Before he became a distinguished professor of history at UCLA, Ronald J. Mellor grew up in the Dodgers’ Brooklyn. His city was home to the two best baseball teams on the planet at the peak of their cultural power, but also it was their home: The Brooklyn Dodgers lived and worked in Brooklyn just like their fans did. After getting a baseball one Christmas and wanting an autograph from Gil Hodges, Mellor and a friend hopped on their bikes and knocked on the future Hall of Famer’s door. “His wife Joan said he was washing the dishes, but he would come out when he dried his hands,” Mellor remembered. “He came to the door and he signed it right there for us.” What was an outlandish and improbable outcome anywhere else in any other year was just another holiday in Brooklyn; his hero was also a neighbor.
Read Full Article »
