of Courage about a young Union soldier who battles his cowardice. Wayne is and will always be my favorite western actor. Eastwoods movies are a lot more violent. McQueen did not do a lot of Westerns, but the few he did were pretty good including Nevada Smith which was taken from a chapter of the book, The Carpetbaggers. Ben Johnson was great. Gabby Hayes and Walter Brennen were the two best character actors in film.
Thanks for the memories… even though I didn’t live them.
I became a Dodgers fan as a kid in Southern California marvellng at Koufax and Maury. But if you became a Dodgers fan, you could claim Brooklyn as part of your heritage. So Jackie, PeeWee, Campy and the rest became favorites long after they had retired. The school library carried thin “biographies” of sports stars and of course I read about the Bums including lesser stars like Carl Furillo and the sad tale of Pete Reiser. Loved Campy’s autobiography…. In a weird way, I was not all that enthralled by Roger Kahn’s “Boys of Summer,” perhaps because I felt like I already knew these guys. (For a class assignment in the 4th grade, I encouraged my baseball mad son wrote a short story imagining himself as a Brooklyn batboy in Jackie’s rookie season . Yeah, he hit it out of the park.)
As for ballplayers turned announcers…. Bob Uecker!
Growing up in Jupiter FL, one of the local favorite players was Herb Score who pitched for Lake Worth high about 25 miles south of Jupiter. He was another pitcher who had a very promising career greatly affected by injury. He was hit in the face by a line drive by Gil McDougal and was never the same. Check out his first two years.