Home Brewed Mojo: THE CAMPY TRAGEDY

1/28/1958 - Fully expecting to bounce back from an injury plagued season in which the three-time National League MVP catcher bats only .242 for the third place Brooklyn Dodgers (the club finishes it's last season in Brooklyn with a 84-70 record), tragedy instead strikes down the playing prowess Roy Campanella when driving to his home in Glen Cove, New York, he loses control of the 1957 Chevrolet he is renting on a patch of ice, hits a telephone pole, and suffers fractures to his fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae, along with other injuries to his spinal cord that leave the grand athlete paralyzed from the shoulders down at the age of only 35.

Campanella

A mixed race child, during a period in history when society frowned on relationships of that sort, Roy is born on November 19, 1921 into the Campanella family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; his mother Ida is an African-American (she runs the household) and his father John (keeps his family fed selling vegetables and fish out of a truck, before eventually opening a small grocery store) is the son of an Italian immigrant from Sicily (altogether, the couple will have four children, an older brother named Lawrence, and two sisters, Gladys and Doris). The family first lives in Germantown, but when Roy is seven, moves to an integrated section of North Philadelphia known as Nicetown. In Nicetown, Roy experiences massive amounts of harassment from other children over his mixed race (both whites and blacks enjoy calling the light colored youth "half-breed"), but for the most part, he doesn't let the name calling effect his generally cheerful demeanor (when it does bother him though he becomes a formidable fist fighter, one good enough to become a Golden Glove fighter ... and he is intelligent enough to dream of being an architect), besting most of the prejudice he faces daily with his great acuity for athletics. Attending Gillespie Junior High School and Simon Graz High School, he plays football, basketball, and baseball so well that in each sport he is named captain of the varsity team, while also helping support his family by selling newspapers, shining shoes, making neighborhood milk deliveries, and helping his father at the store.

Young Roy

Playing baseball though reveals Campanella's future (the Philadelphia Phillies will offer the youth a workout with the big club based on word of mouth, but will rescind the opportunity when they discover Roy is of mixed blood), and in 1937, at age 15, the 5'9," 190 pound teenager begins his professional career catching for the semi-pro Bacharach Giants (by this time, teammates are calling him, "Campy"), making more money in a weekend than his father's store has made in a week Thriving impressively behind the plate and at bat, the Washington Elite Giants (the club will move to Baltimore the next year) of the Negro National League soon come calling and sign Roy to a contract that has the youth barnstorming with the Giants through his summer vacation, spelling veteran receiver and team manager Biz Mackey on weekends. Too much money and success to ignore, at age 16 Campanella's parents allow him to drop out of high school and play professional baseball full-time. Precocious, by 1939, at the age of 17, Campanella is the Giants regular catcher and helps lead the team to playoff victories over the Newark Eagles and the Homestead Grays (he also marries for the first time, taking Bernice Ray as his bride in a relationship that will give him two daughters and the "3A" military draft designation that keeps him out of WWII). Challenging the legendary "Black Babe Ruth," Josh Gibson, as the best catcher in Negro baseball, while still a teenager, Campanella is voted the MVP of the 1941 Negro League East-West All-Star Game (he will also be the All-Star catcher for the league in 1944 and 1945 while accruing a lifetime batting average of.353 for his eight years in the league). During the 1942 season, after an argument with team owner Tom Wilson over pay, Campanella leaves the Giants to play for the Monterrey Sultans of the Mexican League. Difficulties with Wilson sorted out, he is a Giant once more in 1944 and 1945, then in 1946, he plays for the Sabios de Vargas squad of the newly formed Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, becoming the team's co-coach while leading the unit to the league's first championship (establishing a reputation for toughness and a love of the game, during this period of time he also pitches in a game, though he doesn't get the decision in the win, plays winter ball for teams in Puerto Rico and Cuba, and is said to have caught four games in a single day of baseball in Ohio ... two in Cincinnati as part of a double-header, and two in Middletown, as part of a twi-nighter). In October of 1945, Campanella is a member of a black All-Star team that plays five exhibition games against a group of white major leaguers coached by the Brooklyn Dodgers field manager, Charlie Dressen, who arranges a meeting between legendary Dodgers GM and part-owner, Wesley Branch Rickey

