The last members of the Brooklyn Dodgers Boys of Summer teams paid homage to former teammates no longer with them, and shared some poignant and funny stories with Dodgertown Fantasy Camp players.
One was from Carl Erskine talking about the best pitch he ever threw.
He was in the bullpen warming up with Ralph Branca in that fateful 1951 playoff game for the National League pennant when Bobby Thompson hit the shot heard around the world.
Brooklyn manager Walter Alston made the call to the bullpen to relieve tiring starter Don Newcombe.
“Who looks good?” Alston asked his bullpen coach.
“They both look good, but Erskine’s been bouncing his curveball in the dirt,” he said.
“Send in Branca,” Alston said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“If I hadn’t been bouncing my curve, I may have been me facing Thompson that day,” Erskine said. “When people ask me about the best pitch I ever threw, I tell’em it was that curveball in the dirt.”