Duke Snider, R.I.P.

[G-Fafif]

Wayne Hagin reports the great Duke Snider -- Dodger legend and 1963 Met All-Star -- has passed away at age 84.

[MFS62]

Another boy of summer.
Somewhere in my garage I have a Duke Snider model Rawlings glove. Last time I saw it, it was next to my Jim Hickman home run ball.
Later

[Theoldmole]

My boyhood. The part that mattered.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The second-oldest living Met, and the first one to die from the Top Twenty since I inaugurated this page. (Joe Hicks moves into the Top Twenty, and Joe Ginsburg advances to the number 2 slot.)

I shook his hand once at a baseball card show in Atlantic City. It was somewhere around 1990. I told him my mom was a big fan of his when he played for the Dodgers, and he said, "Say hello to your mom for me." When I passed along the message, she got a big kick out of it. My sister later reported that she heard my mother muttering, "Duke Snider said hello to me!"

I only chatted with him for a few minutes, but he seemed like a really nice guy.

[Guest themetfairy]

When I was a kid, my mom told me that when she went to summer camp she packed pictures of Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. They seemed like such old men to me at the time that it sounded strange, but that factoid always stayed with me.

RIP Duke!

[Frayed Knot]

Actually 84 years old, not yet 85.

[G-Fafif]

Wayne and I stand corrected.

[metirish]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The second-oldest living Met, and the first one to die from the Top Twenty since I inaugurated this page. (Joe Hicks moves into the Top Twenty, and Joe Ginsburg advances to the number 2 slot.) I shook his hand once at a baseball card show in Atlantic City. It was somewhere around 1990. I told him my mom was a big fan of his when he played for the Dodgers, and he said, "Say hello to your mom for me." When I passed along the message, she got a big kick out of it. My sister later reported that she heard my mother muttering, "Duke Snider said hello to me!" I only chatted with him for a few minutes, but he seemed like a really nice guy.

That's why these old players still matter, nice story.

Rest in peace.

[HahnSolo]

One of my dad's favorites.

So long, Duke.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

A gentleman.

My wife and I met him at a card show, and you can tell that we were newlyweds because she actually came with me to a card show.

Duke signed my Hall of Fame ball and my Mets book, and I noticed the huge ring he was wearing -- his Hall of Fame ring. After showing it to us and talking about it a little, he, much to my wife's delight, he asked to see her new wedding ring and made the appropriate approving sounds.

A very nice man.

Here's the full story:

http://metsguyinmichigan.blogspot.com/2011/02/every-signature-tells-story-duke-snider.html

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Boys of Summer chapter in which Kahn visits Duke and his wife and takes them out to see Eartha Kitt is good good stuff.

The frankness of that Frank Springer portrait still blows my mind.

[Frayed Knot]

HahnSolo wrote: One of my dad's favorites. So long, Duke.

Mine too.

[Guest Edgy DC]

So, Willie, Mickey and the Duke is now... Willlie.

[seawolf17]

RIP Mr. Snider.

[Guest Edgy DC]

He certainly doesn't count on the all-time roster of Met managers, but Snider told tales of Casey turning the team over to him during cat-naps.

[Valadius]

I have a feeling that for many people, Snider's passing closes the book on the living history of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[Frayed Knot]

A good read

[seawolf17]

Valadius wrote: I have a feeling that for many people, Snider's passing closes the book on the living history of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

[seawolf17]

[G-Fafif]

Ralph Branca just on FAN remembering the Duke...so he's still going, too.

He's also still bitter, but it's only been 60 years. Give him another 60 and he'll probably mellow.

[Guest Edgy DC]

"I'm not sorta alive, you liitle prick, I'm Lasorda
alive!"

[seawolf17]

I thought about Lasorda, but I really don't think of him as a Brooklyn Dodger. He's all LA to me.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Nobody's saying that Duke Snider was the last living Brooklyn Dodger, but he was the biggest of their remaining stars.


Bob Aspromonte yet lives!

[Chad ochoseis]

The twenty-ninth best Cub of all time, also a living, breathing 1952 Brooklyn Dodger.

[G-Fafif]

Let us not forget Joe Pignatano.

No doubt Duke epitomized those Dodgers as few others did, but I don't believe the book is ever closed on something you care about. Brooklyn Dodgers fans have kept the book open 54 years after the library closed (so to speak) and it will remain open as long as those who loved them remember them. The stories will outlast those scripted their endings.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Here's Duke Snider's '64 Topps baseball card; his last Topps card and his only card in a Mets uniform as an active player.



Topps chose from among these other images when deciding what Snider's '64 card would ultimately look like:

[Guest Edgy DC]

A good look at the Polo Grounds there.

[batmagadanleadoff]

2009 Topps Update, probably from the same photo session that produced the alternate Topps' images, above.

[G-Fafif]

If you'll excuse the expression, great article by Dick Young, here.