Happy Birthday to the late and great Hall of Fame Centerfielder Duke Snider. In a career that lasted 18 seasons, Snider spent 16 of them with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers and one each with the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants. During his career, Snider was one of the greatest all-time players in Dodgers franchise history and was regarded as one of the best all-around players during the 1950s.

Career Statistics/Accolades (1947-1964):

.295 BA 2,116 HITS 407 HR 1,333 RBI 1,259 RUNS .380 OBP

  • 8x All-Star
  • 2x World Series Champion (1955 & 1959)

In the 1950s, the baseball world witnessed three future Hall of Fame Centerfielders in the same city—Mickey Mantle for the Yankees, Willie Mays for the Giants, and Duke Snider for the Dodgers. You can say that Snider got slightly overlooked because of Mantle and Mays. Nonetheless, Snider was a great all-around player. His 1,031 RBIs were the most by any baseball player during the 1950s. As a left-handed hitter, Snider drove in and scored over 100 runs six times and batted over .300 seven times. While he didn’t win an MVP like Mantle and Mays, he was close, losing to his teammate Roy Campanella by 5 points in 1955. Not only was Snider the Dodgers franchise leader in Home Runs and Runs Batted In, but he was critical of the Dodgers, making it to the World Series six times, winning twice, in which he hit .286 in a total of 36 World Series games. Fun fact: Snider holds the record for most Home Runs hit off a pitcher; he hit 19 off fellow hall-of-famer Robin Roberts.

While Snider primarily played in Center Field, he spent a fair amount of innings in both Left and Right Field. In Centerfield, he led all NL Centerfielders in Fielding Percentage three times in 1951, 1952 & 1955. Throughout 13,389.1 Innings in Center Field, he fielded .985 lifetime. 

It took until his 11th try, but in 1980, Snider was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Besides being overshadowed by Mantle and Mays, he retired short of the 500 HR, 1,500 RBI, and .300 Lifetime Average milestones. Nonetheless, while Snider may have been a borderline candidate as opposed to being a no-brainer, he had enough years of dominance and was rightfully enshrined. In 1999, he was ranked #83 on The Sporting News list of 100 Greatest Ballplayers.

References:

  1. Duke Snider via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Snider#
  2. Duke Snider Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/snidedu01.shtml