Dodgers Dugout: The 25 greatest Dodgers of all time, No. 7: Roy Campanella

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell as we continue the top-25 countdown.

Readers voted in droves, submitting 15,212 ballots by email, Twitter and Facebook. Voters were asked for their top 10 Dodgers in order from 1 to 10, with first place receiving 12 points, second place nine points, third place eight, all the way down to one point for 10th place.

The last time we did this was in 2018, and there were some changes in the rankings.

So, without further ado:

The 25 greatest Dodgers, No. 7: ROY CAMPANELLA (162 first-place votes, 45,636 points)
2018 rank: 7th

One of the greatest catchers of all time, Roy Campanella (he did not have a middle name) was born Nov. 19, 1921 in Philadelphia. He loved baseball as a kid and grew up a Phillies fan. They once offered him an invitation to try out but rescinded it when they found out he was Black.

Campanella played in the Negro Leagues after high school and in Oct. 1945, he was the catcher for an all-star team that played five games against a team of major leaguers at Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodger manager Chuck Dressen led the major leaguers and was impressed by Campanella. He touted him to Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who arranged a meeting.

Rickey offered Campanella a contract but he said no, because he mistakenly thought Rickey was offering him a contract with the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, a Negro Leagues team Rickey was rumored to be starting. The next week, Campanella and Jackie Robinson happened to be staying at the same hotel. Robinson told Campanella he had signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was then that Campanella realized what Rickey was offering. He sent Rickey a telegram asking if he could sign with the team.

Campanella played for the Dodgers from 1948 until his career was cut short after the 1957 season. In that time, all he did was: win three NL MVP awards, make eight All-Star teams, hit 242 homers, have a .500 slugging percentage and play Gold Glove-worthy defense behind the plate.

Campanella was the sixth Black player in the majors after the color barrier was broken. He already was 26 when he started and his career ended because of a car accident, making Campanella the Hall of Famer with the fewest number of plate appearances among position players. But he packed a lot into those plate appearances.

Campanella received the NL MVP award in 1951, 1953 and 1955. In 1955, he led the Dodgers to their first World Series title. His 142 RBIs in 1953 broke the franchise record of 130, which had been held by Jack Fournier (1925) and Babe Herman (1930) and they still rank second after Tommy Davis’ 153 in 1962.

The Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, and Campanella was all set to be the team’s starting catcher in Los Angeles. On Jan. 28, 1958, while driving in New York, Campanella’s car hit a patch of ice, ran into a telephone pole and overturned. Campanella broke his neck and was paralyzed. He eventually regained use of his arms but remained in a wheelchair for the rest of his life before dying of a heart attack on June 26, 1993.

On May 7, 1959, the Dodgers honored their longtime catcher with Roy Campanella Night at the L.A. Coliseum. The Dodgers played the New York Yankees in an exhibition game before a crowd of 93,103, the largest to attend a Major League Baseball game.

On a personal note, my mom was friends with a woman who had season seats in the front of the club level (where the press box is) in the early to mid-1980s. She often invited us to games. Sitting next to the press box in those days was Campanella, in his wheelchair, taking in each game. I was a teenager and painfully shy, so I would pass by him each time we went to a game, but never said anything to him. He was a legendary figure and it was an honor just to be on the same level with him. Finally, one game I worked up the courage to walk up to him and say, “Mr. Campanella, I’m sorry to bother you. I just wanted to say hi and tell you what a big fan I am of you.” He smiled and I started to walk away. He called me over, asked my name, and for the next two innings or so, I sat next to Roy Campanella as we talked about baseball and the Dodgers. It remains one of the great moments of my life.

Previously

No. 8: Tommy Lasorda

No. 9: Pee Wee Reese

No. 10: Fernando Valenzuela

No. 11: Maury Wills

No. 12: Zack Wheat

No. 13: Gil Hodges

No. 14: Walter Alston

No. 15: Steve Garvey

No. 16: Branch Rickey

No. 17: Walter O’Malley

No. 18: Don Sutton

No. 19: Orel Hershiser

No. 20: Mike Piazza

No. 21: Don Newcombe

No. 22: Mookie Betts

No. 23: Dazzy Vance

No. 24: Kirk Gibson

No. 25: Eric Gagné

And finally

Vin Scully talks about Roy Campanella. Watch and listen here.