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Snider's regal path to Brooklyn started in Los Angeles

By Bob Keisser
Long Beach Press-Telegram
http://www.presstelegram.com/
February 28, 2011

He played at the Los Angeles Coliseum with the Dodgers in 1958, though he didn't play as much as squint at the right-field fence, which seemed closer to the Harbor Freeway than home plate.

He was there when Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, but just for that year before he took a victory lap in New York with the Mets and then, clothed in irony, a final year in a San Francisco Giants uniform.

He spent most of his career in Brooklyn, where he earned the "Duke of Flatbush" nickname, where he was one of the "Boys of Summer," where he won the 1955 World Series, Brooklyn's one and only, and where he became part of the New York center-field trilogy of "Willie, Mickey and the Duke."

The passing of Duke Snider on Sunday morning at 84 is one of those moments when everyone associated with the national pastime feels some ache, be it a tear or a twinge. Baseball has lost a Hall of Famer and a two-coast icon who hit .295 with 407 home runs in his career, but his passing also means all seven everyday starters for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1949 to 1957 have died: Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Billy Cox, Carl Furillo and now Duke.



It all started here.

Duke Snider was born in Boyle Heights, was a resident of Lynwood and then Compton, and a regular on all the ball fields from the South Bay to Long Beach to South Los Angeles.

He went to Compton's Washington Elementary, Enterprise Junior High and eponymous high school, where he was a three-sport star who pitched a no-hitter, quarterbacked a win over Poly with a late, long touchdown pass, and led the Coast League in scoring in basketball.

He played summers with semipro teams out of Compton and Montebello. His Dodgers tryout in 1943 was held at Rec Park in Long Beach, the old dusty field that now is Blair Field. If you dig through newspaper archives deep enough, you'll find a few stories on Duke Snider's high school exploits were written by a schoolmate and close friend from Compton who grew up to be NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle.

"We played all over, most often at Compton Crestview Park, which became Gonzalez Park," Snider said in an interview when the Dodgers honored the 50th anniversary of the 1955 team. "I played on the same semipro team out of Montebello as Gene Mauch, and in youth leagues in Compton and Long Beach. Even during the offseason, I'd play Sunday doubleheaders all over the area."

His years in Brooklyn were epic. He hit 316 home runs in his career there - nine years full-time, parts of two others - including 40 or more five straight years (53-57), an achievement neither Willie Mays nor Mickey Mantle ever matched.

He scored 100-plus runs six times and had 198 or more hits three times. He is the first National League player to hit four home runs in a World Series. He did it twice - 1952 and 1955 - the only player to do that. His 11 career World Series home runs is still the NL record and fourth all-time behind guys named Mantle, Ruth and Gehrig. He ranked eighth all-time in home runs when he retired.

Los Angeles never got to see the Duke Snider who played in Brooklyn. He was just 31 when the team moved to L.A. and the Coliseum. People joked about the short Chinese Wall in left field, but the real joke was on Snider.

He didn't see the park layout until Opening Day - 425 feet to dead center field, expanding to 440 feet in right center and then 395 in straightaway right, before a quick ducktail to the foul pole that seemed to smirk at him when he played right field. Willie Mays saw it and said "Duke, they buried you."

Snider hit just 15 home runs in 1958, and not one of them to right field at the Coliseum, an epic statistical anomaly.

If the Dodgers had never moved, or the right-field dimensions weren't so absurd, Snider probably would have 500 career home runs rather than the 407 he ended with. But he never blamed the stadium.

"The Coliseum did take some away. I hit a lot of 400-foot outs," Snider said. "But I can't look at it that way. I lost a lot more to my knee injuries. If I had stayed healthy and been able to play every day until I was 37 instead of sporadically as I did, I might have reached those numbers. In 1958, I was probably 70 percent of the player I was in 1957.

"Injuries are part of the game. Mickey Mantle would have had more if not for a bad knee, and Sandy Koufax's career was cut short by arthritis. I think my numbers are pretty good given what I dealt with those last years."

The fences were moved in a bit in 1959, and Snider hit .308, had .400 on-base percentage, hit 23 home runs and drove in 88 runs to help the Dodgers win their second World Series and first in Los Angeles.

The "Duke of Compton" helped plant the seeds of success that made the Dodgers as beloved here as they were in Brooklyn.

"He was an extremely gifted talent and his defensive abilities were often overlooked because of playing in a small ballpark, Ebbets Field. When he had a chance to run and move defensively, he had the grace and the abilities of DiMaggio and Mays," Vin Scully said through the Dodgers. "He was a World Series hero that will forever be remembered in the borough of Brooklyn. Although it's ironic to say it, we have lost a giant."

bob.keisser@presstelegram.com