Carl Furillo – the Reading Rifle

When I was growing up as a budding Dodger fan in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada, I had the good fortune to be part of the Boys of Summer saga. My connection with the Dodgers began in 1952 one evening when by pure chance I turned my radio dial and there it was – the golden voice of Vin Scully. Before the game ended Duke Snider – the Silver Fox – hit a home run and sealed the deal for me. My dial never again left that station during the summer. I believe it was WMGM.

During those years I followed and learned much about so many great Dodger players. As mentioned Duke Snider became my all-time favorite player. Jackie Robinson became the player I respected the most although I only learned in 1954 that he was black when baseball cards arrived in Lunenburg.  I waited for Duke to come to bat but when the Dodgers really needed a key hit I was very happy to have two other members of the team step up to the plate – Roy Campanella and Carl Furillo. Campy was a three-time MVP whose career was cut short by that fateful accident in January 1958. Furillo, on the other hand, was an almost unknown Dodger when fans in our area were discussing Dodger and Yankee players. However, to me, he was a clutch hitter getting hits when really needed.

Furillo was born on March 8, 1922, in Stony Creek Mills, a suburb of Reading, Pennsylvania. Of Italian descent, he was the son of immigrants Michael and Filomena Furillo. He didn’t attend high school dropping out of school after completing the eighth grade, a decision he apparently regretted as he began his baseball career. However, life was not easy for his family, a closely-knit family, and he worked at various jobs such as picking apples and working in a woolen mill. At the same time, he did what he loved doing the most, playing baseball.

His mother died when Carl was only 18 and he then began his career as a baseball player. In 1940 he played with the Class D Pocomoke City Chicks in the Eastern Shore League. He played center field and also pitched. His pitching career came to an abrupt end because of control problems and perhaps the danger to opposing hitters not wearing batting helmets. With a .319 batting average, it became evident his future was as an outfielder. He also played eight games for the unaffiliated Reading Brooks of the Class B Interstate League. The Dodgers apparently were impressed with Furillo as following the season they purchased the entire Reading team plus two sets of uniforms.

Carl Furillo’s climb to major league baseball was on a fast track. In 1941 he again played with the Reading Brooks hitting .313 as a 19-year-old. In 125 games he displayed his outfield arm by recording 25 assists. In 1942 he was called up to the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers farm club in the International League. The Royals were not classified as AAA until 1946 so technically he was not playing at a Triple-A level but nevertheless as the second-youngest player on the team he hit .281.

Like many baseball players of his era, Furillo answered the call and spent the next three years, 1943-45, in the army. He saw active duty in the Pacific Theater where he was wounded and received three battle stars. His war service gave the Dodgers an early glimpse that Furillo seemed to be uncomfortable in social situations and perhaps almost a lone wolf. Peter Golenbock in his book “Bums” writes that Carl Furillo turned down a Purple Heart medal for his wounds, saying that he hadn’t been sufficiently valiant.

Furillo made his debut with the Dodgers on April 16, 1946. The 24-year-old started in center field and went 2-4 in his first game as a major league player. On the season he hit .284. He struck out 20 times and walked 31 times beginning a pattern that lasted throughout his career. In his 15 seasons at the major league level, he struck out 436 times and walked 514 times. The most strikeouts he recorded in a season was 43 in 1955.

He played on seven Dodger pennant-winning teams and on two World Series championship teams – 1955 and 1959. He played for 15 years, all with the Dodgers. His career batting average was .299 with 1910 hits and 1058 runs batted in. With one more hit his batting average would have been rounded up to .300.

Nicknamed “The Reading Rifle” after his home town of Reading, PA, Furillo came to play. His claim to fame was his incredibly strong throwing arm (hence the ‘Rifle’ part of his nickname). During his career, he recorded 151 outfield assists with a high of 24 in 1951 and nine seasons with ten or more assists. He participated in 34 double plays while throwing out seven runners at first base who most likely made a turn too wide. He once fielded a clean line drive hit by pitcher Mel Queen of the Pirates and threw him out at first base in the eighth inning to preserve a no-hitter on which Ralph Branca was working.

