Tragic Drive for One of the Best in Baseball

Roy Campanella, driving home from his Harlem liquor store in the early morning hours on a highway near Glen Cove, N.Y., skidded in a wet curve half a mile from his home. The car rolled over and Campanella’s neck was broken.

The 220-pound Brooklyn Dodger catcher, National League most valuable player three times between 1951 and 1955, never walked again.

He had looked forward to the club’s move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season, particularly after the Dodgers announced they would play in the Coliseum. There, power hitters like Campanella could hit 250-foot home runs over a left-field screen.

Considered one of baseball’s best catchers in the 1950s, Campanella four times hit 30 or more home runs and three times had more than 100 runs batted in. He was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1969.

He lived in Woodland Hills in his final years and died in 1993 at 71.

Also on this date: In 1959, the Green Bay Packers hired a little-known 45-year-old New York Giant assistant coach, Vincent T. Lombardi. . . . In 1964, UCLA named Jim Bush its track coach. . . . In 1959, featherweight Willie Pep retired after 230 fights.

In 1959, Yankee catcher Yogi Berra took a $2,500 pay cut and signed for $42,500. . . . In 1978, former NBA star Bob Cousy, outraged that the average NBA salary had passed $100,000, predicted “a complete collapse” of the NBA salary structure. . . . In 1978, the New Orleans Saints fired Coach Hank Stram after finishing 3-11.

In 1969, the L.A. Rams drafted Florida back Larry Smith with their first pick, and Buffalo took O.J. Simpson with the first pick overall. . . . In 1904, Los Angeles’ heavyweight champion, Jim Jeffries, became a national hero. According to an AP story that ran in hundreds of newspapers, Jeffries ran down a runaway horse in New York’s Central Park, saving the rider, a young woman.