January 28, 1958: The Crash of Roy Campanella

Campy at Ebbets Field, the day demolition began,

February 23, 1960

January 28, 1958: Roy Campanella is paralyzed when his 1957 Chevrolet sedan slips on ice and crashes, less than a mile from his home in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York. At age 36, his baseball career should have had at least another couple of years left.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were in the process of moving from Ebbets Field to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, waiting for Dodger Stadium to be built. The close left-field fence at the Coliseum would have been perfect for Campy's swing.

Because of racism at the beginning of his career, and his accident at the end, he only had 10 seasons in the major leagues, 1948 to 1957, hitting 260 home runs. He should have had at least 400; without the crash, at least 300 would have been likely.

He regained some movement in his arms and hands, but he lived the last 35 years of his life in a wheelchair. After his former teammate Jackie Robinson, he became, in 1969, the 2nd black player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Campanella wrote his autobiography, It's Good to Be Alive, which was published in 1959. Michael Landon directed Paul Winfield in a CBS movie based on it, starring Paul Winfield.

Family legend has it that my grandparents took my mother to Ebbets Field sometime before his crash, and my mother, just a small child, and only having seen the team on black & white TV to that point, said, "Where's Campy?" In 1986, I got to see Campy and his Dodger teammates Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and Sandy Koufax at the Baseball Hall of Fame's induction ceremony in Cooperstown, New York. (Robinson and manager Walter Alston were already dead. So was Gil Hodges, who would not be elected until 2021.)

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January 28, 1958 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. And no games were scheduled in the NHL.

There were 2 games in the NBA, and there were played as a doubleheader at the old Madison Square Garden. In the opener, the St. Louis Hawks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 123-109. In the nightcap, the New York Knicks lost to the Syracuse Nationals, 110-102.