Whenever he returns to Brooklyn on his trips east, my old friend, fraternity brother (and unreconstructed Brooklyn Dodger fan), Don Burris, loves to point out the vacant lot in Flatbush on 17th Street (between Tennis Court and Albermarle Road) which was once home to Edwin Snider, illustrious Brooklyn Dodger center-fielder and "Silver Fox," best known as "Da Duke of Flatbush." In a (slightly "on its heels") neighborhood of apartment houses, the lot was once the only private home on the block.
The Duke died on February 27, 2011 at the age of 84, leaving only Willie Mays as the surviving member of the greatest municipal triumverate of center-fielders the baseball world will ever know. (I could have said "has" with certainty, but say "will"with some confidence, given the unlikelihood of any city ever again housing three major league baseball teams.) But New York was, for much of my youth, such a town, and Giant, Yankee and Dodger fans would (and often did) fight to defend their choice of Willie, Mickey, or the Duke as the premier center-fielder in baseball. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I pretend to no objectivity on the point, but admit that statistics can be arranged to support any of the three as the best.
"What?" I can almost hear you say in shock. After all, in its listing of the 100 best players of the 20th century, "baseball bible," The Sporting News, listed Willie Mays as #2, with Mantle trailing at #17, and Duke Snider, a respectable, but distant #83. "How," you ask, can the Duke, though good even be spoken in the same breath as his fellow hall-of famers? Batting skills apart, the Duke, like Mantle and Mays, was an excellent fielder. Though much is made of of Mantle's speed, and Mays's arm, it is easy to forget the skill with which Snider patrolled centerfield; his arm a rocket, overshadowed only by the thunderbolt of his right-fielder, Carl "Skoonj" Furillo.
It was not for nothing that Snider earned the sobriquet, "Duke." Prematurely grey in his 20's, Snider cut a handsome and dapper figure, both in and out of uniform. He broke in with the Dodgers in 1947, and was an early champion of Jackie Robinson, and one of the first players to scotch a petition circulated by Fred "Dixie" Walker urging players to refuse to play with Jackie. The Duke was a great clutch hitter, twice tying the then World Series record of four homers in a single series. (While Reggie Jackson and Chase Utley have since broken that record with five, no one has ever hit as many as four twice.)
So yes, statistics will argue that--despite the fact that Snider's lifetime batting average of .295, trails Mantle's .298 by only three points, and Mays's .302 by seven--Willie and Mickey stand head and shoulders over their Brooklyn counterpart. But consider this: in the critical "Wins above Replacement," category (which measures the value of replacing a player with a nondescript minor-leaguer) from 1953-1957, Snider's 8.55 beats Mantle's 7.3, and trails Mays's 8.62 (time adjusted for his having missed the '53 season due to military service) by a mere .07. Consider further this question about the the 1950's. Who would you say (not only among the three, but across a baseball landscape including such stalwarts as Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Ted Kluszewski, Yogi Berra, and Eddie Mathews) led the majors from 1950-59 in (a) home runs and (b) runs batted in? The answer for both (a) and (b) is Duke Snider. Who'da thunk it? A bunch of aging Brooklyn Dodger fans (like my wife, Riki--although she's ageless), that's who!
Sportswriting (and sportswriters) have changed. The peccadilloes of our heroes have long been the stuff of sports headlines. Mickey Mantle, by his own admission, was an habitual alcoholic and womanizer, and the Duke was found guilty of tax-fraud for not disclosing income from baseball-card shows. Even Willie Mays was banned from baseball for a short period due to his connections with a gambling casino.
When Snider was traded by the (by then Los Angeles) Dodgers, it is said that Don Drysdale wept. So did the ("'buked and scorned") Flatbush faithful. Let's face it, (apart from moving to L.A. along with the turncoat Giants), the Dodgers had already set a precedent of sorts, when they prompted Jackie Robinson's retirement by trading him to the (gasp!) Giants. While baseball loves to wallow in nostalgia, it is clearly revisionist, as the sport is (and has always been) a strictly bottom-line venture. But enough about baseball as the business that it is. I choose to look at it with the rose-colored glasses through which my youth always seems, well, rosier.
About fifteen feet from the computer on which I'm typing this blog, there is a section of wall that is my shrine of baseball memorabilia. By far its most treasured photograph is one taken from an old-timers day at Shea Stadium. It is an autographed picture of the four best center-fielders to ever play for New York Teams. It is Willie, Mickey and the Duke (and, oh yeah, a guy named DiMaggio). Of the four, of course, only Willie survives (and long may he live!). The others live on in the memories (however distant) of our sun-dappled youth, when we sat in the bleachers and screamed our lungs out for the best center-fielder in New York--whoever that might have been. For many--and not without reason--it was the Duke of Flatbush.
