[Do you rember them trying to give Dixie Walker's job away every year, including in '47 to Duke Snider?]

CLYDE SUKEFORTH: In '47, though, Snider wasn't even with them.

[Mike explains that it was merely speculation by the press]

I remember that Snider, from Long Beach, California, that was in '43. '43, the first year Rickey's in Brooklyn, he threw the ballpark open, Ebbets Field open, to inspect and respected prospects. I mean, for anybody who wanted. It was a tryout camp. Unlimited. Well, so there were 1,500 of them came with their uniforms, and Wid Matthews...the most nervous, irritable guy that you ever saw in your life. Well, he had a great system. I mean, it was good, but nobody's going to keep 1,500 young kids in their place for several hours. He had the infielders all lined up. You know, he'd ask them what they were, where do you play? Third base. Okay, over there. Shortstop, over here. Now, you boys are going to be known as infield number one, and now we run off about 35 infields. Now, when infield number 35 calls, why, you go in...There's 35 infields.

[This is Mr. Rickey's system?]

Matthews. Rickey, he just looked at guys who had been really reccomended. This was thrown open to the general public. It was like a picnic for the kids. Well, there were some good boys there, of course, but Matthews was slowly going crazy. I'm out there as a spectator watching them, and Matthews came over and he said, "Will you do me a favor? Go in and put your uniform on and come out here and hit fungoes for me." Joe wasn't a good fungo hitter at all, and that just delayed things and irritated Matthews more. That's one thing I could do. I could hit fungoes, and I could hit him so that you'd take some little guy that you know you're not going to have any interest in, I can hit him his five balls. His father may have driven him in here from a distance, and if he don't get his five chances in the field, why, the old man is offended, and you can't blame him.

Well, that's one thing I could do. So, it looked so good that Matthews goes down and asks them if they can...[unintelligible]. We're running two tryout camps all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Two different crews. I did go, after Matthews got me in. I wasn't with anybody. I was just sitting around Brooklyn scouting, and coach, I was supposed to be a coach on the club. Well, Matthews goes down and asks Mr. Rickey if I can't go to make the trip to the West Coast. He asked me if I'd like to go, and I said I sure would. They could get along without me pretty well in Brooklyn. And, so we made that trip, and it was, up at the point it was really long [?]

[You had the same type of tryout in Long Beach?]

We wound up, oh, we had made about a half a dozen stops. We had one in Ohio where we got George Shuba...

[Is this all part of Rickey's plan to corner the market on talent during the war, when everybody else stopped signing players?]

That's what he told us when he said he was going to send two crews out there. He said, "We're going to contact a lot of boys, and we'll make connections with them, and when they come out of the service, in all probability, they'll contact us, because they don't know anybody else." We got the in. And he said, "This is an expensive experiment," but he said, "If we win the war, it will be worth it. If we lose the war, what difference does it make."

The guy, he was way ahead of his time. Well, we wound up, we had them all the way across the country. We had one in Oklahoma, Cal McLish, Roy Jarvis, and Bobby Morgan, three boys all went pro and had reasonably good careers. Nothing sensational, but they were, Cal McLish, you know, the Indian boy, they were sitting there as we were walking in, all three of them together. We had good reports on all....a number of boys at this big camp in Long Beach, and I remember this big, tall, skinny kid. I mean, he was really thin. He was a beanpole in those days. But he could swing that bat, and he could run. And his name happened to be Snider. The first time...[unintelligible]...see him now. Even after he matured, I mean he got heavy quick, but he was a real string bean.

[He stood out?]

He could swing the bat and he could run, so, what are we waiting for?

[I hope you had a righthander throwing to him]

He was impressive with lefthanders, too. I mean, he had a real good, solid swing.

[He was a great all-around player, too]

Yes, he was. There were three pretty good centerfielders in New York there for a few years. Mantle, Mays, and Snider.

[As a kid growing up, I thought everybody had a great centerfielder who batted third]

It was like centerfielders were a dime a dozen.

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