Gil Plus 50

[G-Fafif]

Anthony McCarron talks to Gil Hodges's daughter Irene as the 50th anniversary of her Hall of Fame dad's passing approaches. Still a revered figure in the Brooklyn neighborhood where the family lived (and her mom Joan still lives).

When Irene Hodges and her siblings were growing up in Brooklyn, her renowned father played first base for the Dodgers and later managed the Mets. Gil Hodges was first a powerful slugger and a deft first baseman for a beloved team and then a master strategist and motivator of the Miracle Mets. But to the folks in the Midwood section of the borough, Hodges was even more than that. A faithful man who said a Hail Mary before big-league games, he was a regular presence in the pews at Our Lady Help of Christians, his local parish, even before Sunday afternoon games at Ebbets Field. He was such a part of the fabric of the neighborhood that sometimes he'd sit out on a stoop and schmooze the folks fascinated that a baseball man of his stature lived around the block. “He'd walk to all the stores, walk to get pizza on Fridays,” Irene Hodges says. “My friends all knew him. He'd be Santa Claus on Christmas, go to my friends' houses. He was just our dad at the time. As I got a little older, you realize that he's more famous than you ever knew.” Years later, his church and his neighborhood still cherish one of their own. On the upcoming 50th anniversary of his death — Hodges died on April 2, 1972 — he will be remembered in a Memorial Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians, the same church that held his funeral. The Mass is set for next Saturday at noon and two of Hodges' great-grandchildren, Emma Savelli and Layla Ojeda, will do readings. The church will also dedicate its statue of St. Joseph to Hodges. “He is one of our heroes in the parish,” says Fr. Dwayne Davis, the parish administrator. “Our parishioners still remember him. Some of them were children when he died. Some of them can remember where they were the day of his funeral. “Even being a star, he never forgot his faith. He was a very faithful Catholic. It was important to him in raising his family. That's a connection that will live on for us. No matter how big he was, faith was important to him, that honorable gentleman.”

https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-gil-hodges-memorial-mass-hall-of-fame-20220326-sl4qzk7c6ngnfewaw4nhfnlpxm-story.htmlhttps://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-gil-hodges-memorial-mass-hall-of-fame-20220326-sl4qzk7c6ngnfewaw4nhfnlpxm-story.html



The family will throw out a first ball when the Mets play their second home game April 16.

[86dreamer]

Thanks for posting that!



OLHC was my home parish until we moved away when I was in 5th grade. Mrs. Hodges lived one block over from us and everyone had a connection to or fond story about Gil. He signed a hand drawn picture of Mr. Met made out to my brother in me in November 1969 - hangs in my home now as my most prized Metly possession.

[Edgy MD]

That's a keeper.

[G-Fafif]

Gil Hodges Bobblehead Day at Citi Field July 24, same day Gil will be enshrined in Cooperstown.



https://nypost.com/2022/04/02/gil-hodges-getting-honored-with-mets-bobblehead/https://nypost.com/2022/04/02/gil-hodges-getting-honored-with-mets-bobblehead/

[stevejrogers]

The Franchise That Shall Not Be Named is also set to honor Gil. Haven't seen official word that #14 will be officially mothballed yet, and they also have a HOFer commemorative bobble on their SGA slate this year.



I really hope the Hall doesn't go the route of no logo on Gil's plaque.



He's in as the first baseman for the Boys of Summer era Brooklyn Dodgers. Why WOULDN'T he have a stylized B on his plaque's cap?



Mention the Amazin's of 1969 in the plaque text, sure, but from the overall baseball standpoint, he's more known as a Brooklyn Dodger.

[Edgy MD]

That's the virtue of soft retirement. When the time comes around for a hard retirement, there aren't a bunch of Mike Scoscias saying, "Retired for him? What the hell am I?"

[G-Fafif]

Dodgers get on board, 14wise.



https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-to-retire-number-14-for-hall-of-famer-gil-hodgeshttps://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-to-retire-number-14-for-hall-of-famer-gil-hodges

[batmagadanleadoff]

Dodgers get on board, 14wise. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-to-retire-number-14-for-hall-of-famer-gil-hodgeshttps://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-to-retire-number-14-for-hall-of-famer-gil-hodges

_______________

Hodges now joins the following Dodgers with retired numbers: 1 - Pee Wee Reese 2 - Tommy Lasorda 4 - Duke Snider 19 - Jim Gilliam 20 - Don Sutton 24 - Walter Alston 32 - Sandy Koufax 39 - Roy Campanella 42 - Jackie Robinson 53 - Don Drysdale

Nine of those with retired Dodger numbers, including Hodges now (in fact, everybody on that list but Sutton and Drysdale), were all members of the '55 championship Brooklyn Dodgers squad, although Koufax and Lasorda, both rookies in '55, were on the fringes of that team. But still, that's a lot of retired numbers from one season's team.

