Revisiting "The Boys of Summer"

The death of Duke Snider prompted me to pull from the shelf my copy of Roger Kahn's classic book, "The Boys of Summer." For those not familiar with the book, Kahn was a New York sportswriter who covered the Brooklyn Dodgers of the early 1950's, who he christened, The Boys of Summer. In the book, Kahn writes of growing up in Brooklyn, coming to cover the team he followed as a boy, and then he revisits them in their "middle and old age" to see how time has treated these men.

The story takes away some of the romance that we often associate with the heroes of our boyhood. They didn't play merely for "the love of the game", as we might tend to think. They played for the money, and if it may not have been purely business for the players, it surely was for the owners. It has always been thus. The players of today who strive for free agency and then shop themselves to the highest bidder, are fortunate to have been born when they were. Robinson, Reese, Campy, and Hodges (and from a local viewpoint Maz, Clemente, Groat, and Virdon) would surely have followed the same paths as the A-Rods, Sabbathias, and Cliff Lees of the 21st century had those means been available to them. And you don't have to read too many stories of the treacheries of the likes of Branch Rickey, George Weiss, and Walter O'Malley to be sympathetic to the plight of the players.

Having said that, it was interesting to read that when Snider spent his off-season in California, he would work at a clothing store selling sport coats during the Christmas season to make ends meet.

And on a mildly depressing note, when Kahn was traveling the country visiting the ex-Dodgers to write this book, these "old" Dodgers were younger than I am now. Jackie Robinson was 52, and Snider was in his 40's!

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Pictured above, from L to R, Reese, Furillo, Robinson, Erskine, Hodges, Newcombe, Snider, and Campanella.