Carl Erskine, Dodgers pitcher and last of ‘Boys of Summer,’ dies at 97

Carl Erskine, a standout pitcher who was the last of the “Boys of Summer,” the celebrated Brooklyn Dodgers team of the 1940s and 1950s that broke baseball’s racial barrier with Jackie Robinson and became a National League power, died April 16 at a hospital in Anderson, Ind. He was 97.

The death was confirmed by Ted Green, a filmmaker who directed a 2022 documentary on Erskine, “The Best We’ve Got.” The cause was related to pneumonia, Green said.

Erskine became an anchor of the Brooklyn pitchstaff at a time when New York was the hub of the baseball universe, with three major league teams. The Dodgers overcame a reputation as lovable losers to reach the World Series six times in 10 years – always against their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees.

The team was the pride of Brooklyn, but after the 1957 season, the Dodgers and New York Giants departed the city for the West Coast, leaving their fans with an enduring sense of loss. Writer Roger Kahn, who covered the Dodgers for the New York Herald Tribune in the early 1950s, sought to show how the spirit of Brooklyn was intertwined with the fortunes of Dodgers in his widely admired 1972 book, “The Boys of Summer.”

His heartfelt account portrayed the Dodgers and their vanished era in almost mythic terms. “In the dead sunlight of a forgotten spring,” he wrote, “the major leaguers were trim, graceful and effortless. They might even have been gods for these seemed true Olympians to a boy who wanted to become a man and who sensed that it was an exalted manly thing to catch a ball with one hand thrust across your body and make a crowd leap to its feet and cheer.”

Erskine, the last surviving player prominently featured in Kahn’s book, played alongside such Hall of Fame stars as outfielder Duke Snider, infielders Gil Hodges and Pee Wee Reese, catcher Roy Campanella and, of course, Robinson, an infielder who in 1947 became the major leagues’ first black player.

Erskine was not an intimidating figure, at 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds, but he had an excellent curveball and change-up and was a mainstay of a pitching staff that included Don Newcombe, Preacher Roe, Ralph Branca and Woonsocket native Clem Labine. The young right-hander was dubbed, in exaggerated Brooklynese, “Oisk.”

During the first game he started in the majors, against the Chicago Cubs in 1948, Erskine tore a muscle in the back of his shoulder. In those days, medical treatment for injuries was rudimentary, and Erskine feared that if he complained, he would be labeled a “sore armed pitcher” and would lose his spot on the roster. As a result, the injury plagued him throughout his 12-year career, and he often pitched in pain.

Erskine appeared in five World Series and had a dramatic 11-inning complete-game victory over the Yankees in 1952, but the Dodgers fell short of winning the title.

A year later, he had one of his best seasons, with a 20-6 record, as he helped lead the Dodgers to another National League pennant. He took the mound in the third game of the World Series, and through eight innings had recorded 12 strikeouts (including four by Mickey Mantle). In the Yankee dugout, veteran slugger Johnny Mize chided his teammates for swinging at Erskine’s sharply dropping overhand curveball.

“All afternoon I could hear him yelling at the Yankee hitters,” Erskine told Kahn in “The Boys of Summer.” “‘What are you doing, being suckers for that miserable bush curve?’”

Holding a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth, Erskine struck out pinch hitter Don Bollweg. The next batter was another pinch hitter, Mize – who struck out. Erskine’s 14 strikeouts set a new World Series record, which was later broken by Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson.

Despite Erskine’s efforts, the Yankees won the series. The Dodgers finally broke the spell in 1955, defeating the Yankees in seven games for the only World Series title in Brooklyn history. (Erskine started the fourth game, which the Dodgers won, but he did not figure in the decision.)

Carl Daniel Erskine was born Dec. 13, 1926, in Anderson, a midsize city in central Indiana. His father owned a grocery store and later worked in a factory. His mother was a homemaker.

In his early teens, Erskine was taught how to throw a curveball by his father, who once broke the family’s china cabinet while demonstrating the pitch. Young Carl’s large hands and supple wrist helped him put a tight spin on his curve, and he was noticed by a Brooklyn scout while still in high school.

After graduating, Erskine served in the Navy during World War II, based in Boston. He signed with the Dodgers in 1946 for a $3,500 bonus – more money than his father made in a year.

His contract was later voided because of a rule banning teams from signing players still on active military duty. After his discharge, Erskine was pursued by several teams, but he felt loyal to the Dodgers and signed a new contract for $5,000, in addition to his earlier bonus. After bouncing between Brooklyn and the minor leagues – with a stint playing winter ball in Cuba – he found a permanent spot in the Dodgers’ pitching rotation in 1950.

During an era when many ballplayers were hard-drinking and rowdy, Erskine was clean-living and refined. He recited poetry from memory, enjoyed classical music and, on road trips to other cities, liked to visit museums.