Carl Erskine, 1926-2024

I see the boys of summer in their ruin

Lay the gold tithings barren,

Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils.

Dylan Thomas wrote that. The great Welsh poet died on November 9, 1953, in New York, from the effects of raging alcoholism. Roger Kahn had just completed 2 seasons as the beat reporter for the Brooklyn Dodgers for the New York Herald Tribune. He would later write a book about the Dodger players that he covered in the 1952 and '53 seasons.

The last survivor of the players he looked up while they were in middle age, and profiled in the book The Boys of Summer, was Carl Erskine.

In 1985, with a few of the others still alive, rock and roll legend Don Henley wrote this:

I can tell you

my love for you will still be strong

after the boys of summer have gone.

Henley was from Texas, not a Dodger fan, and wasn't talking about baseball. Nevertheless, the "boys" of whom Kahn wrote -- as is Kahn himself -- are now all gone.

*

Carl Daniel Erskine was born on December 13, 1926 in Anderson, Indiana. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he signed as a pitcher with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He made his major league debut on July 26, 1948, pitching the 7th inning for the Dodgers, against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field. He ended up as the winning pitcher in a 7-6 Dodger win.

The Brooks were in a transition: The men who'd led them to the National League Pennant in 1941 and 1947, and nearly did so in 1942 and 1946, were, or had been, traded away, due to either advancing age or their unwillingness to play with the 1st black player in modern baseball, Jackie Robinson. The men who would help the Dodgers win 5, and nearly 7, out of 8 Pennants were on their way up, and Erskine was one of them.

He was not one of the Dodger players who had a problem with playing with a black man. He recalled a moment from early in his career, meeting Jackie, his wife Rachel, and their son, Jackie Jr.:

In Brooklyn, I came out of the clubhouse one day, and there was an area where wives and family members could wait. When I came out of the clubhouse, Rachel and little Jackie were there. I just walked over, the natural thing to do, and talked with them for a few minutes.

The next day, Jackie said he wanted to thank me for what I did. I said, "I didn't pitch yesterday." He said, "No, you walked over to talk, out in front of the crowd, to talk with Jackie and Rachel." I was almost embarrassed. I said, "Jackie, don't thank me for that. Shake my hand for a well-pitched game." That was a natural thing for me to do. But he was impressed by that.

Soon, Dodger fans would be impressed with the man who, in their Brooklyn accent, called "Oisk." He was used mainly as a reliever in the Pennant season of 1949, and the near-miss seasons of 1950 and '51. In 1951, he went 16-12 with 4 saves. He was in the bullpen, along with Ralph Branca, in the bottom of the 9th inning of the Playoff game between the Dodgers and their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, when manager Charlie Dressen needed a relief pitcher.

Erskine had one of the best curveballs in the game at the time, but, at just the right moment, he threw a bad one. Bullpen coach Clyde Sukeforth saw this, and told Dressen over the phone that Branca looked better. Branca gave up a Pennant-winning home run to Bobby Thomas. Erskine would later call the curveball he bounced in the bullpen dirt the best pitch he ever threw.

Dressen moved Erskine into the starting rotation in 1952. It worked: Erskine went 14-6 with a 2.70 ERA, including a no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs on June 19. He went 20-6 in 1953, leading the NL with a .769 winning percentage. In Game 4 of the World Series, against the New York Yankees, he struck out 14 batters, a World Series record that stood for 10 years, and a record for righthanders that stood for 15 years. Still, the Dodgers lost both Series.

Those seasons, 1952 and '53, were Roger Kahn's years covering the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. He got to know the players very well. Kahn's father was a Dodger fan, but was also was a book editor, and his mother was a schoolteacher, so he had a healthy respect for good writing. Kahn wrote of how Erskine sat next to him on a team flight, and they recited poetry to each other.

