The Heart and Mind of Ron Gabriel

Few fans get elected to the Hall of Fame, but Chevy Chase’s own Ron Gabriel is a member of the Brooklyn Dodger Hall of Fame.  It hardly does justice to the former SABR Vice-President’s knowledge and devotion to the game.  No one knows the game better–at least not the way it was once played in Flatbush at the corner of McKeever and Sullivan.

Early in the interview, in swapping stories about baseball in the 1950′s I brought up Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series.  “It was like torture to Dodger fans.  At least in 1951 Bobby Thomson got it over with in one swing of the bat, but Larsen…”   Listening to Ron Gabriel, the founder and ongoing president of the “World-wide” Brooklyn Dodgers fan club, I knew then I was in for a rare treat, talking to someone who not only knows an incredible amount of baseball history, but also can tell a story.

Gabriel founded the Brooklyn Dodger fan club in 1975 and for many years they had an annual meeting with Schaefer Beer and hot dogs where they watched all the old videos, listened to all the old stories.  Those stories may be less well known now, but once they were told on every street corner in New York City, when the rivalry between the three New York teams, the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers, was all people talked about.

The rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees—that generates so much heat now—was nothing compared to those days according to Gabriel.  “The whole city held its breath during every World Series game when it was the Dodgers and Yankees.  It was the main topic of conversation on every street corner in the city.”

The greatest moment for Ron came in 1955, though, when Johnny Podres got the final ground out to Pee Wee Reese to win the seventh game of that World Series.  “At least we could say we beat the Yankees once after all those years,” said Ron.  “If the Dodgers had moved and never beaten the Yankees or just beaten someone else that year, the Yankee fans would have always said Brooklyn couldn’t beat the best.  But we did it.”

Ron’s favorite Dodger was Pee Wee Reese, the captain, but we spent more time talking about Gil Hodges and why he is not in the Hall of Fame, and Jackie Robinson and why he is.  “When Hodges was the manager of the Senators, I used to go to games just to see him walk to the mound.  And as bad as the Senators pitchers were, he went a lot,” said Ron.

Gabriel believes that Hodges was cheated of his rightful place by an early and tragic death.  His career numbers compare well to Duke Snider’s and Roy Campanella’s both of whom are in the hall, and his importance to one of the great teams of all time would suffice if he had gotten the exposure over the years that he lost when he died suddenly in 1972.  When Hodges retired—in the pre-steroid era—he had more home runs (370)  than any right-handed hitter in NL history, and more grand slams (14).

Hodges was coming off three successful years managing the Mets, including the Amazin’ Mets of 1969 when he was struck with a fatal heart attack.  He was playing golf with Rube Walker when it happened.  Gabriel believes the overall weight of his career as a player would have gotten more publicity if his managing career had been extended.

Ron is a guest lecturer on Jackie Robinson in a class at George Washington University in DC called, “Race, Sports, and the American Dream.”  In the modern era many people have come to focus on Jackie Robinson as the player who broke the color barrier.  Ron does not diminish that, but remembers Jackie so fondly as a truly great player that it is refreshing to hear.  He believes that Branch Rickey’s decision to use Jackie in that role was “the greatest human resource decision in our nation’s history.”  But modern fans and some writers forget just how good a player Jackie Robinson was.

“He had the greatest impact of any player.  Mickey Mantle said that if he had one guy he could pick to be on his team, it would be Jackie Robinson,” said Gabriel.  “Ten percent of all of Jackie Robinson’s stolen bases were of home.  He got out of run-downs more than fifty percent of the time,” according to Ron.   Ron and I both had seen Jacoby Ellsbury’s steal of home several weeks ago against the Yankees and talked about the lost art of stealing home.  Robinson may have been the best of all time, but the effect of his style of play is sometimes overshadowed by the huge impact he had overall.

One Dodger in the Hall of Fame does not bring delight to Ron Gabriel.  “Walter O’Malley was motivated by greed,” he says referencing recent books like Michael D’Antonio’s Forever Blue that have come out taking a more sanguine view of O’Malley’s motive for the move.  “Robert Moses isn’t the one who moved the team,” says Ron.  It has become O’Malley’s best excuse, namely that Moses would sell him the land to build a new stadium.  Michael Shapiro may have started it in The Last Good Season, but Gabriel is having none of it.

Gabriel believes the books fail to say just how wealthy the Dodger franchise was.  “They had great radio and television contracts.  They were the wealthiest team in baseball.  Ebbetts Field was a small park but had the second highest NL attendance at the time (53-57),” according to Gabriel.

Teams like the Boston Braves, the St. Louis Browns and the Washington Senators may have been forced to move for complicated financial reasons, but O’Malley was making lots of money in the City.  There is no excusing what was an immoral decision according to Gabriel.

We discussed the idea that in the fifties New York City hosted three of the sixteen major league teams and all three were among the most successful.  Yet now there are only two and it skews the competitive balance of the game as money has gotten more important.  “In 1958, after the Giants and the Dodgers had left town, the Yankees lost attendance.”  So after the competition had left the Yankees as the only game in town, the lack of competition actually hurt the only team left standing.

It is an interesting point and one worth remembering the next time the commissioners office starts talking about how the San Francisco or Washington-Baltimore areas are too small to support two teams.  Getting the man—or woman—on the street talking about the other team may be as important to generating a fan base as all the marketing by TV announcers selling the team to the fans.

In the next few months when you are trying to decide whether to come to this year’s SABR convention in DC, remember that Ron Gabriel will be there.  He is worth the price of admission and I recommend that you seek him out, especially if you want to talk about baseball in New York City as it was played in the fifties.

“It is still the greatest game, still America’s pastime” says Ron.  As the French-born American historian Jacque Barzun said once, “If you want to know the hearts and minds of Americans, you have to know baseball.”  Old Jacque would agree that Ron Gabriels’ heart and mind are both in the right place.