Duke Snider - Few and Chosen Dodgers: Defining Dodgers Greatness Across the Eras

Copyright 2006 by Duke Snider and Phil Pepe

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Triumph Books, 542 S. Dearborn St., Suite 750, Chicago, Illinois 60605.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Snider, Duke, 1926

Few and chosen : defining Dodgers greatness across the eras / Duke Snider with Phil Pepe.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-57243-805-7

ISBN-10: 1-57243-805-3

1. Los Angeles Dodgers (Baseball team)History. 2. Brooklyn Dodgers (Baseball team)History. 3. Baseball playersRating of. I. Pepe, Phil. II. Title.

GV875.L6S65 2006

796.357640979494dc22

2005052922

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Triumph Books

542 South Dearborn Street

Suite 750

Chicago, Illinois 60605

(312) 939-3330

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Printed in U.S.A.

ISBN-13: 978-1-57243-805-7

ISBN-10: 1-57243-805-3

Design by Nick Panos; page production by Patricia Frey

All photos courtesy of AP/Wide World Photos unless indicated otherwise.

I looked high and low at my pal Duke Sniders choices for the top five Dodgers of all time at each position, and I couldnt find my name anywhere. You know why I couldnt find my name? Because its not there. And it shouldnt be. How could you put a lifetime .235 hitter like me on a team with guys like Arky Vaughan, Billy Herman, Pee Wee Reese, Maury Wills, Jim Gilliam, Ron Cey, and Jackie Robinson?

Dont get me wrong. Im not complaining. What have I got to complain about? I consider myself a very lucky guy. For more than 50 consecutive years I have collected a paycheck for doing the only thing I know: playing, managing, and coaching the game I love, the greatest game ever inventedbaseball.

Who has had it better than I have? I have had a wonderful baseball life. I played alongside great players: Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, and Duke Snider in Brooklyn; Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale in Los Angeles; Ernie Banks and Billy Williams in Chicago; Richie Ashburn in New York; and Frank Robinson in Cincinnati. I played for legendary managers: Walter Alston with the Dodgers, Casey Stengel with the Mets, Fred Hutchinson with the Reds, and Gil Hodges with the Senators.

I managed Hall of Famers Carl Yastrzemski and Carlton Fisk in Boston, Fergie Jenkins in Texas, and Ryne Sandberg in Chicago. And I sat alongside Joe Torre as bench coach of the Yankees when we won four World Series in six years.

And I was a member of the team that won Brooklyns only World Series in 1955.

I have been with a lot of different teams during my 50-plus years in baseball, but my roots are with the Dodgers in Brooklyn. I suppose I will always think of myself as a Dodger.

I came up through the Dodgers organization, joined them in Brooklyn in 1954, and stayed with them through 1959 in Los Angeles. When I got to Brooklyn, I was just a kid filled with hope and overflowing with confidence. I thought I was a pretty good ballplayer. I was going to be the guy who would bump Reese off shortstop. A lot of guys had trieda couple dozen, actuallybut I thought I was going to be the one to succeed. But Pee Wee buried me like he buried all of the rest.

I was frustrated in Brooklyn because I wanted to play, but the truth is I wasnt good enough to play in that lineup. Who was I going to replace? Pee Wee at shortstop? Jackie Robinson at second base? Billy Cox at third?

I sometimes thought that if there had not been a Pee Wee Reese, I might have been the shortstop on that club. But there was a Pee Wee, and he buried all the shortstops that came along. I felt I could play on many clubs, and I asked to be traded. But when I finally did get traded to the Cubs in 1960, it hurt.

I loved being a Dodger. I enjoyed playing on such great teams with such great guys. We were a close-knit group. There were about five or six of us who loved to go to the horse track, and wed often go in a group: me, Duke, Pee Wee, Gil Hodges, and Jackie Robinson. Probably the best thing about my Dodgers days was the friendships I made, some of which are still going more than 50 years later.

I first met Duke Snider in Vero Beach, Florida, at spring training in 1953. We became friends right away, and were still close friends today. Duke was a special player. He was great. He wasnt just a home-run hitter. He could throw and he could field. He had great hands. I never saw Duke drop a fly ball. Not once. And he could run. He was a lot like Stan Musial. He would hit a ground ball to deep short and beat it out. Ive seen him beat out bunts for base hits with his speed.

At the time New York had three great center fielders: Mickey Mantle with the Yankees, Willie Mays with the Giants, and Duke. I have always believed that Snider never got the credit he deserved for his defense because he wasnt playing in the right ballpark. Mantle had Yankee Stadium and Mays had the Polo Grounds, both stadiums with cavernous center fields so the ballplayers could run all day and make spectacular running catches. Duke had the ability to do that, but Ebbets Field had such a small center field that hed go four steps and be at the wall. If you had put Snider in Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds, he would have made those spectacular running catches, and he would have earned a reputation for his defense just like Mantle, Mays, and Joe DiMaggio did.

Duke didnt pick me for his all-time Dodgers team, but I can tell you this: if I were to pick my all-time Dodgers team, Duke Snider would certainly be on it.

More important, if I were to list my closest friends, Duke would be on that list tooat the top!

Don Zimmer

I can barely remember a time when baseball was not a part of my life, and where and when I spent my youththe borough of Brooklyn in the fortiesbaseball meant the Dodgers. The Brooklyn Dodgers! That was before Walter OMalley ripped out a huge chunk of my heart by moving the team almost a continent away to Los Angeles.

I was six years old when I first became aware of the wonderful game called baseball that would grip me for a lifetime, and of the Dodgers, who were inescapable in that time and place. All around me were Dodgers fansaunts and uncles, cousins and friendsand I simply fell in with the crowd. In later years it would be called bonding.

My first baseball memory is listening to my elders curse the fate of their beloved, snakebitten Dodgers after the fourth game of the 1941 World Series against the Yankees. Something about a catcher named Mickey Owen dropping a third strike that enabled a Yankee named Tommy Henrich to reach first base safely and pave the way for those damn Yankees to stage a game-winning, back-breaking, ninth-inning rally.

My aunts and uncles and cousins and friends were devastated by the days events, not to mention frustrated and angry; so I was devastated, frustrated, and angry too, although I really didnt understand what all the fuss was about.