Duke of Flatbush

NO COMPLAINTS. I ENJOYED READING OF MY CHILDHOOD IDOL. THANK YOU, ROGER

Having read more than my share of books and seen more than my share of videos about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and having heard how "temperamental" Edwin Donald Snider is, I expected THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH to be a study in ego. I misjudged The Duke completely. Duke Snider was and still is my father's favorite Brooklyn Dodger. Even today, suffering from Alzheimer's, my Dad can recognize Snider in an old group photograph. For my Dad, there is something memorable and likeable about the man. After reading THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH, I'd have to agree. Snider is a consummate raconteur on these pages, sharing baseball stories and a lifetime's worth of insights about the game with his readers. THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH is never an exercise in character assassination masquerading as memoir. Rather, this is a genuine Hall of Fame player's reminiscence of the game in the good old fashioned sense of the word. Duke never snipes at anyone, and is rarely, and then only mildly, critical of others. He does say that Roger Kahn (The Boys of Summer) makes several errors in that book and paints too bleak a picture of most former Dodgers' post-baseball lives. He also calls sportswriters to task for selling papers through lurid misquotes and invention---though he admits, ruefully, that sometimes they were TOO accurate. Duke seems less temperamental than simply impulsive at times. His stories of being fined $25.00 for complaining about a $1.00 meal allowance, or getting into an argument with a Manager over a $0.75 dish of creamed cauliflower, point up the fact that he often couldn't shut his yap when yap-shutting was warranted, and also underscore the starvation wages that many ballplayers earned in his time ($5,000.00 per season was the rookie minimum in 1947). The Duke says that the money is infinitely better nowadays (which it is), but that ballplayers lack the sense of fun, the camaraderie, and the sense of bond with their teams and teammates that came from traveling on trains with and playing with most of the same men on the same team for sixteen years each summer, developing an almost psychic sense of rhythm and timing with them, a sense that propelled the Dodgers to the top of the league every year. Duke had a host of friends on the field and in the stands, or so it seems. The California native has an easygoing quality, but he describes himself as an "overworrier," and that indeed does seem to be the case. Surprisingly, Snider, a noted power hitter and topnotch center fielder, considered one of the best ever in either category, seems to have obsessed on his strikeout record, and flagellated himself unmercifully over a poor showing in the 1947 World Series (his first). The Duke has nothing but love for the intimate and shabby Brooklyn home of the Dodgers, and nothing but love for the army of characters that populated the place both on the field and in the stands. His best stories always involve his fellow Dodgers and their insanely dedicated fans, who would sometime

Duke Snider has filled this autobiography with wonderful stories and anecdotes and made it a thoroughly enjoyable read for baseball fans. No muckraking, no scandals, just the good stuff that we're really interested in as fans. He does state, as I've always asserted, that Roger Kahn made a lot of mistakes in "Boys of Summer" which is a totally disappointing book. Duke gives us insights into those great days of Brooklyn, the move to L.A., and his own struggles and triumphs as a ballplayer. The only thing missing was an appendix with his career statistics - that would have capped it off nicely. Thanks Duke !

Duke Snider recalls the days of his baseball career and his associations with the "Boys of Summer". His recollections of Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Reese, Campanella, etc. is a must-read! It not only talks about the ballplayers in their prime, but how they stayed close after they retired. Their friendships and how they cope with life's ups and downs shows us how they are human as well