Duke Snider 1926-2011

[Zoneboy]

Hall-of-Famer Duke Snider, the last surviving regular of the "Boys of Summer" Dodgers, dead at 84

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Now there are none.

Hall-of-Famer Duke Snider, the last surviving regular of the 1950's "Boys of Summer" Dodgers, whose prolific home runs and center field defensive prowess earned him royalty status in Brooklyn and immortalization in song in Terry Cashman's famous baseball ballad, died Sunday in the Valle Vista Convalenscent Hospital in Escondido, Ca. He was 84.


Snider had been in ill health the last couple of years from diabetes. With his passing, all the regulars - catcher Roy Campanella, first baseman Gil Hodges, second baseman Junior Gilliam, shortstop Pee Wee Reese, third baseman Billy Cox, right fielder Carl Furillo and Jackie Robinson - of those star-crossed Dodger teams that won six National League pennants but just one World Series in Brooklyn from 1947-57 - are now gone. Of them, Robinson, Reese and Campanella are also enshrined in Cooperstown.

The debate as to who was the best center fielder in New York during that period - Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle or Snider - will go on for eternity, as so proclaimed in Cashman's signature baseball ditty, "Talkin' Baseball - Willie, Mickey and the Duke".

Brooklyn's case for Snider was always made on his clutch hits, World Series home run feats and his spectacular outfield play. In 1949, Snider's first full season in the big leagues, in which he hit .292 with 23 homers and 92 RBI after taking over in center field for the injured Pete Reiser, his tie-breaking 10th-inning RBI single against the Philadelphia Phillies won the pennant for the Dodgers on the final day of the season. A year later, in almost identical circumstances, the pennant came down to the last day of the season against the Phillies and Snider, who hit .321 with 31 homers, 107 RBI and a league-leading 199 hits in 1950, again came through with a ninth-inning single that would have broken a 1-1 tie had Cal Abrams, who was on second, not been thrown out at the plate on a perfect throw from Phillie center fielder Richie Ashburn. The "Whiz Kid" Phillies then went to win the game - and the pennant - on a home run by Dick Sisler in the bottom of the inning.

In six World Series with the Dodgers, five of them in Brooklyn and one in Los Angeles, Snider hit .286 with 11 homers and 26 RBI in 36 total games. He is the only player in history to hit four homers in two different Series, having accomplished that feat in '52 and '55, both against the Yankees. For his career, Snider hit .295, with 2,116 hits, 407 homers, 1,333 RBI in 2,143 games. He also slugged .540, had five straight 40-plus homer seasons and six 100-RBI seasons, including a league-leading 136 in 1955. He won a home run title with 43 in 1956 and led the NL in runs scored three consecutive seasons, 1953-55.

But it was just as much for his glove as his bat that put him in the "who's best" argument with his New York contemporary center fielders, Mays and Mantle. There were two particular sensational catches that earned him his defensive repuation. On a gloomy, wet afternoon at the Polo Grounds against the Giants in 1955, Snider took off at the crack of the Giants' Monte Irvin's bat in pursuit of a screaming liner to left-center. Upon reaching the cinder track in front of the distant bleacher wall, some 450 feet from home plate, he jumped, gloved the ball, then tumbled to the ground. Afterward, players and media alike were comparing it to the running, over-the-head catch Mays had made off Vic Wertz, in the grass just before the cinders, in the World Series the year before.

"I saw both catches and Duke ran as far as he could and jumped as high as he could," said Dodger catcher Roy Campanella.

And in Philadelphia's Shibe Park on Memorial Day 1954, Snider made what he himself later declared "my greatest catch ever" when, with two runners on base and the Dodgers clinging to a 5-4 lead, he raced all the way to the left-center field wall, 405 feet away, before scaling it like a human fly, his spikes against the concrete, to pull down a towering shot by Phillie third baseman Willie "Puddin Head" Jones. Though it saved the game for the Dodgers, dozens of admiring Philly fans swarmed onto the field to congratulate Snider, one them making off with his cap.