The Duke died on February 27, 2011 at the age of 84, leaving only Willie Mays as the surviving member of the greatest municipal triumverate of center-fielders the baseball world will ever know. (I could have said "has" with certainty, but say "will"with some confidence, given the unlikelihood of any city ever again housing three major league baseball teams.) But New York was, for much of my youth, such a town, and Giant, Yankee and Dodger fans would (and often did) fight to defend their choice of Willie, Mickey, or the Duke as the premier center-fielder in baseball. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I pretend to no objectivity on the point, but admit that statistics can be arranged to support any of the three as the best.
"What?" I can almost hear you say in shock. After all, in its listing of the 100 best players of the 20th century, "baseball bible," The Sporting News, listed Willie Mays as #2, with Mantle trailing at #17, and Duke Snider, a respectable, but distant #83. "How," you ask, can the Duke, though good even be spoken in the same breath as his fellow hall-of famers? Batting skills apart, the Duke, like Mantle and Mays, was an excellent fielder. Though much is made of of Mantle's speed, and Mays's arm, it is easy to forget the skill with which Snider patrolled centerfield; his arm a rocket, overshadowed only by the thunderbolt of his right-fielder, Carl "Skoonj" Furillo.
It was not for nothing that Snider earned the sobriquet, "Duke." Prematurely grey in his 20's, Snider cut a handsome and dapper figure, both in and out of uniform. He broke in with the Dodgers in 1947, and was an early champion of Jackie Robinson, and one of the first players to scotch a petition circulated by Fred "Dixie" Walker urging players to refuse to play with Jackie. The Duke was a great clutch hitter, twice tying the then World Series record of four homers in a single series. (While Reggie Jackson and Chase Utley have since broken that record with five, no one has ever hit as many as four twice.)
So yes, statistics will argue that--despite the fact that Snider's lifetime batting average of .295, trails Mantle's .298 by only three points, and Mays's .302 by seven--Willie and Mickey stand head and shoulders over their Brooklyn counterpart. But consider this: in the critical "Wins above Replacement," category (which measures the value of replacing a player with a nondescript minor-leaguer) from 1953-1957, Snider's 8.55 beats Mantle's 7.3, and trails Mays's 8.62 (time adjusted for his having missed the '53 season due to military service) by a mere .07. Consider further this question about the the 1950's. Who would you say (not only among the three, but across a baseball landscape including such stalwarts as Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Ted Kluszewski, Yogi Berra, and Eddie Mathews) led the majors from 1950-59 in (a) home runs and (b) runs batted in? The answer for both (a) and (b) is Duke Snider. Who'da thunk it? A bunch of aging Brooklyn Dodger fans (like my wife, Riki--although she's ageless), that's who!
Sportswriting (and sportswriters) have changed. The peccadilloes of our heroes have long been the stuff of sports headlines. Mickey Mantle, by his own admission, was an habitual alcoholic and womanizer, and the Duke was found guilty of tax-fraud for not disclosing income from baseball-card shows. Even Willie Mays was banned from baseball for a short period due to his connections with a gambling casino.
When Snider was traded by the (by then Los Angeles) Dodgers, it is said that Don Drysdale wept. So did the ("'buked and scorned") Flatbush faithful. Let's face it, (apart from moving to L.A. along with the turncoat Giants), the Dodgers had already set a precedent of sorts, when they prompted Jackie Robinson's retirement by trading him to the (gasp!) Giants. While baseball loves to wallow in nostalgia, it is clearly revisionist, as the sport is (and has always been) a strictly bottom-line venture. But enough about baseball as the business that it is. I choose to look at it with the rose-colored glasses through which my youth always seems, well, rosier.
About fifteen feet from the computer on which I'm typing this blog, there is a section of wall that is my shrine of baseball memorabilia. By far its most treasured photograph is one taken from an old-timers day at Shea Stadium. It is an autographed picture of the four best center-fielders to ever play for New York Teams. It is Willie, Mickey and the Duke (and, oh yeah, a guy named DiMaggio). Of the four, of course, only Willie survives (and long may he live!). The others live on in the memories (however distant) of our sun-dappled youth, when we sat in the bleachers and screamed our lungs out for the best center-fielder in New York--whoever that might have been. For many--and not without reason--it was the Duke of Flatbush.
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