#16 Joe Pignatano

Catcher Joe Pignatano was signed off the streets of Brooklyn in 1948. Debuting for the Dodgers that very year was a guy named Roy Campanella. If Joe had only known. And he nearly didn't make a career of it according to his SABR bio. Read the part about his mother calling the Dodgers front office. Nice.

But he patiently worked his way up the Dodger system, served two military years, and made the big club in 1957. When Campy suffered his spinal injury that winter Pignatano was plugged in behind the plate along with Johnny Roseboro. He played with the Dodgers through 1960 and earned a World Series ring in '59. He was sold to the A's for the '61 season and had his best season while getting a career high of nearly 300 at bats. After a season (1962) split between the Giants and Mets Pigatano was back in the minors for a few years before he became a coach with the Senators, Mets and Braves. In those first two coaching jobs he was working under his friend and former teammate Gil Hodges.

Here is a strange but apparently true story culled from Pignatano's Bullpen page at Baseball Reference:

Playing for the Fort Worth Cats in 1955, Pignatano was listed as the number 8 batter in the lineup on May 29. In the second inning he went to the plate in the number 7 spot and hit a home run. On appeal by the opposing Shreveport Sports, the hit was nullified and the proper batter, Maury Wills, was called out. Pignatano then batted in the number 8 spot, and hit another homer.

And finally here is Vin Scully broadcasting the Dodgers game on the night of Joe Pignatano's MLB debut as a catcher. He asks anyone who knows the Pignatano family to call Joe's wife at home in Brooklyn to alert her of Joe's impending shot. This is why I love Vin Scully!

Turns out Joe did get into the game, taking over behind the plate for Roy Campanella who had been run for in the fifth as was asked to handle Sandy Koufax' fastballs. He singled in his first at bat and whiffed in his second.

The easily recognizable LA Coliseum looms behind Pignatano smiling face on this card. He sure looks different than I remember him a decade later with the Mets.

#258 Fred Kipp

Here's one that could stand to be upgraded, the Dodgers' Fred Kipp. It looks worse in the scan than it does in my binder. When this card was issued Kipp was coming off a 40 appearance season in Los Angeles including nine starts. 

He was a left-handed knuckleballer who swung a good bat. He showed that with a .250 average during his 1958 season. In bits and pieces of three other seasons in the bigs he got into just seven other games. He had been a workhorse in the Dodgers chain and ended his career with a 3 season run the Yankees AAA Richmond affiliate beginning in 1960. 

I like how, in typical Topps fashion, his cartoon takes three long sentences to say "He started a bunch in the minors but mostly relieved for the Dodgers last year." What does "trouble tossed" mean exactly?

Kipp is a member of the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame (don't laugh, Walter Johnson is in there, too. So is Ralph Houk) and attended Emporia State. I had a good friend who went there after we graduated high school in Jersey. Never really told me why.

This makes three Dodgers in the past week of so to be featured. For whatever that implies.

#217 Carl Erskine

I bet these pink frames were not very popular with kids at the time these cards were out but I think it looks good with the Dodger cap and card logo. And isn't that the Coliseum in the background? Sure looks like it.

Carl Erskine appears happy to be in Los Angeles but in my mind he's a Brooklyn Dodger. 1959 was his swan song with the Dodgers, appearing in just a handful of games. His retirement ended a nice career that saw him claim double digit wins in seven straight seasons. As his cartoon mentions he tossed a couple of no-hitters. He was a fan favorite in Brooklyn earning the nickname "Oisk" as derived from the Brooklynese calls of his name from the bleacher denizens in Ebbets Field.

At age 84 Carl still out there accepting awards and making appearances. He has his own website (actually his agency has it for him) and exploring it will gain you more tidbits and cool facts about the guy than I could hope to include here. Check it out.

I've mentioned living in Brooklyn but I was just a toddler, and we were not there long. My father was the one with the real ties to that borough having lived there for most of his life before going off the D.C. to attend college. My dad was a Yankee fan. He lived literally down the street from Ebbetts Field and never went there to see the Dodgers play. I asked him a few times why that was and he seemed surprised that I'd asked. He said he was a Yankee fan and "why would I go see the Dodgers play?" I never understood that but it made perfect sense to him. He never went, that is, until he scored seats for Game 5 of the 1949 World Series between the Yanks and Dodgers. He got to see the Yanks close out the Dodgers and he saw Carl Erskine pitch. I bet he appreciated the former a lot more than the later.