It was Roger Kahn who introduced me to the Brooklyn Dodgers, through his book, The Boys of Summer. This book became an instant hit with baseball fans when it was published in 1972, and has remained one of the all-time baseball classics.

Kahn died on February 6; he was 92.

Sometime around 1981, when I was in high school, I began a fascination with the former Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. I don’t remember why this team that moved to Los Angeles, many years before I was born, became important to me, but all I remember is I wanted to learn as much as I could about the team that played in Brooklyn in the 1950s.

Someone suggested I read Kahn’s book, and I had no problem finding a paperback version in our local bookstore. Kahn wrote a very emotional story about his and his father’s love of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and how they shared that commonality, and how it carried into his career as a young sports writer for the New York Herald Tribune.

Kahn presented these baseball stars as humans, just like you and me. He wrote of their frailties, the triumphs and their tragedies. He introduced us to the side of these baseball players we didn’t know about. Kahn wrote about how Pee Wee Reese, a player from the South (Kentucky) defended Jackie Robinson and welcomed him as the first black player in Major League Baseball. He explained how Carl Erskine was so devoted to the care and education of his son Jimmy, who had Down Syndrome.

After reading The Boys of Summer, I began a letter writing campaign to several of the players featured in the book, and requested autographs from each of them. I was in my glory when I received in the mail autographs from Reese, Erskine, and Preacher Roe. I was working for the Jamestown Expos at the time, and when I went to Montreal, I got to meet and get an autograph from former Brooklyn outfielder, Duke Snider, who was a broadcaster for the Expos.

In 1983, word spread throughout the New York-Penn League that not only were actors Bill Murray and his brother Brian Doyle Murray part owners of the Utica Blue Sox, but that Roger Kahn had also purchased an interest in the team. When Utica came to play Jamestown, to my surprise, Kahn was with the team. I was thrilled when I saw him at the ballpark, but didn’t have his book with me. He said he would be there the next night, as well, so I was able to get his autograph on the book.

In talking with Kahn, he explained to me he was more than just a part owner of the independent (unaffiliated) team in our league, he was also gathering stories to put in a book about the Blue Sox. That book, Good Enough to Dream, was published in 1985.

A few years later, I had the opportunity meet Russ “The Mad Munk” Meyer, who showed me his 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers World Series Championship ring, and in 1988, I met Bob Milliken, who had played for the Brooklyn (1953-54) and was then a scout.

So, my love for the Brooklyn Dodgers was solidified. Since then, I have watched numerous biographies and documentaries about those Dodgers teams and players from that era, and I still get a bit sentimental whenever the subject of the Brooklyn Dodgers comes up.

THE NATURAL

Ironically, not only did Kahn introduce me to the Brooklyn Dodgers, but his book also introduced me to what would become one of my favorite baseball novels of all time; Bernard Malamud’s The Natural. Kahn mentions the 1952 novel in The Boys of Summer, and when I read about The Natural, it made me put down Kahn’s book and begin reading Malamud’s novel.

 Now remember, this was in 1981, but two years later, I heard that the movie The Natural was going to be filmed in our area, and I just had to be in this movie. After all, I had read the book and fell in love with it.

As luck would have it, I couldn’t go to Buffalo on the evenings of the local auditions, because I had to work Jamestown Expos home games those nights. So, instead, I contacted the production office in Buffalo and made it clear I was still interested in being in the movie, if there was any part they could give me. A couple days later, I got a call from a lady telling me they selected me to be a paid extra, and I needed to go to come to Buffalo (a 70-mile drive) to get my hair cut in the 1930s style, and get fitted for wardrobe. Boom, I was in, and yes, I could actually see myself in the movie when it hit the big screen in 1984.

Thank you, Roger Kahn. Thank you for helping me appreciate a team I never got to see play, and for encouraging me to read a novel before it ever became a famous movie, that would become a part of my resume the rest of my life.