1959 benefit game for Roy Campanella

[Harry Hooper]

Caught part of an Antiques Roadshow episode on PBS which included a guy from Hawaii getting a photo appraised. The photo featured him as a 10-year-old between Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, and the photo was taken when the Dodgers were touring Hawaii. The appraiser said it had to be one of the last photos of Jackie taken wearing a Dodger uniform as a player.

Anyway, I popped over to the Wikipedia entry on Campanella, and I noticed this section about the benefit game held in LA after Roy's car accident:

On May 7, 1959, the Dodgers, then playing their second season in Los Angeles, honored him with Roy Campanella Night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The New York Yankees agreed to make a special visit to Los Angeles (between road series in Kansas City and Chicago) to play an exhibition game against the Dodgers for the occasion. The Yankees won the Thursday night game 6–2, with an attendance of 93,103, setting a record at that time for the largest crowd to attend a Major League Baseball game. The proceeds from the game went to defray Campanella's medical bills.

Interesting to have the Yankees traveling out to LA mid-season for the exhibition game that had massive attendance. Also, the newspaper story cited by Wikipedia includes this detail that predates stadium rock concerts by a decade or two:

Fans gave him another treat between the fifth and sixth innings, when all the lights in the huge arena were turned off and the spectators lit matches and cigarette lighters. It filled the Coliseum with a spectacular, glittering glow.

 

[mwonow]

That's very cool, thanks for sharing! Nice that the Yankees travelled to LA to support the event, props, even if I'm not big on thinking of the MFYs as a team with a heart.

 

[Koufax]

That's a heart warming story. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Al Zarilla]

Campy played in an era when salaries were not high, and players, even all stars and future HOFers like him had to work during the offseason to support their families. So, he was injured when his car skidded out on ice on his way home after closing his liquor store on a January night. He was paralyzed for the rest of his life, gaining however some use of hands and arms with therapy.

 

[worm0082]

Mantle out with “the flu”

 

[Marciano490]

Another cool bit of Campanella trivia:

For the 1946 season, Robinson was assigned to the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' affiliate in the Class AAA International League. On March 18, 1946, Campanella signed a contract to play for Danville Dodgers of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League.[10] After the general manager of the Danville Dodgers reported that he did not feel the league was ready for racial integration, the organization sent Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe to the Nashua Dodgers of the Class B New England League, where the Dodgers felt the climate would be more tolerant. The Nashua team thus became the first professional baseball team of the 20th century to field a racially integrated lineup in the United States.

 

[Max Power]

To be pedantic, it's the first MLB affiliated team to field an integrated lineup. There were a bunch of professional barnstorming teams that were integrated in the early part of the 1900s. There was the All Nations team, some "all Japanese" teams that only had a handful of Japanese players, and the House of David team which sometimes featured Satchel Paige in a fake beard.

 

[runnels3]

... the organization sent Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe to the Nashua Dodgers of the Class B New England League, where the Dodgers felt the climate would be more tolerant. The Nashua team thus became the first professional baseball team of the 20th century to field a racially integrated lineup in the United States.

Took these last year driving by Holman Stadium.

 

[Average Reds]

Caught part of an Antiques Roadshow episode on PBS which included a guy from Hawaii getting a photo appraised. The photo featured him as a 10-year-old between Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, and the photo was taken when the Dodgers were touring Hawaii. The appraiser said it had to be one of the last photos of Jackie taken wearing a Dodger uniform as a player.

Anyway, I popped over to the Wikipedia entry on Campanella, and I noticed this section about the benefit game held in LA after Roy's car accident:




Interesting to have the Yankees traveling out to LA mid-season for the exhibition game that had massive attendance. Also, the newspaper story cited by Wikipedia includes this detail that predates stadium rock concerts by a decade or two:

I just saw this thread, so apologies for the untimely bump.

Reading about the moment between the fifth and sixth inning when they turned out the lights and lit matches and lighters made me remember a picture of that night that I had not though of since I was a boy in the 60s.

 

[Harry Hooper]

Very cool, thanks for adding that here, AR.