[Edgy MD]

Piggie's been something of a voice for Gil Hodges for half a century. It's a shame he won't be around now that such a large amount of folks will be listening.



But he lived to hear the HoF news, and that's not nothing.

[G-Fafif]

I'd like to think word of Gil's election got through to Piggy, but given his dementia, it was no sure thing. Then again, in Joe's mind, I'd bet Gil was a Hall of Famer in every sense.



From 2021:

THE FIRST TEAM casualty to COVID-19 came in May. Nancy Pignatano was terrified of getting sick. She was living in Florida with her husband Joe, the Amazin' Mets bullpen coach. She was following the precautions. They stayed indoors, had their groceries delivered and limited her outdoor trips to grabbing the paper and the mail. But she caught COVID anyway and died in May at the age of 86. For months, Joe didn't understand that she was gone. He has dementia. His family would tell him that she was out golfing with friends, and he'd smile and be OK. Their younger son, Frank, still lives in Brooklyn. The last words he heard from his mom were over the phone. "Frankie, I love you," she told him. "I can't talk." Frank is the one to pass along the memories now. He was 12 years old that season -- his nickname was "Little Piggy" -- but he speaks as if it was his best year too. The Mets kept a tomato garden in the bullpen during the '69 season. Joe found the wild plant, and instead of ripping it out, he watered and tended to it. "He was a Brooklyn Italian," Frank says. "You give them a patch of dirt and they plant tomatoes." Joe's very best friend, Frank says, was Gil Hodges. They played together for the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers and the 1962 expansion Mets, then started coaching together in Washington in 1965. They'd be at the ballpark all day, then meet for cards later with their wives at night, the room a chain-smoking haze of crab claws, mixed nuts and banter. "I tell my kids it was a simpler time," Frank says. "You could have a house and a car in the garage and have kids on one salary. You can't do that today." Hodges was a Marine during World War II, but he always downplayed it. He used to tell his son Gil Jr. that he worked behind a desk. It wasn't until the boy was older that he found out that his father was a gunner in the 16th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, fought in Okinawa and was awarded a Bronze Star. He played with Jackie Robinson in 1947, the year Robinson broke the major league color barrier. Hodges was a straightforward man with little ambiguity, but he was also a dreamer. Just before Game 1, 19-year-old Gil Jr. was sitting in his dad's office, marveling over the Orioles' stat sheet, when he asked him what the Mets were doing on the same field with Baltimore. Hodges got up, closed the door and sat next to him. "Listen, son," he told him, "I have 25 guys out there who think we can win. That's all that matters." The Mets had back-to-back 83-79 seasons after the World Series, and Pignatano kept tending to the tomato plant. They had high hopes heading into '72, a season that was delayed by a players' strike. During spring training -- Easter Sunday -- Hodges and his coaches spent a morning playing 27 holes at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. Pignatano was putting his clubs in the trunk, Frank says, when Hodges suffered a heart attack, fell backward and smacked his head on the sidewalk. Pignatano held him as he was dying. Hodges was 47 years old. For years, Pignatano blamed himself. He was right next to him. If he hadn't turned around, he thought, he could've caught him. But Pignatano couldn't have done anything. Hodges' son tried to explain that to him many times. "When you love someone like that ... " Gil Jr. says, "you will always feel like you could've done something. But it was out of his hands." Pignatano has a picture of Hodges in the house, and he'll point to it and always says the same thing. "That's my best friend."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31317684/friendship-memories-year-1969-new-york-metshttps://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31317684/friendship-memories-year-1969-new-york-mets

[whippoorwill]

I never knew that Gil Hodges had a head injury too.

[Edgy MD]

I whined for years about the Dodgers keeping 14 in circulation, but I have to admit that the restraint they've shown when it comes to number retirement is something I'd like to see more of. Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Orel Hershiser ... even Fernando Valenzuela essentially get told, "Get Cooperstown to stamp your passport, and then come talk to us."



Until Clayton Kershaw hangs 'em up, the remaining guy who is most qualified for a Dodger number retirement is probably Zack Wheat, and I'm pretty sure he never wore a number.

