Campanella: One of the Top Five
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by user Harold Friend
Let us go back to the thrilling days of yesteryear, back to a time when there were sixteen major league teams and one of the most heated of all baseball debates involved two catchers who played in New York. The Sporting News was still strictly a baseball newspaper, Sport Magazine was the top monthly sports magazine, and Time Magazine still carried baseball articles because the fledging Sports Illustrated had yet to develop a readership.
In 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers' Roy Campanella and the Yankees' Yogi Berra each had a marvelous season, but the 5'8" half-Italian Brooklyn catcher outdid the 5'8" all-Italian Yankees catcher during the regular season and, for the first and only time, in the World Series. In 1955, a year that lives in Yankees' infamy, Roy Campanella batted .318, hit 32 home runs, batted in 107 runs, had a .395 on base average, and slugged .583. He was considered the best catcher in baseball and the "experts" placed him in the same category as Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane, and Gabby Hartnett.
Statistics can describe and statistics can infer, but statistics cannot observe or quantify intangibles. The Brooklyn Dodgers' teams of the 1950s rank among baseball's greatest, boasting four future Hall of Famers among the eight regulars and two youngsters among the pitchers. Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Roy Campanella formed the team's nucleus. In 1955, Sandy Koufax joined the team as a young bonus baby and the following season he was joined by Don Drysdale.
Despite pitching problems, Brooklyn's on the field team compensated by playing great defense and scoring more runs than their pitchers allowed. Jackie Robinson was the fire, Pee Wee Reese was the Captain, Gil Hodges was the quiet strength, Duke Snider was the offense leader who sometimes let his emotions get the better of him, Billy Cox was the spectacular fielder, Jim Gilliam was the igniter, Carl Furillo was the much maligned, underrated clutch hitter, and Roy Campanella was the heart of Brooklyn.
When he was on the bench, Roy Campanella was a tranquil, roly poly individual, but once he was behind the plate, he became a quick and agile athlete who handled a pitching staff that needed careful handling. Don Newcombe, Campanella's roommate, is a case in point.
Newcombe had been in the army for two years. When he returned to the baseball wars in 1954, the hard throwing Newcombe was only a 9-8 pitcher with a high 4.55 ERA, but that changed in 1955, when Newk returned to form, winning 20 games, losing only 5, and pitching to a fine 3.20 ERA. Now, Newcombe had a reputation, deserved or not, as sometimes being lethargic. Campanella always put a quick end to it.
Campanella never shut up. He continually encouraged his pitchers with chatter that helped them make it through the afternoon. He would tell Newcombe to "hum that pea," and could Newcombe hum it. Roy Campanella would not stand for carelessness or lack of concentration. He was alert to everything that was happening on the field or in the dugout.
One time Campanella signaled for a fast ball and Newcombe threw a change up curve. The 5'8" Campanella took off his mask and strode to the mound to firmly but gently confront the 6'4" Newcombe. "How come you gave me the local when I called for the express?" the rotund backstop asked the pitcher, without a trace of humor but with all the firmness that was necessary. Newcombe mumbled something but Campanella, in his own inimitable manner, had made his point. Newcombe rarely ever crossed him up again.
Sometimes, Campanella was neither subtle nor diplomatic. After he and Newcombe signed with Brooklyn, they were assigned to Nashua, N.H., a class B Dodgers' farm team. The pair were the first black players in the league and there was only one ugly incident.
With Campanella behind the plate, Manchester sent Sal Yvars up to hit. Yvars, who would be a third string catcher on the 1951 Giants and would make the final out of the 1951 World Series, is the only New York Giants' player to "admit" that the Giants stole Brooklyn's signs during the 1951 playoff series. As he went to hit that day against Campanella's Nashua team, Yvars picked up some dirt threw it into Campanella's face. The usually mild mannered Campy ripped off his catcher's mask and in no uncertain terms informed Yvars that if tried anything like again, he would be beaten to a pulp.
Most of the time, Campanella was a gentleman. Usually, and this may be hard to believe, Campanella greeted the game's first hitter with a "Good evening (or good afternoon) Mr. Corbitt. How are you tonight?" The Mr. Corbitt was Syracuse's Glenn Corbitt, who was so shocked the first time he was greeted in that manner that he later remarked, "I was so stunned that I could hardly tap the ball back to the pitcher." Roy Campanella didn't need politicians or psychologists to teach him how to act---or hit.
Roy Campanella played in the majors for only 10 seasons since he had too much melanin, the skin pigment possessed by all humans that gives skin its color. Roy Campanella's skin was brown and that was enough to keep from playing for one of the sixteen major league teams until he was 26 years old.
Roy Campanella had a .276 lifetime batting average, which is decent but which pales in comparison to Mickey Cochrane's .320, Bill Dickey's .313, Ernie Lombardi's .306, Gabby Hartnett's .297, Munson's .292 and even Yogi's .285 because once again, statistics must be examined. In 1953, Campanella hit .312 with 41 home runs, 142 RBIs, and a .611 slugging average. At that point in his career, his lifetime batting average was .292 over his first six seasons. A remarkable achievement that few remember or know is that from 1949 to 1953, Roy Campanella caught EVERY INNING for the National League All-Star team. Then he hurt his hand.
In the spring of 1954, Campy suffered a chipped bone in his left hand as well as a damaged nerve. Appearing in only 111 games, he hit .207 with 19 home runs. After undergoing surgery, Campanella had a Campanella-type 1955, rebounding to hit .318 with 32 home runs and 107 RBIs, but the problem was not completely eliminated and in 1956, he batted only .219 with 20 home runs. Injuries are part of the game, and an injured Campanella was better than most healthy catchers, but even with his injuries, Campy was one of the greatest.
Defense alone can make a catcher a regular. Even if he hit the way most catchers hit, Campanella would still be rated among the best since he was as good a defensive catcher as ever played the game. It has been said of Campanella that "...while, going through his acrobatic gyrations—lunging for bad pitches, darting like a great cat after well-dropped bunts, settling under pop fouls or wheeling and firing to pick a man off base—Campy keeps the good catcher's track of every aspect of the game. It takes a hog-wild pitcher to whip a ball out of Campanella's reach, or stick a pitch in the dirt that he cannot dig out."
Roy Campanella is not known to many of today’s fans. Veteran fans who saw him play will never forget the images of a rotund catcher who had no chance at all pouncing on a perfect bunt down the third base line, grabbing the ball with his bare hand, and throwing out the batter who would have been amazed in almost every case, except this one, because in this one, Roy Campanella was the catcher.
References:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,807431,00.html
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/N/Newcombe_Don.stm
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/Y/Yvars_Sal.stm
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/C/Campanella_Roy.stm
http://www.thebaseballpage.com/players/camparo01.php
Date
Tue 08/22/06, 11:17 am EST
