Sunday, February 27, 2005 |
How Jackie Robinson Helped Carl Erskine, And Vice Versa
This happens to be the Golden Anniversary of what took place in 1955, at exactly 3:43 p.m. Oct. 4 in Yankee Stadium, when Pee Wee Reese threw out Elston Howard to end Game 7, crowning Brooklyn's Bums kings of the universe. It was their first and only world championship.To this day, Erskine tells us, a group of cult fans are involved in a public ritual of visiting the Ebbets Field site (now an apartment complex) every Oct. 4 at 3:43 in the afternoon.
That was eight years after pioneering Jackie Robinson was voted Rookie of the Year, seven years after Robinson told minor-leaguer Erskine, after facing him in spring training, "young man, you're going to be with us real soon."
It wasn't long before Erskine was in the company of Robinson, Reese, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and Carl Furillo, pitching in a ballpark where the outfield fences shouted "GEM Feather-Weight Razor," "Botany Ties," "Schaefer Beer," where Shorty's five-piece Sym-Phony Band made life miserable for the visiting team.
At the time, Erskine was watching Robinson live a miserable baseball life, on and off the field, after promising Branch Rickey, the man who signed him to break baseball's color line, he'd turn the other cheek to abuse.
"This was a man," writes Erskine, "who went swimming as a kid in a reservoir and ended up being interrogated behind bright lights used for criminals by a local sheriff who sent out for watermelon and proceeded to humiliate Jackie and his friends. This was a man who had fought for his country and was nearly court martialed for failing to sit in the back of the bus."
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