[nymr83]

If the Dodgers were the Yankees there would be a ton of retired numbers, Mike Piazza chief amongst them.

[vtmet7]

=nymr83 post_id=93848 time=1653772460 user_id=54]
If the Dodgers were the Yankees there would be a ton of retired numbers, Mike Piazza chief amongst them.

[batmagadanleadoff]

There are no rules or standards for retiring a baseball uni number. The owner can do whatever he wants to do. When we participate in these debates, framed as should this player or that player's number be retired, there really isnt a right answer. What we're really doing is saying whose number we'd retire if we owned the team and it was up to us. And in that vein, it makes no difference how many or how few numbers some other team retired.

[roger_that]

It is funny, though, imagining some 22nd century player getting to the Yankees and requesting number after number only to be turned down on each one because it's retired. "Who the fuck was Bernie Williams?" I can picture him asking in frustration.

[Willets Point]

Eventually the Yankees are going to have to start wearing irrational numbers.

[Willets Point]

Gil Hodges Bobblehead Day at Citi Field July 24, same day Gil will be enshrined in Cooperstown. https://nypost.com/2022/04/02/gil-hodges-getting-honored-with-mets-bobblehead/https://nypost.com/2022/04/02/gil-hodges-getting-honored-with-mets-bobblehead/

By the way, for some reason this is not listed on the Mets promotional events calendar.

[stevejrogers]

Dodgers get on board, 14wise. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-to-retire-number-14-for-hall-of-famer-gil-hodgeshttps://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-to-retire-number-14-for-hall-of-famer-gil-hodges _______________ Hodges now joins the following Dodgers with retired numbers: 1 - Pee Wee Reese 2 - Tommy Lasorda 4 - Duke Snider 19 - Jim Gilliam 20 - Don Sutton 24 - Walter Alston 32 - Sandy Koufax 39 - Roy Campanella 42 - Jackie Robinson 53 - Don Drysdale Nine of those with retired Dodger numbers, including Hodges now (in fact, everybody on that list but Sutton and Drysdale), were all members of the '55 championship Brooklyn Dodgers squad, although Koufax and Lasorda, both rookies in '55, were on the fringes of that team. But still, that's a lot of retired numbers from one season's team.

Also shines a light on the tidbit of the 1981 and 1988 World Champions being one of the few teams to date, and through the mid-2000s anyway, to not have a single HOFer on their postseason roster (though technically Sutton did pitch for the Dodgers during the regular season of 1988).

[stevejrogers]

Edgy MD wrote: even Fernando Valenzuela essentially get told, "Get Cooperstown to stamp your passport, and then come talk to us."

Interestingly #34 has been given the unofficial mothballs treatment by the Dodgers since the last time Fernando pitched for them in 1990.



Looking through the Dodgers By The Numbers section for some other interesting (YMMV) factoids...



Walter Alston #24 and Tommy Lasorda #2, along with Jim Gilliam #19 and Sandy Koufax 32, share distinction of being the last Dodgers to wear their retired numbers. Oddly while Gilliam was an RIP retirement and Lasorda went into the HOF the following year after his last game managed, Alston would have to wait until 1983 for his HOF induction, and passed away in 1984, though his number was retired in the summer of 1977. #32 was kept out of circulation until he, Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson got their numbers retired en mass following Koufax' election to the HOF.



Pee Wee's #1 was decently worn, even during his WWII stint away from the Dodgers it got assigned a couple of times before he returned! Issued 4 times from 1969-1981



The Duke's #4 got issued twice (Tom Hutton 1966, 1969) and Kevin Pasley (1974, 1976-1977)



Hodges #14 was hot potatoed between 22 Dodgers. Scioscia easily the most retirement worthy if they went the Yankee route of doing things.



Sutton's #20 was issued 9 times since he left, the first time after the 1980 season and again following his brief 1988 stint before retiring, though it was uncirculated just in 1981. It was even issued (to Darren Lewis) a year before it got officially mothballed.



Interestingly #31 was not issued from Piazza's trade to the Marlins until after the 2004 season, but since 2005 it has been issued 7 times, most recently to Joc Pederson 2016-2020



Roy Campanella's 39 got issued twice over the years, Ken Rowe in 1963 and Howie Reed from 1964-1966



Jackie Robinson's #42 was worn by a Dodger once between 1957 and whenever MLB decided to let players wear #42 as part of Robinson Day activities, that was by a pitcher named Ray Lamb in 1969, who did it as a salute actually.