Negro League Showcase - Campanella Is At Left

Batting Practice

Dressen

Rickey

After a four hour meeting with Rickey (Campanella will call him "the talkingest man I ever did see") in which Campanella thinks the Brooklyn executive wants the catcher for another negro league squad, Roy meets with Jackie Robinson in a Harlem hotel and is set straight on what the Brooklyn team's plans are and a few days later, on his way to a barnstorming tour of South America, in 1946, he sends a telegram to the Dodgers stating he'd love to be a member of their squad. Back in the United States after the tour concludes, Campanella signs with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and though his stats show he is ready for the big lights, he will spend two years gaining seasoning with the Brooklyn club's minor league farm system, playing for the Nashua, New Hampshire Class B team (making only $185 a month for his first six months, rather than the $600 a month he'd been making with the Baltimore Elite Giants) guided by young general manager Buzzie Bavasi (joining him on the squad is legendary black pitcher, Don Newcombe). With Walt Alston guiding the team, Campanella finishes his first year in the minors batting .290, wins the league's MVP, helps the team win the 1946 championship, and becomes the first black man to manage in "organized baseball" when Alston gets thrown out of a game and asks Campanella to take over the team for the rest of the day (a decision that pays off when Campanella has pitcher Don Newcombe pinch hit and the hurler homers for the win). In his first year he also helps his father open up a chicken farm with the 1,400 chicks he wins as part of a promotion by a local farmer giving anyone who hits a homer for Nashua, 100 chicks per tater (Campanella's 14 leads the league). Moving up to the Dodgers Triple A team in Montreal the next year, Campanella wins the MVP of the International League and appears ready to make the big team the following year. But his start for the Dodgers in rocky (he also gets looks as a left fielder and third baseman), with Leo Durocher (after serving a year long suspension) and Rickey feuding over how Roy is to be used ... Durocher wants him on the team and playing, while Rickey wants him to open up the American Association of Triple A ball to black players, while dampening dissension on the team that might come from replacing the Dodgers white catcher of two years, Bruce Edwards, who in 1947 bats .295, drives in 80 runs, and comes in 4th in NL MVP balloting (injuring his arm in the off season, he is soon left behind as the Dodgers make adjustments to their roster and soon are ready to explode as the legendary "Boys of Summer"). Rickey of course wins, and though Campanella is on the Dodgers' opening day roster, and gets into his first game on April 29, 1948, when he replaces future Hall-of-Famer, Gil Hodges, behind the plate (and gets plunked by New York Giant reliever, Ken Trinkle, in his first official big league at bat). Sent to St. Paul when the squad has to trim its roster in May, after a hitless start (he goes 0-4 in his debut with two strikeouts and a throwing error), Campanella explodes on the league by batting .325, homering 13 times and driving in 39 runs in 35 games before being called up to the big club again in July (for his rookie campaign, Campanella will bat .258 with 9 homers in 83 games, while garnering eight MVP votes despite only playing half the year for the dodgers (he also leads the NL in the percentage of runners he throws out trying to steal ... for his career he will throw out 57% of the runners that try to steal on him, the still highest percentage in major league baseball, while having five of the seven greatest single seasons in baseball history, and while in, the team wins 50 of the 73 games Campanella catches).