Don Newcombe, the Dodgers' best pitcher in that era, missed the entire '52 and '53 seasons, serving in the Korean War. For that reason, he was not one of the Dodger players that Kahn profiled in The Boys of Summer, as he looked up his former heroes, to see what they were doing in middle age: 2nd baseman Jackie Robinson, catcher Roy Campanella, 1st baseman Gil Hodges, shortstop Harold "Pee Wee" Reese, center fielder Edwin "Duke" Snider (all eventually Hall-of-Famers), 3rd baseman Billy Cox, left fielders George "Shotgun" Shuba and Andy Pafko, right fielder Carl "the Reading Rifle" Furillo; and pitchers Erskine, Elwin "Preacher" Roe, Clem Labine and Joe Black.

In 1954, Erskine went 18-15, and made his only All-Star Game. In 1955, he went 11-8, and the Dodgers finally won the World Series, beating the Yankees, after losing to them in the Series of 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953. (They also lost to the Boston Red Sox in 1916, and the Cleveland Indians in 1920.)

In 1956, he seemed to slow down, only going 13-11. He did, however, pitch a 2nd no-hitter, against the hated Giants, on May 12, 1956. It was the 1st no-hitter broadcast on national television, on the NBC Game of the Week. Given that the Dodgers were still the defending World Champions, and that Robinson was still with the team, this may have been the all-time high-water mark for Brooklyn baseball.

The Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees that year. Robinson retired after it. In 1957, the Dodgers were moved to Los Angeles. Erskine lasted until 1959, but was not on the Dodgers' roster when they made that year's World Series. He finished his career with a record of 122-78, an ERA of 4.00, and a WHIP of 1.328.

He went back to Indiana, and coached the baseball team at Anderson College, an NAIA school, winning 4 league titles. He became president of the Star Bank of Anderson. In 1960, already with 3 children, Danny, Gary and Susan, Carl and Betty Erskine became the parents of James. He was born with Down syndrome.

It was a time when many doctors told parents that babies with Down syndrome should be sent to an institution, that they would be a societal hindrance, that they would disrupt family life. Carl and Betty wouldn't do that. Instead, they raised Jimmy just as they did their other three children.

Ted Green, a documentary filmmaker, said in his film The Best We've Got: The Carl Erskine Story, "They let him fly. They took Jimmy out with them wherever they went, to church, to restaurants. It was always Jimmy was there and if he acted up, he acted up." Just like every other kid acts up. The Erskines blazed a trail for other families with children who had special needs. They showed quietly though their actions how to raise a child with intellectual disabilities.

As an adult, Jimmy lived at home, and held a job nearby, at the Hopewell center, for people with developmental difficulties, assisting those who didn't have parents as strong as his own. Together, the Erskines, parents and children, raised money for the Special Olympics.

Anderson named an elementary school and a hospital after him. Brooklyn named a street after him. In 2010, Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana gave him the State's highest honor, the Sachem Award. In 2023, the Baseball Hall of Fame gave him the Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to charity.

That year, Jimmy's health difficulties caught up with him, and he died at the age of 63, which is longer than most Down's patients live. It's not much of a surprise that Carl Erskine died yesterday, April 16, 2024, at the age of 97, less than a year after his son.

Hodges was the 1st of "the Boys of Summer" to die, in 1972. Robinson, due to his health difficulties, told a reporter at Hodges' funeral that he believed he would be the 1st to go. He wasn't off by much, dying later in the year. Cox died in 1978, Furillo in 1989, Campanella in 1993, Reese in 1999, Black in 2002, Labine in 2007, Roe in 2008, Snider in 2011, Pafko in 2013, Shuba in 2014, and Newcombe in 2019. Now, with Erskine, they're all gone.

With his death, that leaves 5 living former Brooklyn Dodgers: Tommy Brown, Jim Gentile, Fred Kipp, Bob Aspromonte and Sandy Koufax. It leaves Koufax as the last surviving member of the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers, although Erskine was the last one who played in that World Series. And it leaves 3 surviving players who played in the 1940s: Ed Mickelson, Frank Saucier and Bobby Shantz.