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Roy Campanella Photo Gallery
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“Out! By a Country Mile!”
Campy Sends Billy Martin Airborne!
“I never want to quit playing ball. They’ll have to cut this uniform off of me to get me out of it.” -Roy Campanella
Sixty-eight years ago last Fall, November 27, 1953, Roy Campanella was named the National League MVP, his second of three awards (1951, ’53, and ’55). It was a great year for Campy, which included his historic start to the season to the 1953 season.
On May 10, 1953, Roy hit a double and a home run in a game against the Phillies at Ebbets Field. With those two hits, Campy drove in all five runs in the Dodgers’ 5-0 victory. The five tallies gave him more than 40 RBIs in the first 30 games of the season, a feat that wouldn’t be matched for 44 years until Tino Martinez did it in 1997 with the Yankees.
Roy Campanella’s Great Second MVP Season, 1953
And after that great start, what a year Campy put together! It was the best of his
three MVP seasons. He hit .312, with 103 runs, a league-leading 142 RBIs, 41 home runs, a .395 on-base percentage, and a .611 slugging average. His 154 OPS+ placed him well above average among his major league contemporaries (100 being the major league average).
“Out! By a Country Mile”
The featured photo above is one of my favorites. This is the final out in Game Four of the 1953 World Series. That’s Billy Martin going “airborne” after a collision at home plate with Roy Campanella, the Dodgers’ great Hall-of-Fame catcher, as teammates Gene Woodling (14) and Joe Collins (15) look on. Looks like Billy never even got close to the plate. Martin made an ill-advised attempt to score from second and was out easily, abruptly ending the game. Campy flicks Martin away like he’s a rag doll after he bounced off of Campanella’s right shin guard. Almost looks like Campy gave him a swift kick in the seat of the pants just to say “good riddance” and to teach him a lesson:
“Hey, Billy – Who do you think you are? You don’t pull stunts like that against Roy Campanella!”
Umpire Artie Gore had a nice view of the entire play and is about to thumb Martin out once he saw that Campanella held onto the ball. By the look on his face, I have a hunch Billy learned a thing or two about trying to score on a close play against the great Roy Campanella!
Campy’s Hall-of-Fame Career
Campy played in his first game on April 20, 1948, a year after Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier. Over his 10-career, all with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1948-’58) which was unfortunately cut short by his debilitating auto accident on January 28, 1958, the eight-time All-Star hit .276, with 1167 hits, 627 runs, 856 RBIs, 242 home runs, a 360 on-base percentage, and a .500 slugging average. In each of his three MVP seasons, he batted higher than .300, hit more than 30 home runs, and had more than 100 RBIs.
His 1949 All-Star selection made him one of the first four African-Americans honored, along with Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, and Larry Doby. He played in every All-Star game from 1949-’56. In 1950, he hit home runs in five straight games. Campanella caught three no-hitters during his career: Carl Erskine’s two on June 19, 1952, and May 12, 1956; and Sal Maglie’s on September 25, 1956 (this one overshadowed by Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game gem a couple weeks later). Defensively, he was one of the best ever. During his career, he threw out an astonishing 57.4% of potential base stealers, the highest percentage by any catcher in major league history.
In 1955 he helped Brooklyn win its first-ever World Series championship. After the Dodgers lost the first two games of the series to the Yankees, Campanella hit a two-out, two-run home run in the first inning of Game Three. The Dodgers won that game, then got another home run from Campanella in a Game Four victory that tied the series. They went on to win the series in seven games, their first in four tries against the Yankees of Casey Stengel.
Kind Words For Walter O’Malley
Walter O’Malley is usually depicted as the villain by Brooklyn fans, viewed as responsible for the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles. Not so to Roy Campanella. I found this touching quote in which Campy had high praise for the oft-maligned Dodger owner:
So today we gladly turn our baseball spotlight on the great Dodger catcher, Roy Campanella. Roy passed away on June 26, 1993, aged 71.
Gary Livacari
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Information: Excerpts edited from Roy Campanella Wikipedia page; stats from Baseball-Reference.com
