Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 15 of the 2009 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 1 week of April.
April 1
1963 Duke Snider returns to New York as the Mets purchase him from the Dodgers.
Edwin Donald Snider, nicknamed “Duke”, was born September 19, 1926 in Los Angeles, California.
A graceful center fielder with a picture-perfect swing, Duke Snider was the biggest bat in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ potent lineup of the 1950s. He hit 40 or more homers five consecutive times and led all batters in home runs and Runs Batted In during the ’50s.
Along with Willie Mays of the Giants and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, the Dodgers’ Snider was one of a trio of Hall of Fame centerfielders about whom fans debated one of the most frequently asked baseball questions of the 1950s: “Who’s the best centerfielder in New York?”
Growing up in Southern California, Duke was a gifted all around athlete and strong armed quarterback in high school who could reportedly throw the football 60 yards on the fly. Spotted by one of Branch Rickey’s scouts in the early 1940s, he was signed to a baseball contract out of high school.
He played for the Montreal Royals and Newport News in 1944 seasons. He served in the military in 1945 and then came back to play for Fort Worth in 1946 and St. Paul in 1947. He started the 1948 season with Montreal and after tearing up the league with a .327 batting average, he was called up to Brooklyn for good during the middle of the season.
Snider debuted in Brooklyn with Jackie Robinson in 1947, but it wasn’t until 1949, after Branch Rickey hired George Sisler to help Snider “establish an acquaintance with the strike zone,” that Snider showed the form that would make him the leading home run hitter of the 1950s, with 326.
In 1949 he hit 23 home runs to go along with 92 runs batted in, helping the Dodgers break into the World Series. Snider also saw his average rise from .244 to a respectable .292 and then .321 in 1950. But when it slipped to .277 in 1951 and the Dodgers squandered a 13-game lead to lose the NL pennant to the New York Giants, Snider received heavy media criticism and requested a trade.
Snider was quoted in the September 1955 issue of SPORT magazine, “I went to Walter O’Malley and told him I couldn’t take the pressure. I told him I’d just as soon be traded. I told him I figured I could do the Dodgers no good.”
From 1954 through 1957, the four years that Mays, Mantle, and Snider starred simultaneously in New York in full-time capacities, it was Snider who led the three in homers and Runs Batted In. His power stroke was well suited to the bandbox structure of Ebbets Field, and the drives he hit that didn’t leave the ballpark regularly pounded the stadium’s high right-field wall for extra bases.
He hit 40 or more home runs in the five consecutive seasons from 1953 through 1957. He averaged 42 home runs, 124 Runs Batted In, 123 runs and a .320 batting average between 1953 and 1956.
He was also speedy and graceful as an outfielder. Stan Musial named Snider, Carl Furillo, and Andy Pafko “the best-throwing outfield I ever saw.” He also named Snider, Mays, and Aaron his all-time National League outfield.
Although Snider did not hit lefthanders well, he was protected from facing them often by the Dodgers’ lineup, which was heavily weighted with righthanded hitters Reese, Robinson, Hodges, Campanella, and Furillo. With those five Boys of Summer, Snider participated in five World Series from 1949 to 1956.
He made his sixth and final Series appearance in 1959, en route to posting National League World Series home run and Runs Batted In records of 11 and 26. He hit four homers in each of the 1952 and 1955 Series, and is the only man to accomplish that feat twice.
Snider was not the darling of the press during his career. Over 50 newspaper articles castigated him following the publication of a 1956 Collier’s article in which he told Roger Kahn that he wouldn ‘t be playing baseball if it weren’t for the money.
Nevertheless, he was a favorite of Brooklyn fans, who rued his departure and that of the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958. From 1958 through 1961, the Dodgers played their home games in the Los Angeles Coliseum, a football stadium converted to house the Dodgers. A vast right field compensated for a short left-field line and combined with injuries to end Snider’s days as a dominant home run hitter.
Snider hit only 15 home runs in 1958 as he entered the “decline” phase of his career. Injuries and age would eventually play a role in reducing Snider to part-time status by 1961.
