Growing up in Brooklyn During the Twilight of the BROOKLYN DODGERS

This Blogger grew up in Brooklyn,during the  twilight years of the Brooklyn Dodgers; with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the series, he has received tons of emails from the old  Brooklyn gang, waxing Proustian on the Golden Years.

Readers, one must remember Nostalgia in America was invented by boys who grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers; there was no nostalgia before us…who wanted to remember the Great Depression? or World War II?

Brooklyn had its own newspaper, THE BROOKLYN EAGLE, and its own professional baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

This Blogger is writing this lineup without notes, from pure memory. He can still remember the lineup of te Brooklyn Dodgers during their twilight years.

1B-Gil  Hodges silent, powerful, Indiana boy who came to Brooklyn, married a sweet Italian girl and could be seen shopping at the local A&P….but just wave, don’t bother him.

2B-Junior Gilliam- good enough to have replaced Jackie Robinson at second base.

SS-Pee Wee Reese- the boy from Kentucky, who, in the face of unbelievable hatred sprewed at Jackie Robinson for being the first black Major League profeesional baseball player, walked over, on the field of play, and put his arm around Jackie, triggering his own death threats for that gesture.

3B-Jackie Robinson- the most feared and fearsome player in baseball, in every game you could see himself burning himself out. On Sundays, you could see he and his wife sunning themselves on Eastern Parkway.

LF- Sandy Amoros, the Cuban who made the greatest catch in Brooklyn Dodger history, and then the greatest throw to double off a hated Yankee.

CF- Duke Snider- he was memorable, he was included in the lyrics of a top ten musical ballad-TALKING BASEBALL….”Willie,  Mick and the Duke.”

RF- Carl Furillo, my favorite player, the Italain Rifle, THE EMPEROR OF RIGHT FIELD.
C-Roy Campenella- the greatest catcher ever

Professional baseball players did not make outrageous salaries in those days; many had second jobs during the off season, Furillo worked in the coal fields of his native Pennsylvania.

The pitchers were Hall of Famer Don Newcome( still alive) and Indiana farm boy Carl Erskine(still alive) Johnny Podres, and Sal Maglie, known as the Barber because he threw pitches so close to the batter’s chins.

There were the greatest team ever worth watching, and they failed constantly to beat the wicked New York Yankees.

But their arch enemies were the New York Giants; so hated that when Jackie Robinson was traded to them he retired,rather than come back to Brooklyn in that HATED UIFORM.

Leo Durocher started his career with the Yankees, then went to the Dodgers as a player-manager(abdicating his shortstop position to Pee Wee Reese).

Durocher had Mafia connections; he shared a home in Los Angeles with actor/Mafia associate George Raft. He and Bugsy Seigel were “friendly”. Raft and Durocher were card sharks, and ran a floating card game that bilked professional baseball players out of their money.

Durocher was suspended; he came back from suspension as Manager, New York Giants.

During his suspension he had seduced a married Mormon beauty, an actress named Laraine Day. She was dazzling. They married illegally in Mexico, and then got married legally in the United States. Before every televised Giants game, Ms. Day would, dressed to the nines, host a show about baseball. It was hilarious.

This Blogger’s father was a Union Organizer; he would get seats from the Union to Ebbets Field( the stadium of the Dodgers). They were on the third base side, so the view of Carl Furillo was direct. This Blogger’s father would take me, and Johnny Martel( his nom de guerre). Johnny was a shrimp of a kid, with a Jimmy Cagney aura. He wound up a button man(hired killer) for the Mafia, and died of cancer in Attica prison. He was a good friend.

This Blogger once asked Johnny why everyone was a afraid of him; his reply was succient: “Gerry, if they fight me they know they would have to kill me, for if I am left living, three weeks later I will come up behind them on Flatbush Aveneue with a baseball bat and finish them. I fight to the death, that is why they are afraid.”

Ebbets Field was contoured so that the right field had a giant scoreboard( see pic below), a fairly short distance from home plate, a Brooklyn version of Fenway Park’s GREEN MONSTER.

At the base of the scoreboard was advertising for ABE STARK, a clothier. Mr. Stark promised that he would give any enemy baseball player, who could get a ball to hit his sign, a free suit, a free expensive suit.

Carl Furillo NEVER allowed an enemy do that.

Furillo was called the Emperor because he knew all the carom angles off the wall; this Blogger once saw a St. Louis Cardinal hit a line drive off the wall; Furillo did not chase it. Instead he ran to the  center of right field and played the carom. He then calmly turned around and threw out the runner at first base.He had the greatest throwing arm from right this Blogger has ever seen, which is why he was called the Italian Rifle, or the Redding Rifle(outside of Brooklyn).

And Furillo could fight.

“Durocher was a dirty manager. He was a dirty player… I hated his guts.” –Carl Furillo.”

On September 6, 1953, the Dodgers were playing the Giants. The Giants’ pitcher hit Carl Furillo; Furillo though it was intentional.

