Week at Camp Perspective

The Dodgers held their Adult Baseball Camp in Vero Beach, Fla., last week, giving participants a chance to meet such luminaries as Duke Snider, Maury Wills, Davey Lopes, Rick Monday and Mike Burke.

Mike Burke? He turned out to be the star of the camp. He’s a New York City firefighter, from Engine Co. 201, which lost four of its members when the World Trade Center collapsed Sept. 11.

Word spread quickly that there was a firefighter at Dodgertown. As soon as Burke started talking, his accent left no doubt that he was the guy from New York.

“Mike had 10 or 12 people surrounding him everywhere he went,” said Dodger General Manager Dan Evans. “People really appreciated what he was about and identified with him. The funniest part about it was to see these great players and very successful businessmen treating him like a deity.”

“Maury Wills asked me for my autograph,” Burke said. “This is weird.”

Burke, 30, is from Brooklyn, but he was born long after the Dodgers left for Los Angeles. Although he grew up a Mets’ fan, his father made sure he was well versed in the lore of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Former Brooklyn Dodgers Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine and Clem Labine were at the camp, in addition to L.A. Dodgers Jay Johnstone, Reggie Smith, Jeff Torborg and Steve Yeager.

The Dodgers wanted to invite a New York City firefighter. Burke, who once tried out for the Montreal Expos, had been a top player for the fire department’s softball team.

Lt. Dennis Monohan and Capt. Luke Lynch told him he should go. In fact, they ordered him to go.

Burke didn’t want to leave New York. He didn’t want to abandon the search, even though he fully realizes his buddies didn’t make it. It’s part of that firefighter code.

“If they find your guys, you want to carry them out,” Burke said. “You don’t want anybody else carrying them out.”

A week at Dodgertown made him feel he made the right choice.

“Now that I’m here, it’s a really nice break,” Burke said. “The people are really nice.”

Sports have been more than a diversion for Burke. It’s possible that sports saved his life.

A dozen firefighters had planned a golf outing on Staten Island for Sept. 11. Burke was scheduled to work that day, but he switched with another firefighter. That’s one of the things he likes about his job; you can take off any time you want as long as you find a replacement.

Burke was on the third hole when he heard an explosion. It was the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. After the second plane hit, they knew their day off was over. He found his brother Billy, a 22-year veteran of the fire department. They were riding the Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan when they saw the north tower collapse.

Burke arrived at the ferry terminal and walked about a mile and a half to the World Trade Center site.

“Everything was gray,” Burke said. “Fire trucks, the rigs, just crushed and torn apart. The buildings surrounding the trade center ... wreckage all over the place.”

After two hours of searching through the rubble, a chief told them to evacuate because the 7 World Trade Center building was going to come down. Half an hour later, it collapsed.

The ordeal taxed all of the senses. Burke talked of “smelling death” and of a scene so depressing that even the morale of the search-and-rescue dogs appeared down.

Burke worked at Ground Zero around the clock for two weeks. He’d stop home for half an hour, then head back to the scene.

And he couldn’t avoid feeling that he should have been there on Sept. 11, that he could have been buried beneath the rubble instead of digging through it.

“I got off to play golf,” Burke said. “I mean, golf . It’s a game. Sure, you have fun and stuff. I took off to have a round of golf. A couple guys worked for us and now they’re gone because we went to hit a ball around.”

Spending a week around ballplayers reminded him of just how human they can be. But coming from a family that has nine firefighters, including his father, Burke does not believe they should be treated differently, either.

“We’re not heroes; it’s our job,” Burke said.

If society wants to look up to firefighters and baseball players, there can be some good to come of that as well. Burke brought a helmet down from the station. The former players signed it, and it was auctioned off for $3,500. But Burke hopes a little perspective can come out of the Sept. 11 tragedy as well.

“Society today, I think maybe we got off track a little bit,” Burke said. “We needed something to wake us up to see who are the people kids should look up to. Baseball players ... they lead a good life, but they’re just playing ball....

“Heroes should be people’s parents.”

He sees nothing heroic in his line of work, either.

“That’s my job,” Burke said. “I get paid for it. I don’t think twice. Go into a burning building and save somebody’s life.”

Friday was the last day of camp. Today is Burke’s next day of work.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.