Roger Kahn in “The Boys of Summer” writes that fans came to Ebbets Field early to watch Carl Furillo warm-up: “Others came out, thousands of others, long before the formal competition started, to watch the warm-up throws. You could hear gasps at Ebbets Field and sometimes, an hour before game time, bursts of applause.”

Catcher Roy Campanella who had asked Furillo not to skip the ball so close to home plate as he couldn’t handle it described his arm: “He had the best throwing arm of any right fielder I ever played with or against.”

Although he was not part of any of the cliques on the Dodgers, Furillo earned the respect of his teammates who knew how hard he played. He gave his all, all the time. The legendary Vin Scully said of Furillo: “He was basically a no-nonsense, blue-collar player who played hard and played every day. He was very strong and I can’t stress enough how hard he played.”

There was another side to Furillo not always seen by the public eye but seen by those around him. Another Carl – Carl Erskine – spoke highly and often of the “Reading Rifle”.

“All that was ever portrayed about Carl was his strength and ruggedness,” said Erskine, a pitcher, and teammate who delivered the eulogy. “We players all saw his sensitivity and tenderness.

He was not very fast but Furillo knew exactly how to play the right-field wall at Ebbets Field. Roger Kahn: “That wall, a mystery of dead spots, bounces, angles, and planes, was a wonder of baseball before the dream-destroyers wrecked it. Furillo never attended high school. Plane geometry remained a mystery to him. But he knew every angle, every carom. The way Furillo played the wall describes an art form.”

He knew if he was to go back for a ball that would drop down or come in on one that would hit the wall and bound back towards the infield. He didn’t rely on speed but on instinct and hard work to conquer the wall. Vin Scully also commented on Furillo’s running speed or lack of it: “I guess you’d call him a cautious base runner,” Scully said. “That’s why his nickname among his teammates was Skoonj, which was short for the Italian word meaning snail.”

Carl Furillo’s most memorable year for me was 1953. I recall it so vividly because Duke Snider was having a monster year, perhaps the best ever by a Dodger, and I was pulling for him to win the National League batting title. However, he didn’t. He finished third with a .336 batting average behind Red Schoendienst of the Cardinals with his .342 batting average and Carl Furillo the 1953 National League batting champion with a batting average of .344. At the beginning of the season who could have guessed or would have bet Furillo would win a batting championship?

Perhaps Corey Seager has taken a page from Carl Furillo’s playbook. They both love the first pitch in an at-bat. Carl Erskine says Furillo was a ”Bible hitter.” First pitch, anywhere, in the dirt or at the eyes, Furillo took his mighty swing. Why was he, then, a Bible hitter? Erskine says, ”Thou shalt not pass.”

Carl Furillo is almost an unknown Dodger. However, as quiet as he was, he made his mark on the Dodgers and on baseball. unfortunately, his career did not have a happy ending and might be noted as a dark day in Dodger history. On May 12 in the 1960 baseball season, suffering from persistent pain in his legs, the Dodgers released him unconditionally. By the time he was released, he had received only $12,000 of his $33,000 contract for the season. He sued the Dodgers on the grounds that he was released while injured. The suit was settled in May 1961, with Furillo being awarded the $21,000 remaining from his 1960 salary.

Furillo contacted every major league team, some more than once, but received no job offers as either a coach or scout. He had been blacklisted by MLB, unofficially of course, because he stood up for what was rightfully his.

After leaving the game Furillo became another part of history – not baseball history but American history. He worked for Otis Elevator Company and helped install the elevators in two of America’s most famous buildings – the north and the south towers of The World Trade Center.

Carl Anthony Furillo died at age 66 on January 21, 1989.

How should we remember him? Roger Kahn, in his book, “The Boys of Summer,” provides a perfect epitaph. Kahn wrote: “I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer. Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny.”

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