In 1962, when the Dodgers led the National League for most of the season only to find themselves tied with the hated Giants at the season’s end. It was he and 3rd base coach Leo Durocher who reportedly pleaded with Manager Walter Alston to bring Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale into the 9th inning of the 3rd and deciding play-off game. Instead, Alston brought in Stan Williams in relief of a tiring Ed Roebuck. A 4-2 lead turned into a 6-4 loss as the Giants rallied to win the pennant.
The Mets acquired Snider for sentimental reasons in 1963, and he finished his career, ironically, with the Giants in 1964. After he retired, the Dodgers retired his uniform number 4, ending the use of the number by New York’s original teams; Lou Gehrig and Mel Ott had already had their uniforms retired by the Yankees and Giants.
Snider scouted for the Dodgers and Padres and managed in the minor leagues. He went on to become a popular and respected play-by-play announcer for the Montreal Expos from 1973 to 1986.
Duke Snider was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: A
Arizona Fall League
An instructional league based in Arizona during the autumn.
For those of you that want to stick around, here’s an
Extra Inning
I’m adding another This week in Baseball History to this BHP:
April 1
1995 Having the first 23 days of this season canceled and 252 games of the last season lost, the owners accept the players’ March 31 unconditional offer to return to work. The players’ decision to return to work is made after a U.S. District judge issues an injunction restoring terms and conditions of the expired agreement. Teams will play 144-game schedules.
And this Game Announcer started his own personal strike against the owners and players. For the first time in many years, I did not attend, watch on TV, or listen on radio, to a major league game. It was the first year that I bought season tickets to the Cal State Fullerton, Titans. I’ve had those season tickets ever since
The following season I ended my strike against Major League Baseball. 1996 was the first year that I bought season tickets for the Angels. I have had them every year since then. On April 6, 2009, I will be attending opening day for, at least, the last 25 years in a row; except for that 1995 season.
Now I want to catch up on some email. The first one is from Paul McElligott:
Bob,
I always hate to be the nit-picker.
That’s not true. I actually love it.
Canseco’s centerfield blast that dented the TV camera was the game 1
grand slam in the World Series, and not during the ALCS.
Paul
The second email I think comes from listener Matt:
Hi Bob,
I can’t be the first one to make this request……Can you cover Bill “Spaceman” Lee? All of us rabid Vermont Red Sox fans would be very grateful (Bill resides in the “Green Mountain State”). I love the show! Thanks
Over the three seasons of BHP I’ve received about 4 emails that are very special to me, emails that make the time spent on BHP worth it; this is one of those emails.
Dear Baseball History Podcast,
Let me begin by thanking you for the show. Currently, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Azerbaijan. Although I don’t have regular internet access, I make it a point to download your podcast whenever I go to the capital. For years now, I’ve been trying to find a reliable source to learn about the history of the Great Game. I truly enjoy all the information you deliver about such famous players as Willie Stargle, Nolan Ryan and Mordicai Brown. As a young baseball fan I often hear about the greats, but until now have known very little about them.
Living in a foreign country, I have come to realize how much I love the game of baseball. Listening to your program gives me a connection to the game that is otherwise unavailable. Often times, in Azerbaijan, travel is a head-ache: between the bumpy roads, inadaquate buses and long journies I find myself wishing I had a distraction. Now, I look forward to travel because I know I can listen to your podcast. On other occasions, the rigors of living here are frustrating, to say the least. On those days, I have the assurance that when I come home and put on your program the cares of the day melt away.
I have one suggestion to improve your show. Is it possible to include real audio from players (perhaps from interviews)? I began thinking about this suggestion after listening to your show about Lou Gehrig. I was moved to tears listening to you read his speech on that fateful day at Yankee Stadium. While it was an excellent rendition, I feel that if I had heard his actual voice I would have been transported to that moment. That being said, the show, in its current format, is excellent!
Thank you, again, for your admirable work. I will continue to listen as long as you continue to broadcast.
Best wishes and Go Minnesota Twins,
Matthew Peterson
PCV
If you would like to a part of Baseball History Podcast, submit your written contribution for the tour segment. I will only be doing the tour when one is sent in by a listener. You can do the segment on any stadium or team; past or present; Minor League, Major League, Negro League or any league outside of the US. Write about 1 page in a conversational tone, send it to me, I will record it, and you will get the credit.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com.
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Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