Homering For The St. Paul Saints

Bavasi With Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson,

And Campanella

Alston When He Played

Durocher Arguing With Home Plate Umpire

Rookie Baseball Card

Color barrier broken by Jackie Robinson the year before, Durocher out as manager in 1948 (the Dodgers traitor takes over the job of managing the New York Giants) and Burt Shotten in as his replacement, the Dodgers move Gil Hodges from catcher to first base, shift Jackie Robinson from first to his natural position at second base, Campanella is installed at catcher, and Don Newcombe is brought up from the minors to pitch (the battery of Newcombe and Campanella will be the first all black unit in major league baseball), the Brooklyn squad begins their ten year run of excellence ... and along for the ride, is Roy Campanella (during his time with the Dodgers he will be #33, #39, and #56 before settling on #39). Batting and throwing right-handed, Campanella is selected to baseball's All-Star Game, catching for the National League, from 1949 to 1956 (becoming in 1949 one of the first four black men to make the squad, Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, and Larry Dolby being the others), he makes his debut in the 1949 game in the fourth inning, replacing starting catcher Andy Seminick and beginning a record streak of catching every consecutive inning of All-Star play for the Nationals until finally being replaced by Smoky Burgess in the 9th inning of the 1954 contest. In 1949, during the regular season, Campanella hits .287 with 82 RBIs and 22 homers. For the 1950 Dodgers' campaign, Campanella hits .281 and improves his home run total for a single year to 31 (five will be in consecutive games, a Dodgers' record that will take until the new century for Shawn Green, Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, and Joc Pederson to tie). Sadly, he misses 11 consecutive games (the Dodgers lose seven of the eleven games) in September when a foul tip off his right thumb causes a compound fracture to the digit and the Brooklyn unit finishes the season two games behind the Philadelphia Phillies). In spring training for the 1951 season, Campanella will take a foul tip off the right thumb again that chips the bone to cause Roy to play in pain the entire year, along with being plunked by Chicago's Turk Lown, a beaning which puts the catcher in the hospital for five days with a concussion (and he will experience dizziness for weeks to come). Despite the assortment of injuries Campanella experiences, in 1951 the catcher wins the first of his three NL MVP awards (Stan Musial finishes second ... following teammate Jackie Robinson, Campanella is the second black to win baseball's most prestigious award, and becomes the first black to win the award for a second and a third time), batting .325, knocking in 108 runs, and belting homers 33 times (not enough alas, a home plate collision hurts Roy's leg and he is forced to sit out the last two games of a special playoff series for the pennant race, in which in the final game, Campanella is not playing when Bobby Thomson hits his legendary home run allowing the New York Giants to take that year's flag). Expecting to be right back in the hunt for a championship in 1952 (the highlight of Campy's year will be catching the no-hitter that right hander Carl Daniel Erskine hurls on June 19, 1952), Campanella has a disappointing season filled with nagging injuries (yet another foul tip will result in a bone chip to his left elbow that puts the arm in a cast for two weeks) that sees the catcher bat only .269 with 22 homers, as the Dodgers lose the World Series to the New York Yankees in seven games (with Roy collecting only six singles during post-season play). All healed up in 1953, Campanella puts together another MVP campaign (beating out Eddie Matthews) in which he bats .312, hits 41 home runs (more than any other catcher in baseball history until Todd Hunley breaks the record in 1996), and knocks in 142 Dodger runners (a record total that so far for the franchise, has only been bested by the 153 Tommy Davis knocks in during the 1962 season). But frustration is back again for Campanella and his teammates, when they play the Yankees again in the World Series, and again lose in seven games with Campanella once more injured, this time by an Allie Reynolds pitch that hits the catcher in the hand while he is batting in the first inning of the first game, negating his hitting for the rest of the series. Campanella's 1954 season is marred by injuries once again when he hurts his left wrist and hand trying to break up a double play at second base, waits for the injury to heal, and then when it doesn't fix itself, undergoes surgery when bone chips effect the nerves in his hand. Back quicker than expected, the injury brings Campanella's batting average down to only .207, with 19 homers ... proving he can be of value without a bat, in the games Campanella catches that year, the Dodgers win percentage is .623 for 106 games, while in games without Roy, the Dodgers having a winning percentage of only .542 (not enough, the club finishes five games behind the New York Giants in the year in which that hated foe beats the Cleveland Indians to win the world championship).

