The next baseball legend to be featured in my on-going "Minor League Days: Legends Edition" thread is perhaps the greatest catcher of them all, at least in my top-3, Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers:
"Campy"
put in a season with the Montreal Royals in 1947 after about ten years
in the Negro Leagues, where he made his debut at the incredible age of
only 15 in 1937!
In his season playing North of the border, Campanella hit .273 over 135 games, hitting 13 homers with 75 runs batted in.
The
following year he'd start the season with St. Paul in Triple-A, playing
for 35 games, before he'd make his debut with the Dodgers, and the rest
as they say, is history.
Once Campanella began his Major League career, he would certainly NOT disappoint the Brooklyn faithful: three times he was M.V.P. (1951, 1953, 1955) and an important part
of the strong Dodger teams of the decade along with Duke Snider, Jackie
Robinson, and Gil Hodges.
Though unable to play Major League ball until the age of 26 because
of segregation, he still managed to hit 242 lifetime homers, with a
high of 41 in 1953, as well as drive in 856 runs in his short ten-year
career.
During his second M.V.P. season, Campy led the Brooklyn offense by
driving in a league-leading 142 runs while hitting .312 and scoring 103
runs. One of the top-offensive catcher seasons in baseball history.
Tragically, as he was getting prepared to move to Los Angeles with
the rest of the Dodgers over the Winter of 1957-58, Campanella was
driving home to Long Island and hit a patch of ice near his home,
flipping his car over and breaking his neck in the process,
rendering him paralyzed from the shoulders down.
The L.A. Fans would never get to see the future Hall of Famer play in Chavez Ravine.
In
my opinion, considering his delayed MLB action, "Campy" would be my
pick as the greatest catcher in MLB history, even in front of Johnny
Bench, though Josh Gibson would top them all.