Krause: Willie, Mickey and the Duke

I never saw Duke Snider play, either on TV or in person. By the time I was old enough to really care about baseball, Snider was winding down a Hall-of-Fame career with the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants.I wasn’t well enough schooled in baseball history to note the irony of Duke Snider playing for the Giants (which would have been like seeing Carl Yastrzemski on the Yankees). And it wasn’t until I read “The Boys of Summer” that I realized that this person who I’d only known because of his baseball card was one of the game’s greatest stars during the 1950s with the Brooklyn Dodgers.There’s a song by Terry Cashman called “Talkin’ Baseball,” that evokes memories of the sport as it was in the 1950s – a time many feel was the game’s last real golden era.Its refrain is simple. It names some of the game’s larger-than-life luminaries: Ted Kluszewski, Roy Campanella, Stan “The Man” Musial, Bob Feller, Phil “The Scooter” Rizzuto, Sal “The Barber” Maglie and Don “the Newc” Newcombe.The last line, though, is a paean to the three centerfielders who ruled New York in the 50s: Willie, Mickey and The Duke.They were royalty – not only in New York but throughout the nation.Mickey Mantle had the great baseball name. It just rolled off your tongue.Willie Mays, who is one of the few idols mentioned in Cashman’s song still alive, was almost other-worldly.Then there was The Duke. If you’re a Red Sox fan, you had to appreciate The Duke.Snider, too, was the proverbial five-tool player. But he played for the Dodgers, who were boxed around like patsies by the Yankees in the 50s the same way the Red Sox were a half century later.Their histories are very similar. For years, the Dodgers met up with the Yankees in the World Series, but it wasn’t until 1955 that they finally won one – spotting the Yanks a 2-0 lead before roaring back to win it in seven.It would be the only championship the borough of Brooklyn would see. By the time the Dodgers won again, they were in Los Angeles.Snider, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Newcombe and Campanella, were among those who embodied that era ? perennial underdogs who jousted annually with the Yankees – as in “rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel.”If the Yankees represented baseball aristocracy, the Dodgers of the 1950s personified the sport’s humanity. It’s no accident that, 20 years after the fact, it was the Dodgers, and not the Yankees, who were deemed the “Boys of Summer.”Players like The Duke raged against the cold, corporate machine in pinstripes and – most of the time – came in second. They were us.The Yankees represented all the people who delighted in keeping us firmly in our places.The Duke died Sunday. Now, the only players left from that wonderful song’s refrain are Musial, Newcombe and Wonderful Willie Mays.It is an era that, in a very real sense, is turning into a relic.And that’s too bad. Nobody’s writing songs about Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols. There’s a reason for that. And someday, they might figure out what it is.Steve Krause is sports editor of The Item.