Tagging Out Yankee Billy Martin In 1953

Homer

Campy

No more waiting for next year, Walter Alston now the manager after Durocher, Shotten, and Dressen all move elsewhere, 1955 proves to be a beautiful year for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Roy Campanella. Coming back from 1954's injuries, despite having yet another foul tip break the 33-year-old Campanella's left kneecap at midseason (though voted into the game, Campanella will miss his first All-Star game since 1949), an injury that puts the catcher in a cast for more than two weeks, Roy wins his third NL MVP award (this time besting second place finisher, and teammate, Duke Snider ... thus far in baseball history, Campanella's three MVPs are matched or bettered only by Stan Musial, Mike Schmidt, Barry Bonds, and Albert Pujols in the National League, and only Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Yoggi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, and Mike Trout) by batting .318, knocking in 107 runs, and homering 32 times despite missing more than 30 games. Losing the World Series to the New York Yankees in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, the Brooklyn Dodgers are finally able to get by the Yankees in 1955,but it takes a lot of energy and seven games for them to finally beat their hated foe ... and healthy for a change, Campanella is a big part of the turnaround. After losing the first two games to the Yankees (6-5 and 4-2), Campanella begins the comeback when with two outs in the first inning of the 3rd game, he hits a two run homer off Yankee Bob Turley and gets an RBI single in the 4th as Johnny Podres takes a 8-3 complete game win (on the young man's 23rd birthday). The Dodgers tie the series with their second win, 8-5 with Clem Labine getting the victory, while Campanella contributes another home run and a single. And then the Dodgers go up in the championship and win their third game in a row, 5-3, with timely hitting coming from Duke Snider (two home runs ... he will have four in the series, the only man thus far to hit four home runs in two different World Series'), Sandy Amoros (a two run blast), Carl Furillo, and Jackie Robinson. Only a game away from Nirvana, the Dodgers stumble once more and the Yankees win 5-1 on the pitching of future Hall-of-Famer, Whitey Ford. Tied again, a seventh game for all the marbles is needed with the Yankees sending Tommy Byrne to the mound, while the Dodgers pitch Johnny Podres once more. Pure unadulterated joy for the Dodgers and the city of Brooklyn, Podres throws a complete game shutout, 2-0, and wins the very first World Series MVP award (despite allowing eight hits and two walks) ... and setting up the first run, along with catching the game, Campanella smashes a double in the 4th inning that allows him to be driven in by a single from the bat of Gil Hodges (who will also knock in the other run too with a single in the 6th inning), for the series, the catcher will have seven hits in seven games, two singles, three doubles, and two home runs while scoring four times and knocking in four runs, along with walking three times.

Opening Game - 1955 - Yankee Stadium

Jackie Robinson Steals Home In Game One

Campy At Bat - Game Four

Into The Seats For A Foul Ball

Amoros Catch Of Yogi Berra Blast

Saves Game Seven

Champs - Don Hoak (3B), Roy Campanella (C),

And Johnny Podres (P) Celebrate Game Seven Victory

Locker Room With Podres

Forever moment achieved, the Dodgers try to duplicate the magic in Brooklyn for two years, while the management and owners of the club secretly make preparations to move the team out of New York City to the far shores of the Pacific and Los Angeles, California. Injuries starting to catch up with Campanella, his twice operated on glove hand (his left) constantly aches, and he breaks his right thumb when he hits the baseball bat of an opponent with his hand trying to throw out a baserunner trying to steal second, and misses 15 days because of the injury. For 1956, Campanella hits only .219 with 20 home runs, but the Dodgers win the pennant again and making the World Series again, lose yet another seven game series to the hated New York Yankees ... as with the season, hurts hobble Roy and he bats only .182 in the championship series with no home runs and seven strikeouts (the highlight for Campy is catching two more hitless game ... the second of Carl Erskine's career on May 12, 1956, and one from former foe, right handed Salvatore "Sal The Barber" Maglie <he will recall only waving off one of the catcher's pitch calls during the entire game>, that takes place on September 25, 1956). Off season surgery again, Campanella has little time to recover before the Dodgers ship him to Japan to participate in a series of exhibition games and then suddenly a new season arrives ... in which Campanella is still wounded and misses over 50 games, misses an All-Star berth for the first time since 1949, and bats only .246 with 13 homers as the Dodgers finish 3rd in the National League to the Milwaukee Braves, eleven games behind that year's world champions. In the last game of the season, on September 24, 1957, Campanella catches a home shutout (2-0) of the Pittsburgh Pirates in what will be the last Dodgers game to be played at Ebbets Field (the Dodgers home from 1913-1957) and the last the team plays as the professional baseball team from Brooklyn (1890-1957). Warned what will happen if the city doesn't build him a new stadium, real estate tycoon and Dodgers' majority owner, Walter Francis O'Malley, with the backing of fellow owners, announces on October 8, 1957, that the Dodgers will relocate to Los Angeles for the 1958. Though he has loved playing before the Brooklyn fans, Campanella looks at the move as a chance to play ball where it is warm and sunny ... the perfect spot for him to make a comeback from two injury plagued years. Tragically though, Campanella has played his last game of baseball.