Tom Paciorek in 1970 was the last Dodger to wear Don Drysdale's #53, which was the year after Drysdale retired.



Other seemingly retirement worthy numbers;



Orel Hershiser's #55 has been issued 12 times over the years since he first left the Dodgers following the 1994 season



Steve Garvey's #6 got the Valenzuela treatment from 1981-2002 but has been issued 14 times since



Maury Wills, who joined Garvey, Valenzula and Don Newcombe as "Legends of Dodger Baseball" this spring also had his #30 in unofficial mothballs for a spell, between 1973 and 1979. But since 1980 it has been issued 24 times, and is currently being worn by skipper Dave Roberts since 2016.

[Edgy MD]

That's some good legwork, Steve J.



It seems really awkward to suddenly declare a number officially retired, and forever to be associated with Player X, when it didn't even get the respect of being laid away in the interim between his career and the declaration.

[MFS62]

=vtmet7 post_id=93849 time=1653772559 user_id=80]
.is that really necessary? Phil Rizzuto, Jorge Posada, O'Neil, Pettite, Bernie Williams?

[stevejrogers]

=MFS62 post_id=93915 time=1653848149 user_id=60]
=vtmet7 post_id=93849 time=1653772559 user_id=80]
.is that really necessary? Phil Rizzuto, Jorge Posada, O'Neil, Pettite, Bernie Williams?

[stevejrogers]

Edgy MD wrote: That's some good legwork, Steve J. It seems really awkward to suddenly declare a number officially retired, and forever to be associated with Player X, when it didn't even get the respect of being laid away in the interim between his career and the declaration.

Piazza being unofficially mothballed is a bit curious. Pretty sure his grudge with the organization started the day he left, so holding it for much of his Met career is interesting.



Did they assume there'd be a chance to get him following the 2005 season when his contract finally came up?



Wonder if putting it back in circulation added more fuel to Piazza's grudge that still exists to this day. I don't think he's ever stepped foot in Dodger Stadium since he's retired, even when the Dodgers had stadium giveaways in his honor over the years.

[stevejrogers]

FWIW, the Twins announced in January intentions to retire Jim Kaat's #36 on July 16th, but that was in mid-lockout. Twins still have a home game that day, so I'd imagine it's still set for that day.



The rest of Kaat's and Hodges's Hall class of 2022 mates whom are associated with MLB franchises, Tony Olivia, Minnie Minoso and David Ortiz had their numbers retired years ago, in fact Minoso's was done in 1983 and Oliva's in 1991.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

=stevejrogers post_id=93927 time=1653867176 user_id=57]
FWIW, the Twins announced in January intentions to retire Jim Kaat's #36 on July 16th, but that was in mid-lockout. Twins still have a home game that day, so I'd imagine it's still set for that day.



The rest of Kaat's and Hodges's Hall class of 2022 mates whom are associated with MLB franchises, Tony Olivia, Minnie Minoso and David Ortiz had their numbers retired years ago, in fact Minoso's was done in 1983 and Oliva's in 1991.

[Willets Point]

My guess is that most of them are in jail awaiting trial for 1/6/21 crimes.

[nymr83]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: =stevejrogers post_id=93927 time=1653867176 user_id=57] FWIW, the Twins announced in January intentions to retire Jim Kaat's #36 on July 16th, but that was in mid-lockout. Twins still have a home game that day, so I'd imagine it's still set for that day. The rest of Kaat's and Hodges's Hall class of 2022 mates whom are associated with MLB franchises, Tony Olivia, Minnie Minoso and David Ortiz had their numbers retired years ago, in fact Minoso's was done in 1983 and Oliva's in 1991.

Hey Rogers, whatever happened to the mofo?

[stevejrogers]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: =stevejrogers post_id=93927 time=1653867176 user_id=57] FWIW, the Twins announced in January intentions to retire Jim Kaat's #36 on July 16th, but that was in mid-lockout. Twins still have a home game that day, so I'd imagine it's still set for that day. The rest of Kaat's and Hodges's Hall class of 2022 mates whom are associated with MLB franchises, Tony Olivia, Minnie Minoso and David Ortiz had their numbers retired years ago, in fact Minoso's was done in 1983 and Oliva's in 1991.

Hey Rogers, whatever happened to the mofo?

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I think it vanished. I think of you Steve J., as the unofficial historian of the Met-a-verse so figured you had the scoop