He is also remembered for being one of the troika of great centerfielders in New York during the so-called Golden Age of Baseball (1947-57) - at least it is "golden" according to the New York-centric baseball establishment - when the argument was "Willie, Mickey, or The Duke."
Ironically, while Snider was identified with Brooklyn and referred to as The Duke of Flatbush, he was born in Los Angeles, and was probably quite happy when the Dodgers left Brooklyn for the West Coast. (I don't know that for certain, but it might be worth revisiting Roger Kahn's "Boys of Summer" to find out.)
RIP Edwin "Duke" Snider
SABR member David Kaiser passed along this interesting observation on the SABR Listserv today:
ReplyDeleteThe death of Duke Snider, just reported, means, if I am not mistaken,
that all the long-term position players of the great Brooklyn Dodger teams
of the 1950s are dead: Campanella, Hodges, Robinson, Reese, Cox, Snider,
Gilliam, Furillo, and Amoros come to mind. Their mortality has been usually
high and I think that Snider, at 84, had lived the longest. Several of the
pitchers, I believe, are still very much alive. Their rivals the Giants and
the Yankees have fared better.
David Kaiser