page_title: Gil Hodges
section_title: Death and impact
hierarchical_section_title: Gil Hodges / Death and impact
caption_attribution_description: English: Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges.
context_page_description: Gilbert Ray Hodges, ne Hodge was an American Major League Baseball first baseman and manager who played most of his 18-year career for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1982.
  Hodges is generally considered to be the best defensive first baseman of the 1950s. He was an All-Star for eight seasons and a Gold Glove Award winner for three consecutive seasons. Hodges and Duke Snider are the only players to have the most home runs or runs batted in together during the decade with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hodges was the National League leader in double plays four times and in putouts, assists and fielding percentage three times each. He ranked second in NL history with 1,281 assists and 1,614 double plays when his career ended, and was among the league's career leaders in games and total chances at first base.
  Hodges also managed the New York Mets to the 1969 World Series title over the favored Baltimore Orioles, one of the greatest upsets in Fall Classic history.
context_section_description: On the afternoon of April 2, 1972, Easter Sunday, Hodges was in West Palm Beach, Florida completing a round of golf with Mets coaches Joe Pignatano, Rube Walker, and Eddie Yost, when he collapsed en route to his motel room at the Ramada Inn across the street from Municipal Stadium, then the spring training facility of the Atlanta Braves and Montreal Expos. Hodges had suffered a sudden heart attack and was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital where he died within 20 minutes of arrival. Pignatano later recalled Hodges falling backwards and hitting his head on the sidewalk with a "sickening knock", bleeding profusely and turning blue. Pignatano said "I put my hand under Gil's head, but before you knew it, the blood stopped. I knew he was dead. He died in my arms." A lifelong chain smoker, Hodges had suffered a minor heart attack in 1968, during a game in late September.
  Jackie Robinson, himself ill with heart disease and diabetes, told the Associated Press, "He was the core of the Brooklyn Dodgers. With this, and what's happened to Campy (Roy Campanella) and lot of other guys we played with, it scares you. I've been somewhat shocked by it all. I have tremendous feelings for Gil's family and kids." Robinson died of a heart attack six months later on October 24 at age 53.
  Duke Snider said "Gil was a great player, but an even greater man." "I'm sick," said Johnny Podres, "I've never known a finer man." A crushed Carl Erskine said "Gil's death is like a bolt out of the blue." Don Drysdale, who himself died in Montreal of a sudden heart attack in 1993 at age 56, wrote in his autobiography that Hodges' death "absolutely shattered me. I just flew apart. I didn't leave my apartment in Texas for three days. I didn't want to see anybody. I couldn't get myself to go to the funeral. It was like I'd lost a part of my family."
  The wake was held at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Midwood, Brooklyn, on April 4, what would have been Hodges' 48th birthday. Approximately 10,000 mourners attended the service.
  Television broadcaster Howard Cosell was one of the many attendees at the wake. According to Gil Hodges Jr., Cosell brought him into the back seat of a car, where Jackie Robinson had been crying hysterically. Robinson then held Hodges Jr. and said, "Next to my son's death, this is the worst day of my life."
  Hodges was survived by his wife, the former Joan Lombardi (b. 1926 in Brooklyn), whom he had married on December 26, 1948, and their children Gil Jr. (b. 1950), Irene, Cynthia and Barbara. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
  Yogi Berra succeeded him as manager, having been promoted on the day of the funeral. The American flag flew at half-staff on Opening Day at Shea Stadium, while the Mets wore black armbands on their left arms during the entire 1972 season in honor of Hodges. On June 9, 1973, the Mets again honored Hodges by retiring his uniform number 14.
caption: Hodges at Ebbets Field, circa 1953
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