Remembering The Swamp Fox

Every baseball fan knows about the so-called "Shot Heard Around the World," on Oct. 3, 1951, when Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit a three-run homer in the ninth inning to given the Giants a 5-4 victory in the final game of a National League playoff series against their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Not so many people remember that the come-from-behind rally that Thomson ended so dramatically began with a single to right field by Giants captain and shortstop Alvin Dark, who died Nov. 13 at the age of 92 of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

He'd made a name for himself well before he was signed to a big league contract. After graduating from Lake Charles High School, he became an All-SEC halfback at LSU — where his heroics against Ole Miss in 1942 were almost as legendary as Billy Cannon's famous run. LSU won 21-7, as Dark ran for two touchdowns, one 70 yards and one 46 yards, and as a punter dropped the ball inside the Rebel two yard line three times.

After that season he joined the Marines and was sent to the Southwestern Louisiana Institute (UL-Lafayette today) as part of the V-12 officer training program. He led the SLI Bulldogs to an undefeated season and their first bowl game, which they won. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League in 1945, but he chose baseball when he came home from the Pacific after World War II. 

I met him, by accident, when I was a teenager in Lake Charles. His home was on the back nine of the country club golf course (which I got to play because I was a lifeguard there) and I sliced a drive into his back yard. He picked up the ball, tossed it into the middle of the course and said, "Nice shot, kid."

I met him on several other occasions and remember him as a soft-spoken, self-effacing man.

Dark played in the major leagues as a shortstop and third baseman for 14 seasons, hitting above .400 twice in the World Series, in 1951 and 1954. He began his career with the then-Boston Braves and was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1948, when he helped lead the Braves to the team's first World Series in 34 years.

He was traded to the Giants after that season and was named team captain by manager Leo Durocher, who called him "the cement that holds the ball club together." In 1956 he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, to the Chicago Cubs in 1959, and to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1960, then back to the Braves (by then playing in Milwaukee), then back to the Giants (who had moved to San Francisco, who wanted him as a manager rather than a player).  

He led the league in double plays three times during his playing career and was also the first shortstop to hit 20 or more home runs in each of three seasons. Fellow players nicknamed him "The Swamp Fox."

As manager, he won the National League pennant with the Giants in 1962 but lost the World Series against the Yankees in seven games. 

In 1965 he became an assistant to Charlie Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, and became the A's manager the next year., He was hired to manage the Cleveland Indians in 1968, then rehired by Finley (who had moved the A's to Oakland), where in 1974 he became one of only three managers to win league championships in both the National and American leagues. That year he led Oakland to the World Series championship. He finished his managerial career in 1978 with the San Diego Padres.

In the 1980s, he helped develop minor league players for the Cubs and then the White Sox.

There were some rocky moments during his career — controversial remarks about black and Latino players were attributed to him in the summer of 1964. He said he was misquoted. Giants captain Willie Mays defended him. Felipe Alou, who, incidentally, played for the Lake Charles minor league team in the middle 1950s, called him "a very nice man," but one who was "totally separated from the reality of the world."

I don't know about that, but I do know he left his mark as a player and manager. In a 1969 poll, Giants fans picked Dark as the greatest shortstop in team history.

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You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.