Carl Erskine, one of the last surviving Dodgers from their days in Brooklyn, who spent his entire career with the team and who in 1958 started their first home game in Los Angeles, died Tuesday at age 97, the team announced.
“The Los Angeles Dodgers express their condolences to the family of renowned pitcher Carl Erskine, who passed away early Tuesday morning” in his hometown of Anderson, Indiana, the team said in a statement.
The Indianapolis Star newspaper, quoting Erskine’s family, said he died at a hospital after a brief illness.
The right-handed Erskine spent 12 years in the major leagues, starting in Brooklyn in 1948 and ending in Los Angeles in 1959. Along the way, he pitched two no-hitters for Brooklyn — one in 1952 and one in 1956 — and was a National League All-Star in 1954, when he went 18-15.
Erskine — known by the Brooklyn-accented nickname “Oisk” — also made World Series appearances in 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956, starting Game 4 in 1955 and helping the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in seven games for Brooklyn’s only World Series title.
In the 1953 World Series, Erskine struck out a single-game World Series record 14 Yankees. Sandy Koufax broke that mark in the 1963 World Series for Los Angeles, fanning 15.
Overall, Erskine compiled a 122-78 won-loss record and a career earned-run average of 4.00.
One of his games took place on April 18, 1958, when Erskine started the Dodgers’ first home game in Los Angeles, as they played before 78,672 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and beat the newly minted San Francisco Giants, 6-5. Dodger Stadium did not open until 1962. Erskine pitched eight-plus innings for the victory that day.
Erskine was also remembered Tuesday for his work with the Special Olympics, his advocacy for people with special needs, and his deep and enduring friendship with Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier on April 15, 1947.
Erskine’s son, Jimmy, was born in 1960 with Down syndrome, and, according to Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, “Erskine witnessed the discrimination Robinson and Jimmy both faced. Those stories became the subject of his book, `The Parallel,”’ which was published to benefit the Special Olympics.
“Jackie and Jimmy — living in different times in history and coming from uniquely different circumstances,” Erskine wrote. “The one powerful factor that made them both successful is that they were striving for what was right. … In the parallel journeys of Jackie and Jimmy, there is one major difference. Jackie faced the `bully’ alone. Jimmy merely was a representative individual of all those who weren’t accepted in the mainstream of life.”
According to Langill, when Robinson — who died in 1972 — was honored by Sport magazine for the publication’s 25th anniversary edition as “Best Athlete of the Quarter Century,” Robinson praised Erskine for his support of the civil rights movement.
“In my opinion, no Dodger understood more about what was happening than Carl did,” Robinson said at the time. “And Carl today doesn’t hesitate to express himself publicly.”
In an interview with the Indianapolis Star in 2015, Erskine recalled how his views on race were shaped by a youthful friendship with Johnny Wilson, a fellow Anderson kid with whom he’d play basketball starting around age 9 in their “mixed” neighborhood.
Later, Wilson, who was Black, and Erskine, who was white, led the Anderson High School hoops team to the Indiana state semifinals in 1944, losing when Wilson was injured.
As Erskine recalled to the Star, when he joined the Dodgers in 1948, he was approached in the team clubhouse by Robinson, who asked, “Hey Erskine, how come you don’t have a problem with this Black and white thing?”
“Well, I grew up with Johnny Wilson,” Erskine replied. “I didn’t know he was Black. He was my buddy. And so I don’t have a problem.”
On July 22, 2023, Erskine received the John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, an award previously bestowed on Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, in 2017.
For three decades, Erskine also was an instructor at the Dodger Adult Camps in Vero Beach, Florida, the team’s former spring training site. In 2008, he played the national anthem on his harmonica before the final spring training game in Vero Beach. The team now trains in Glendale, Arizona.
“Carl Erskine was an exemplary Dodger,” team President and CEO Stan Kasten said Tuesday in a statement.
“He was as much a hero off the field as he was on the field — which given the brilliance of his pitching is saying quite a lot. His support of the Special Olympics and related causes, inspired by his son Jimmy — who led a life beyond all expectations when he was born with Down syndrome — cemented his legacy. We celebrate the life of `Oisk’ as we extend our sympathies to his wife, Betty, and their family.”
Shoulder problems ended Erskine’s major league career early in 1959. He returned home to Anderson, where he became a banker and baseball coach.
His wife of 76 years, Betty, and three children survive him. Jimmy Erskine died Nov. 25, 2023, at age 63.