The legendary Duke Snider dies at 84....sad day for baseball and all Dodger fans

Sad day for all baseball fans......

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/dailypitch/post/2011/02/dodgers-great-hall-of-famer-duke-snider-dies-at-84/1

By Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY

Duke Snide, here throwing out the first pitch at a 2007 game at Dodger Stadium, was the

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By Kirby Lee-US PRESSWIRE, US PRESSWIRE

Duke Snider, a Hall of Fame outfielder who hit 407 home runs in an 18-year career that spanned the Dodgers' final years in Brooklyn and first years in Los Angeles, died Sunday morning. He was 84.Snider passed away at a convalescent hospital in Escondido, Calif., following an undisclosed illness, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Snider was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1980, his 11th appearance on the ballot.
He was a lifetime .295 hitter and an eight-time All-Star, with all but one of those appearances coming as a Brooklyn Dodger, where he earned the moniker "The Duke of Flastbush."
Snider was part of a celebrated group of New York center fielders at the time, as his counterparts included Yankees great Mickey Mantle and Giants legend Willie Mays -- Willie, Mickey and the Duke, as the Terry Cashman tune "Talkin' Baseball" so deftly put it.
He was the last surviving member of the Dodgers' famed "Boys of Summer" group that won the 1955 World Series -- their lone title in Brooklyn -- and later was immortalized in a Roger Kahn book.
That '55 season also was Snider's finest from various production standpoints. He led the National League in both RBI (136) and runs (126) while hitting .309. He narrowly lost the NL MVP crown that year to teammate Roy Campanella.
Snider followed that up by hitting four home runs in the World Series against the Yankees. He remains the only player to hit four home runs in two Series, having done it against the Yankees in 1952, as well.