Piazza selection to Baseball Hall of Fame removes record from Snider

Duke Snider moved to Fallbrook before the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and his 54 years as a Fallbrook resident included five seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers. When Snider was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980, the former outfielder became the first former Los Angeles Dodgers field player to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Snider's five seasons as a Los Angeles Dodgers field player remained the record for a Hall of Fame player for 35 years. The Jan. 6 selection of Mike Piazza to the Baseball Hall of Fame took that record away from Snider.

The Dodgers moved from Brooklyn after the 1957 season; Snider played with Brooklyn from 1947 to 1957 and with Los Angeles from 1958 to 1962 before closing out his playing career with the New York Mets in 1963 and the San Francisco Giants in 1964.

The only Hall of Fame players who played the plurality of their major league careers with the Los Angeles Dodgers are pitchers. Sandy Koufax spent three years with the Dodgers in Brooklyn before playing home games in Los Angeles for nine years. Don Drysdale pitched for two years in a Brooklyn uniform and was also with the Dodgers for their first 12 seasons in Los Angeles. Koufax and Drysdale pitched for the Dodgers only; Don Sutton was with the Dodgers for 16 of his 23 major league seasons.

The Hall of Fame includes three former Los Angeles Dodgers managers: Walter Alston managed the team for the final four years in Brooklyn and the first 19 years in Los Angeles, Tommy Lasorda spent 20 years as the Los Angeles manager, and Joe Torre earned his ticket to Cooperstown as the New York Yankees manager before concluding his 29-season managerial career with the Dodgers from 2008 to 2010.

The Hall of Fame executives include Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, who owned the team from 1950 until his death in 1979 and thus was in Los Angeles for the majority of his ownership. The broadcasters' wing of the Hall of Fame includes Vin Scully, who completed his 66th season as a Dodgers announcer and 58th season with the Los Angeles iteration in 2015, and Jaime Jarrin, who has broadcast Dodgers games in Spanish since 1959.

Piazza, who played with three different teams in 1998, was with the Dodgers for all or part of seven seasons, played for the New York Mets during eight seasons, was with the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics for one season apiece, and played five games for the Florida Marlins in 1998. His seven seasons with Los Angeles matches the combined total of all other Hall of Fame field players who did not accompany the Dodgers from Brooklyn.

Eddie Murray was with the Dodgers for four seasons while Frank Robinson, Gary Carter, and Rickey Henderson spent one season apiece in a Dodgers uniform. Robinson, who was with the Dodgers in 1972, was voted into the Hall of Fame during the 1982 election. Pee Wee Reese, who was on the Brooklyn team for 15 seasons and played for Los Angeles in 1958, was chosen by the Veterans Committee in 1984. Murray and Carter joined the Hall of Fame in 2003 and Henderson was enshrined in 2009.

Five Hall of Fame pitchers spent most of their careers elsewhere and threw innings for Los Angeles. Hoyt Wilhelm, Greg Maddux, and Pedro Martinez were with the Dodgers for two seasons apiece. Jim Bunning and Juan Marichal were each Dodgers during one season.

Snider and Cliff Dapper purchased an avocado grove in the Sleeping Indian area and moved to Fallbrook in 1956. Dapper spent eight games with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1942 but did not return to the majors after spending World War II in the Navy. He was in the Dodgers' minor league organization before the Brooklyn team needed a radio broadcaster and offered Dapper to the minor league Atlanta Crackers for Ernie Harwell, who announced Brooklyn games in 1948 and 1949. Harwell later spent 32 years as the Detroit Tigers radio announcer and was inducted in the broadcasters' wing of the Hall of Fame in 1981.