I watched the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees in the World Series this year. I am connected to the Dodgers and Yanks by an odd link. That link is school, specifically my old school, St. Bon’s.

In 1955 it was an all- boys Catholic school in St. John’s run by the Irish Christian Brothers. There were a sizable number of those “Brothers” who were American by birth. The Christian Brothers “novitiate” was in New York state. New Rochelle, I think, was the location.

One of the schools the Christian Brothers had was Power High School in New York City. I remember Lou Alcindor was their basketball star. He would later become Kareem Abdul Jabar. That, however, is a story of basketball and a story for another time. Today the story is baseball.

In 1955 I would have been nine years old. One of the oddities of going to St. Bon’s is the tremendous interest in the World Series from the Christian Brothers. Even though it was a school day for afternoon games our teacher would write the inning-by-inning scores of the World Series on the blackboard. The same thing happened in 1956. Again, it was the Dodgers and the Yankees. One year a Christian Brother brought a small pocket radio into the classroom, and we listened to the game. That Christian Brother may have been Brother Noone, but my memory is a bit dodgy. It was seven decades ago. We had nicknamed him “Slops” Noone because there were always soup stains down the front of his full length black religious habit. The nickname was whispered behind his back. It was never said to him.

Here is one of the odd things about memory. Although this was all in the mid-1950s I remember the Dodgers and the Yankees. Pitching for the Dodgers were Don Newcombe and Clem Labine and, of course, Johnny Padres. Roy Campenella was the catcher. Jackie Robinson was still with the team and the stars included Duke Snider, Carl Furillo and Pee Wee Reese.

The Yankees, who I hated, had Yogi Berra behind the plate and slick infielders like Phil Rizzuto, Gil McDougald, and Bobby Richardson. Mickey Mantle was on the team as well patrolling the outfield in either Ebbets Field or Yankee Stadium.

Pitchers that year would have included Don Larsen although the Yanks leaned heavily on the arm of Whitey Ford. When I watched this year’s version of the Yankees and the Dodgers some things just flooded back. I recognized immediately I still hate the Yankees. I also remembered I have never forgiven the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn and going out to California. I thought at the time it was a betrayal of the worst kind, but I was told it was just a real estate deal. I understand that but I still haven’t forgiven the owners.

This year I watched and cheered for the Dodgers. I thought of Duke Snider, but I also thought of a dusty old chalk blackboard in my school. I thought of being a boy and being a man and having the journey associated with the timeless game of baseball. I also thought about how the word Dodgers, as written across the baseball uniform, was an is the same “script” in which the word St. Bon’s is written today.

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]