Despite his immense popularity as "the Duke of Flatbush", Snider developed a reputation through the years as a bit of a malcontent who had frequent run-ins with the Dodger front office and occasionally the media and fans. That rep probably had its origin in 1948 when Dodger manager Leo Durocher broke a promise to him about calling him back up to the majors after sending him to Triple A-Montreal. Though he hit well over .300 after the demotion, Snider sulked frequently, prompting Montreal manager Clay Hopper to say: "He's the worst-acting .330 hitter I ever handled." In 1950, Dodger manager Burt Shotton fined him for refusing signs, bat-throwing and talking back, and Ebbets Field fans booed him for the way he'd react to a called third strike.

On one memorable occasion, Shotton ordered him to bunt and after Snider popped up, he tossed his bat in disgust and snarled in the dugout: "It's a damned shame that a .320 hitter has to bunt," to which the Dodger manager retorted: "And it's a damned shame he has to pop it up!"

In August of 1952, Snider was benched for what was termed his "casual attitude" but upon returning from the punishment, he hit .400 over the last two months of the season as the driving force in the Dodgers' securing of the pennant.



Snider's most notable conflict with the Dodger fans occurred in August of 1955 when he was at 38 homers, seven games ahead of Babe Ruth's record pace of 60 in 1927, and was felled by a siege of the flu that was partly responsible for a ten-game slump in which he went homerless. It culminated with the Dodgers losing both ends of a doubleheader in which Snider left eight runners on base and was booed loudly. After the second game, he blurted to reporters: "Fans! What a bunch of cruddy front-runners! They're the worst fans in the league!"

The next day he apologized for his remarks and it was all forgotten after the Dodgers went on to win their one and only world championship in Brooklyn with Snider finishing with a .320 average, four homers and seven RBI against the Yankees in the World Series. And despite his occasional tempests with the Ebbets Field fans, Snider's love affair for the place itself was forever.

Born Edwin Donald Snider in Los Angeles, September 19, 1926, Snider credited his dad for two things that shaped his life - nicknaming him Duke and teaching him to bat lefthanded, even though he was a natural righty. When the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles after the 1957 season, no one missed Ebbets Field and its cozy 297-350-foot dimensions from right to right-center field more than Snider. "When they tore down Ebbets Field, they tore down part of me," he said.

Between a bum knee and adjusting to the cavernous LA Coliseum, Snider's production dropped precipitously in Los Angeles and in 1963 the Dodgers sold him to the fledgling Mets, who were hoping he'd be a gate attraction back in New York. He hit just .243 with 14 homers for the Mets in '63, the finished out his career with, of all teams, the Giants, in San Francisco in 1964.

After his career, Snider operated an avocado and lemon farm in Fallbrook, Ca. and also managed for a few seasons in the minor leagues. In December of 1995, he found himself caught up in the burgeoning memorabilia scandals when he pleaded guilty to evading from the IRS $110,000 income from card show signings. "The fat lady has sung and I take full responsibility for my actions," he said in being sentenced to two years probation and a $5,000 fine.

Upon his election to the Hall of Fame in January of 1980, Snider sought to once and for all settle the "Willie, Mickey and the Duke" debate.

"We're all in the Hall of Fame now," he said.

Snider is survived by his wife, Bev, his high school sweetheart whom he wed in October 1947.

[Marvo301]

I'm not old enough to remember Duke Snider the player. I do however remember Duke Snider as a color commentator along side play by play man Dave Van Horn on Montreal Expo's telecasts on CBC television in the 1970's. He was colorful and entertaining and made watching Expo's games fun. Duke Snider

[James]

Sorry to see you go, Duke!

I remember the name from my baseball card collecting days. I might have had a few cards of him!

[Yooch]

I just now noticed your thread, Zoneboy. Thanks. I had started another Duke Snider thread. A really great player, wasn't he? You have a great article/link about him by the way.

Marvo, your post also confirm what I read about him as a commentator, that he was very good, and the fans liked him.

[catlover79]

[biffbronson]

"We're talkin' Willie [Mays, NY Giants],
Mickey [Mantle, NY Yankees] and
The Duke [Snider, Bkyn Dodgers]"

Another great from the past has left us.