By Steve Lyons
FOX Sports West and PRIME TICKET
LYONS ARCHIVE
Feb. 27
There are ballplayers that are remembered long after they retire because of their greatness, because of the way they played the game and because of the way they were respected by the fans, their teammates and their opponents. Duke Snider, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 84, will be remembered for all of those reasons.
When a Hall of Famer such as Snider passes away, we take a look back at the numbers that made him great, some of which may have been forgotten over the years. Snider was an eight-time All-Star, posted five straight seasons of 40 or more homeruns, advanced to the World Series six times - while winning two - all with the Dodgers. He had more homeruns (326) and RBIs (1,031) than any other player in the 1950s. That's mind boggling when you think of the Golden Era of the game and some of the other players he was always compared to - Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.
Snider is also the Dodgers franchise leader in homeruns with 389 and RBIs with 1,271.
Could you imagine being the all-time leader of a franchise as storied as the Dodgers in anything?
The list of accomplishments just keeps coming at you in waves but the numbers don't tell Duke's story. It was his grace and humility that immortalized his greatness in the game.
In 1955, Snider lost out on a league MVP he should have won because one of the voters got sick and accidentally left him off the ballot. He hit .309 that season with 42 HR and 136 RBIs and led the Dodgers to their only World Series Championship in Brooklyn, hitting four homeruns in the postseason. Snider didn't say a word when he didn't win the MVP that year, because his teammate, Roy Campanella won it instead, and he was happy for him.
No one ever had a bad word to say about Duke.
Though he was born in California and would eventually move back out west with the Dodgers when they left Brooklyn, he often said his baseball life began in Brooklyn. He loved it there and had a long time love affair with the city and it's fans.
In fact, Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully called him, "an extremely gifted talent...a wold Series hero that will forever be remembered in the borough of Brooklyn."
Always flanked by two other NY greats in centerfield during that era, Mays and DiMaggio, Snider finally got elected to the Hall after 11 tries, in 1980, the year the Dodgers retired his No. 4.
Though I never had the pleasure to see Snider play, you didn't have to if you spent any time at all with people who had. I've always felt that true greatness never has to be self promoted because everybody else will do the talking for you.
