Today’s post is about the longest tenured Dodger manager. Walter Emmons Alston. Smokey to his friends. Alston was the manager when the team moved from Brooklyn. He was just 3 years removed from guiding them to their only World Championship in their long history. His team was a mixture of old Brooklyn stars, Reese, Hodges, Snider, Furillo, Erskine, and some new blood just beginning to make some noise on the…
As fans, we all know the stars of our teams, and today with the internet and all the media coverage, we know the rookies, the scrub beanies, and just about everyone else in the organization. Growing up, and learning the game, that was not the case. We found out in box scores, and those of us lucky enough to have a subscription, in the Sporting News. But for every star player, there was…
The other night I watched a few innings of the Dodger intra-squad. Even though they added piped in music, and “fan noise” it was still difficult for me to get excited about the game. One thing I did enjoy, however, was watching Josiah Gray pitch. He is a good one folks! And, if baseball ever returns to some semblance of normalcy, I can see great things ahead for him. Both…
Outside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, a statue depicting southpaw Johnny Podres after a pitch release stands 60 feet, six inches from a statue of catcher Roy Campanella. They commemorate the Brooklyn Dodgers winning the 1955 World Series over the New York Yankees, one of the most iconic moments in Dodger history! The photo of the elated Podres leaping into the arms of Roy Campanella, with Don…
This is for Bear although he most likely has all of this in his data bank and more. It is a rerun of an article I posted on Think Blue LA back in December of 2012. At that time I wrote: Yesterday I spent some quality time with myself organizing and cataloging my latest Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp baseball cards. Today, I will take my Duke Snider cards out…
Let’s face it, there has never been another Jackie Robinson and there never will be. However, there was another young man who broke the color barrier in major league baseball as a pitcher. Some time ago I heard a trivia question to which I knew the answer. The question was: “Who was the first black pitcher in major league baseball?” This has the makings of an Abbott and Costello skit….
Every true baseball fan knows about Kershaw and nearly everybody on the planet knows about Koufax, but only the truest of true Dodger fans know that there was yet a third outstanding left-handed “K” who once pitched for the Dodgers – Karl Spooner. Karl Benjamin Spooner was born on June 23, 1931 in Oriskany Falls, a village in upstate New York about 20 minutes south of Utica. He grew up…
About a year ago I posted a column on the remaining Brooklyn Dodgers. The current list includes any player who put on a Brooklyn Dodger uniform, even for one game. In the last year, we have lost Don Newcombe, Randy Jackson, and Glenn Mickens. This is the link to the previous article. https://ladodgertalk.com/2019/01/06/the-oldest-living-dodger/ And this is the present list. Eddie Basinski (97): November 4, 1922 1944-45 Tim Thompson (96): March…
On April 12, 1962, one week prior to my 11th birthday, Pete Richert made his major league debut against the Cincinnati Reds. I was listening to the game on my transistor radio. Richert entered the game in the top of the bottom of the second inning, with two outs and a runner on second. The Reds had already scored four runs in the inning.
If you were asked who is the oldest living Dodger, who would you guess? It is easy to guess Tommy Lasorda, Don Newcombe and Carl Erskine for us oldtimers and probably Tommy and Newk for the younger set. It turns out there are 18 players living who put on a Brooklyn Dodger uniform so most of us would be stumped in trying to pinpoint the oldest living Dodger. I…