In my post for Ernie Harwell that I wrote earlier this week, I brought up the fact that Harwell’s broadcasting contract was traded to the Dodgers for backup catcher Cliff Dapper.
I made a little joke about how Dapper never made it back to the show.
But there are no idle thoughts on the internet and I wanted to see Dapper’s stats in the big leagues.
So naturally I looked up his page on Baseball Reference, the greatest website in the world.
The guy played in 8 big league games for the Dodgers in 1942. He got 8 hits including a homer and a double. He drove in 9 runs in those 8 games and batted .471 with an OPS of 1.232.
He was supposed to fill in for Mickey Owen and was ultimately sent down to the minors.
He was 22 years old in 1942 and most fit 22 year old men didn’t stick around Brooklyn then. He served three years in the Pacific Theater and made back alive.
He never played in the bigs again. He made it all the way to Montreal, the Dodgers top farm club, when his contract was traded to the Atlanta Crackers minor league team in exchange for their announcer Ernie Harwell.
What an 8 games those were. It’s hard to believe that with so many top players enlisting into the service that year that Dodgers manager Leo Durocher couldn’t find a little bit of playing time for a kid who came out of the gate swinging.
Alas, he didn’t.
But any man who made the best of his big league cup of coffee and went on to defend our country and then be traded for a Hall of Famer is worth at least a salute on line.
Somewhere Cliff Dapper is still alive. If any of you know him, drop me an e mail at info@sullybaseball.com
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