MVP Best Catchers - Yogi Berra & Roy Campanella

Time Cover

With Jackie Robinson

Last Game At Ebbets Field

A professional athlete playing during a time when most players have off season jobs to make ends meet, in the wee, wintery early morning Tuesday hours of January 28, 1958, Campanella is driving home from a full day at his Manhattan liquor store (a business known as Roy Campanella Choice Wines and Liquors) when his life changes forever on an S-curve on Dosoris Road (near Apple Tree Lane), only five miles from his Glen Cove, New York home known as "Salt Spray" (a stately, $40,000 ten-room ranch house on Eastland Drive in the community of East Island). At the liquor store because he thinks he will be making a pitch for the Harlem Branch of the YMCA on New York's Dumont Television Network's WABD (on the popular show of the voice of the Washington Redskins, sportscaster Harry Wismer). Appearance postponed roughly an hour before showtime by Wismer in an effort to promote Campanella's appearance and gain better ratings the following week (the show normally takes place at around 10:45 in the evening, after the conclusion of televised boxing matches from New York's St. Nicholas Arena), Campanella decides to remain at his business and close up when quitting time arrives. Locking up at 1:30 in the morning, Campanella gets in his rented 1957 Chevrolet sedan (his own heavier Chevy is in the shop being worked on) and makes his way home driving about 30 miles per hour. Almost home, sometime around 3:30 in the morning, Campanella loses control of the vehicle on a patch of ice, goes into an unrecoverable slide, and crashes into a telephone pole that flips the Chevy over and pins the catcher under the steering wheel with major trauma to Campanella's spine, major trauma that turns the athlete into a paraplegic for the rest of his life in less time that it takes to snap a person's fingers (an alternate tale that only a few people are privy to is that Campanella leaves his store at around 12:30 in the evening and heads to a nightclub called Smalls' Paradise at 135th Street in Harlem, meets a female friend there that is not his wife, leaves after 2:00 in the morning, and almost home, with drinks in his system, no sleep in almost 24 hours, and freshly worn out from an illicit roll in the hay, falls asleep at the wheel of the Chevy and crashes into the telephone pole that cripples him shortly after).

