Lopresti: Carl Erskine, a baseball and Anderson legend, reflects on 90 years
From Mike Lopresti at the Indianapolis Business Journal on September 16, 2017:
Carl Erskine shot 86 the other day in his weekly round of golf with his son. Not bad. Especially for someone 90 years old.
“That’s the one thing good thing about being 90,” he says at breakfast. “It makes it easier to shoot your age.” He also mentions how people tell him to pick up 3-foot putts, because “everybody wants to be kind to an old guy.”
This seemed like a good time to check in on the old guy, one of Indiana’s living sport legends, since some big anniversaries are imminent. Next spring, it will be 70 years since Erskine broke in with the Brooklyn Dodgers, as a skinny kid from Anderson who had decent heat and an overhand curve. He thinks about that round number a moment.
“It ties right in with everything else,” he says. “On Oct. 5, Betty and I will be married 70 years.”
The man working on his bacon and eggs had a career that was a baseball who’s who.
Branch Rickey signed him. He was Jackie Robinson’s teammate, with a front-row seat as Robinson made social history. He is one of five surviving members of the 1955 world-champion Dodgers. Still one of the famous Boys of Summer, in the autumn of his life, along with Sandy Koufax, Don Newcombe, Roger Craig and Ed Roebuck.
Read the full article here: https://www.ibj.com/articles/65404-lopresti-a-baseballand-andersonlegend-reflects-on-90-years
- Related link: Read the SABR biography of Carl Erskine, by Bob Hurte
Originally published: September 20, 2017. Last Updated: September 20, 2017.