Carl Erskine
Happy 91st birthday to Carl Erskine, who threw two no-hitters for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Erskine threw his first against the Chicago Cubs at Ebbets Field on Thursday, June 19, 1952, for a 5-0 win. He followed it up four years later with a Saturday, May 12, 1956, no-no against the New York Giants for a 3-0 win at Ebbets Field.
Author: Dirk Lammers
http://www.nonohitters.com/about-the-author/ Dirk Lammers is a veteran journalist who began rooting for the New York Mets in the early-1970s when the team’s no no-hitter count was barely 2,000 games old. Lammers has since turned his research into Baseball’s No-Hit Wonders: More Than a Century of Pitching’s Greatest Feats (Unbridled Books).
Erskine’s no hitter vs the Cubs was the first Major League Baseball game I ever attended. I vividly remember the drive from stock away Beach up Flatbush to the ballpark … the astonishing rotunda with the chandelier of bats above us as we went in … the peanut-hotdog-popcorn odor wafting through … the very instant I saw the stunning interior as my dad led me by the hand up the cement ramp into the daylight behind home plate … the dazzling palate of primary colors, from the crayon green grass and the black and red scoreboard to the signs on the outfield fences and the milk white Dodgers home uniforms with the Royal blue felt script “Dodgers” name above the blood red felt numbers ( ’52 was the first year they sported those red numbers) … and the wonderful names that intrigued me so much like Miksis and Findy and Campanella and Furillo …. a rich tapestry of a memory that I still can see.
What a great memory! My first live game was just a four-hitter at Shea, but I still remember the awe walking through that tunnel and seeing the field in its colorful glory.