The Telephone Pole

The Rented Chevy

Accident Car

Campy Goes To The Hospital

Major News

Cover Of Life

Rushed to Glen Cove Community Hospital, a team of five surgeons work on the father of five (married to his second wife, Ruthe Willis, in 1945, the couple will have three children together ... two sons and a daughter ... not amused by details about the accident or taking care of her badly damaged husband, the pair is in the process of getting divorced when Ruthe dies of a sudden heart attack in January of 1963 at the age of only 40) for almost five hours and save the catcher's life, but not his ability to walk. Immediate medical emergency over, Campanella is sent to the Rusk Institute of the New York University - Bellevue Medical Center for rehabilitation (when told of the hard work he will have to endure and asked if he thinks he is ready for the challenge by the Institute's founder, Dr. Howard A. Rusk, wearing his always present smile, the former catcher responds, "When do we start?"), a locale he will spend almost a year at ... all paid for by the Dodgers, who continue to pay his salary. Never able to play for the Los Angeles variation of the Dodgers, Campanella nonetheless becomes an icon of Southern California sports when on Thursday, May 7, 1959 (a good year for Roy, his autobiography, "It's Good To Be Alive," becomes a bestseller and will be made into TV-movie starring Paul Winfield as Campy, that is directed by Michael Landon), 93,103 baseball fans cram into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to honor Campy and wish him well on Roy Campanella Night, an exhibition game between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees (the Yankees win, 6-2) ... at the time, the largest crowd to ever attend a professional baseball game (proceeds from the game go to defray Campanella's continuing medical expenses, a total that reads $75,000 at the end of the night). And like manager Tommy Lasorda, Campanella will remain a Dodger for the rest of his life ... in January of 1959, Campy is named by the Dodgers as assistant supervisor of scouting for the eastern United States and special coach for the team's young catcher's during the annual spring training camps in Vero Beach, Florida. When he finally moves from New York City to Los Angeles in 1978, he is hired to be an assistant to the Dodgers' Director of Community Relations, Campy's friend and former teammate, pitcher Don Newcombe (by this time, with hours of tears and expended effort, Campanella is able to feed himself, shake hands, gesture with his arms and hands, and sign autographs using a special device strapped to his arm). And the honors continue as he becomes a universal symbol of courage (in 1964 he marries his last wife, Roxie Doles, who will stay by his side for the rest of his life) ... in July of 1969, Campanella becomes the second black player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum at Cooperstown, New York (teammate Jackie Robinson is the first), also in 1969, the City of New York awards Campanella it's highest civilian award for citizenship and achievement, the Bronze Medallion, in 1971, the catcher is elected into the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1972, Campanella has his #39 retired by the Dodgers (he is joined that year with the numbers of Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax being retire), appears as the celebrity guest on Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life, is ranked the 50th best player of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players is chosen by the Sporting News in 1999, becomes a 1999 nominee for inclusion on Major League Baseball's All-Century Team (he is beaten out by Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra, he is chosen to appear on a United States postage stamp in 2006 (honored along with Mickey Mantle, Hank Greenberg, and Mel Ott), is the subject of a Simon & Schuster biography by Neil Lanctot entitled Campy - The Two Lives of Roy Campanella, and has a movie made by the Hallmark Channel, "Roy Campanella Night," about the events leading up to his being honored at the Memorial Coliseum in 1959.

With Dr. Rusk

Roy Campanella Night

Roy Illuminated By The Matches & Lighters Of

Thousands

Tribute

Return To Ebbets Field

Spring Training With Don Drysdale

Perhaps the most fulfilling recognition of Campanella both as a baseball player and wonderful teammate comes in 2006, when the Dodgers announce the creation of the Roy Campanella Award for the Dodger that most exemplifies Roy's fighting spirit and determined leadership (as voted on by the team's players and coaches) ... the first honoree is shortstop Rafael Furcal (winners since have included Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Chase Utley, Justin Turner, and Chris Turner). Living much longer than expected based on his injuries, helping anyone he can whenever he can, Campanella finally succumbs to a heart attack in his Woodland Hills, California home on June 26, 1993 at the age of 71. Cremated, Campanella's ashes are interned at the Forest lawn, Hollywood Hills cemetery in Los Angeles.

1953

Hall Of Fame Plaque

Tribute Statue

Ready To Play Ball

1/28/1958 ... one of the great "what if" questions for major league baseball starts being asked as the Hall of Fame career of Roy Campanella comes to an unexpected end in Glen Cove, New York (the other involves Ted Williams losing several years of the prime of his career serving as a fighter pilot for the United States Marine Corps in WWII and the Korean War) ... what if his crippling accident had never taken place and what might Campy's final career stats have been if he hadn't spent years toiling in the Mexican league, South America, the Negro league, and the minors. Thirty-five years long, the glorious last chapter of Roy Campanella's life begins on this day in 1958.