[In 45, the Dodgers were competitive again?]

CLYDE SUKEFORTH: Well, they didn't go very far. I played a little bit, then. He didn't have any catching, and I filled in for a few days.

[That team was in first place for a month during the middle of the season]

I knew we started out fairly good. It's where you are in October that counts.

[They were in first place on July 4]

I quit before that. We got Johnny Peacock over from Boston. They'd let him go, and we got him, and that's when we got another catcher.

[Durocher was finished playing at this point?]

...[unintelligible]...He was the manager.

[Then, in '46, the Dodgers were very competitive]

We finished in a tie.

[Carl Furillo was a young player on that club. Did you see him as a coming star?]

Oh, yes. He's the most underrated player I can think of. I don't know. For some reason or another he was never appreciated. He was a great ballplayer. But he never got the play with the press or the public. I don't know why.

[Similar to Roger Maris?]

Charlie Gehringer.

[But he made the Hall of Fame.]

Yeah, he did. But I mean, he was colorless. He made things so easy that he wasn't appreciated. [Joe] DiMaggio was like that for a while. He was so damn graceful that it took him quite a while to be appreciated. The difficult plays, I mean, he made them look easy.

We were playing them in the World Series in '47. [Jackie] Robinson hits a line shot to left center, way over, that DiMaggio gets over there, jumps up, crashes against that wall, and comes down with the ball just as graceful as you can be. The very next day, the same hitter hits a ball on his handle, a bloop, just a little weak pop into left-center, and I look up and there's that DiMaggio coming and damned if he don't catch that one, too. Now, you know he's playing that fellow from the same position as he was the day before. If you don't think he's getting around and covering a little ground...

[That was past his prime, too]

Yeah. He was one of the greatest. I heard some of the American League players still say that Dominic was just as good, and some thought he might be better [as an outfielder], but I said, "I just can't see how anybody could be any better, but you've seen more of him than I have."

[Was DiMaggio as good a centerfielder as you ever saw? As good as Mays?]

I would say he was. I don't see how he could be any better.

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