Johnny Podres

Former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres passed away the other day. That won't mean anything to anyone younger than me, but Johnny Podres was the the first sports hero I ever had. I was ten years old when he won the the seventh game of the 1955 World Series, defeating the hated New York Yankees. Legend has it that Podres told his teammates before the game, that if they could score just one run, he would do the rest. They scored two runs, and won the game 2-0, the only championship the Brooklyn Dodgers ever won. Even though Mickey Mantle would become my ultimate hero, that summer, when we played our ball games in Ricky Nation's back yard from sunup to sundown, I pretended to be Johnny Podres.