"In this game, Preacher Roe was on the mound for the World Series-bound Dodgers, seeking his 10th straight win. They were looking for a sweep of the three-game series and their 10th straight win over the Giants. So there was already tension in the air. At the time, Furillo was the National League’s leading hitter with a .344 average. In the second inning, Giant pitcher Ruben Gomez hit Furillo on the wrist. Furillo had to be restrained by umpire Dusty Boggess from charging Gomez on the mound as the benches cleared. After order was restored, the hot-headed Furillo carried his resentment with him as he took first base. Needless to say, he blamed it all on his nemesis, Durocher.

The still-fuming Furillo started taunting Durocher from first base, yelling and pointing at Leo as he sat in the Giants’ dugout. Never one to back down from a challenge, and egged on by coach Herman Franks (“He’s pointing at you Leo! Are you going to just sit there?”), Durocher took the bait and hollered back.

Suddenly Carl sprinted toward the dugout, making a beeline right for Durocher. Leo leaped out of his seat and the two met head on. All the players jumped in as the benches and bullpens cleared for a second time. Punches were thrown, but apparently none landed. Monte Irvin of the Giants and Gil Hodges of the Dodgers acted as peacemakers and attempted to separate the two brawlers.

“Other accounts have Furillo clamping Durocher in a headlock as they grappled on the ground while others tried to separate them. One observer who did not try to break up the fight, according to Duke Snider, was umpire Babe Pinelli, who reportedly yelled, ‘Kill him, Carl, kill him!’ Fifty-three years later Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine confirmed Snider’s assertion: ‘Furillo had Leo on the ground and was choking him. I was on the perimeter as was Babe Pinelli. He was exclaiming ‘Kill that SOB, kill him.’ He then saw that I had heard him, so he went on, ‘I mean it. That no good low life. I mean it.’ “

For those of us who grew up in the Brooklyn of the departing Brooklyn Dodgers,the place was a comboination of Camelot and Avalon, with Xanadu thrown in, especially during the summer.

At 8AM, you were served breakfast by your mother, and then you were out of the house, until the sun went down.

You would meet on the coner and see which one of your buddies had stolen a broom from their house. There was always one. Then you would go to the candy store, and the Ole Man would let you saw off the broom part, leaving a stick- for stick ball.

You would buy a 25 cent Spalding rubber ball, or send the smallest kid to put his hand down the city drain to find  lost one.

Then it was stickball all day, on the  streets, between the parked cars. One kid would stay in the edge of the game and stop the approaching cars; and every car, driven by all those guys who had landed at Anzio, or Okinawa, or Inchon would stop and wait patiently for a ten year punk kid to wave them through.

It was a very militaristic society, every male had served in World War II or Korea; the TV repairman had  won a Bronze Star in the South of France.

There were banks, but who needed them when the local pharamist carried over $5,000 in cash in his pocket for instant loans.

The pharamsicits was never robbed; there was no street crime in Brooklyn Dodger Brooklyn. Women could ride the subways and walk the streets all night without fear. The Mafia would not allow street crime because the victims might be one of their relatives.

The Mafia monopolized crime in Brooklyn.

Everyone knew a Mafioso; my brother, who was a pin monkey, at the “official” bowling alley of the Brooklyn Dodgers, FREDDIE FITZSIMMONS LANES, counted among his friends Crazy Joe Gallo.

This Blogger’s sainted father hated the Mafia, yet our first television, a Dumont, fell of the truck( which means, in Brooklyn nese,it was from hijacked cargo).

There was no bullying in the schools of Brooklyn, for the kids who should have been bullied were connected. The fat MARTIN PRINCE was a cousin to DON VITO.

The Mafia made Brooklyn the safest city in the world for street crime.

However, in February 1952, the Mafia made a major mistake, which eventially fragmented and ruined them.

Willie Sutton was a non Mafia Irishman, who robbed banks. He robbed banks because, in his memorable phase: “That is where the money is.”

Sutton was a lone wolf.

He was wanted by the FBI; one day he took a subway trip; an amateur sleuth, 24 year old Arnold Shuster,recognized him from across the train amd followed him.

Shuster was a clothing salesman who took time to look at the FBI wanted posters posted in the post office.

Shuster turned Sutton into the police and became a celebrity. He went on television and gave interviews.

The Gambino Crime Family was one of the Mafia Five Families which ran New York Crime. They gave the world Murder Inc. for their adept ability to murder people.

It was headed by Albert Anastasia ( before he was murdered getting a shave, his face covered by a hot towel). Anastasia saw Shuster on television, and thought he was an existential threat to the Brooklyn Mafia because he had ratted on a criminal.

Anastasia ordered Shuster’s murder; Shuster was shot and killed outside his home.

The father of the Blogger thought that one act was the tipping point and led to the eventual breaking of the Mafia’s grip on Brooklyn.

Proust was lucky he never had to remember dealing with the Mafia.

Carl Furillo, the Emperor of Right Field, the Italian Rifle,guarding the ABE STARK sign.