Duke Snider, the Hall of Fame center fielder for the charmed “Boys of Summer” who helped the Dodgers bring their elusive and only World Series crown to Brooklyn, died early on Sunday of what his family called natural causes. He was 84.
Snider died at the Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital in Escondido, California, according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which announced the death on behalf of the family.
“The Duke of Flatbush” hit .295 with 407 career home runs, played in the World Series six times and won two titles. But the eight-time All-Star was defined by much more than his stats — he was, after all, part of the love affair between the borough of Brooklyn and “Dem Bums” who lived in the local neighborhoods.
Snider wore No. 4 in Dodger blue, and was often regarded as the third-best center fielder in New York — behind Willie Mays of the Giants and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees — during what many fans considered the city’s golden era of baseball.
“The newspapers compared Willie, Mickey and I, and that was their thing,” Snider said several years ago. “As a team, we competed with the Giants, and we faced the Yankees in the World Series. So we had a rivalry as a team, that was it. It was an honor to be compared to them, they were both great players.”
Mantle died in 1995 at age 63. Mays, now 79, threw out a ceremonial ball last fall before a playoff game in San Francisco.
Snider hit at least 40 home runs in five straight seasons and led the National League in total bases three times. He never won an MVP award, although a voting error may have cost him the prize in 1955. He lost to Campanella by a very narrow margin — it later turned out an ill voter left Snider off the ballot, supposedly by mistake.
Snider hit .309 with 42 home runs and a career-high 136 RBIs in 1955. That October, he hit four homers, drove in seven runs and hit .320 as the Dodgers beat the Yankees in a seven-game World Series.
For a team that kept preaching “Wait till next year” after Series losses to the Yankees in 1953, 1952, 1949, 1947 and 1941, it had indeed become next year.
Born Edwin Donald Snider, he got his nickname at an early age.
Noticing his son return home from a game with somewhat of a strut, Snider’s dad said: “Here comes the Duke.”
The name stuck. So did Snider, once he played his first game in the majors in 1947, two days after Jackie Robinson’s historic debut.
A durable slugger with a strong arm, good instincts on the bases and a regal style, Snider hit the last home run at Ebbets Field in 1957.
Snider’s swing gave the Dodgers a lefty presence on a team of mostly righties. He often launched shots over the short right-field wall at the Brooklyn bandbox, rewarding a waiting throng that gathered on Bedford Avenue.
Snider stayed with the Dodgers when they moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and won another World Series ring the next year. Prematurely gray, “The Silver Fox” returned to New York with the bumbling Mets in 1963 and finished his career in 1964 with the San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers’ longtime rivals.
Snider was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980 on his 11th try.
In 1995, Snider pleaded guilty to federal tax charges and was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined US$5,000. He admitted not reporting more than US$97,000 in cash from autograph signings, card shows and memorabilia sales.
He is survived by his wife, Beverly, whom he married in 1947.
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