Growing up in Brooklyn, my team was always the Brooklyn Dodgers. A neighbor had a cow bell that clanged every time the Dodgers scored. The roster was loaded with Hall of Famers and franchise legends — Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges and Don Newcombe anchoring the pitching staff and manager Walter Alston at the helm. A young Sandy Koufax was also on that roster in his rookie season.

If you went to my public school, a couple of blocks from Ebbets Field, you could get into the ballpark free after the sixth inning. That assured every kid became a fan. In 1955, when the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series, parade ground benches lined the street I lived on, and a glorious parade marked the celebration. We kids clambered to the top of the benches, and cheered the team.

My commitment to Brooklyn prevented me from forming any attachment to the Los Angeles Dodgers, sometimes a conflicted decision, especially during the early days when Koufax was a hero for many of us in the borough.

Each earlier year after losing the series to the Yankees, ('41, '47, '49, '52, and '53), The Daily News would always run a headline encouraging everyone to “wait ‘til next year”, but in 1955, it was finally next year.