Duke Snyder, 1926-2011

Something that's not really all that germane to COItc's pursuits is my undying love for a long-dead baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. So it's especially tragic as we lose the surviving members of that team, as their ranks are never to be replenished, and saying goodbye to each player means saying goodbye to the team all over again. This one's an especially painful one.

Although he made his home in California, Snider retained emotional ties to Brooklyn.

He made that clear on Sept. 12, 1963, when the Mets gave him a “night” at their home in the Polo Grounds, where the Brooklyn Dodgers had long been the hated foe. Snider’s former Brooklyn teammates were introduced — Robinson, Campanella, Erskine, Furillo, Don Newcombe and Ralph Branca. And then Snider moved to the microphone.

“I look up into the stands and it looks like Ebbets Field,” he said. “The Mets are wonderful, but you can’t take the Dodger out of Brooklyn.”

[NYTimes]