Moriah celebrates baseball great with Johnny Podres Day

Johnny Podres' baseball career is well documented: one of the Brooklyn Dodgers' "Boys of Summer"; Most Valuable Player of the 1955 World Series; three-time All-Star; National League leader in earned-run average (2.66) and shutouts (6) in 1957; league-leading winning percentage (18-5, .783) in 1961; highly regarded pitching coach — the list goes on.

But few people outside the Town of Moriah know of his great love for the North Country and specifically, the Witherbee-Mineville area.

"He never forgot where he was from," recalled longtime friend and former high-school teammate Art "Blacky" Brace of Mineville.

"I went to an exhibition game in Port St. Lucie (Fla.) when Johnny was pitching coach with the (Philadelphia) Phillies in the nineties. Johnny was walking along the first-base line before the game when two guys in the stands hollered out 'Johnny Podres, where (are) you from?''' Brace recalled.

'"Witherbee, New York,"' Podres announced proudly.

Podres, arguably the best athlete to come out of the North Country, died Jan. 13, 2008 at the age of 75. But to this day, he remains the toast of the Town of Moriah.

Saturday, the town will recognize the baseball great with the First-Annual Johnny Podres Day. Podres will be honored along with Champy, the fabled lake monster who is rumored to call Port Henry home.

"We appreciate everything he did for the game of baseball, but here in Moriah he was also a great friend and neighbor," related Tim Salerno, who helped organize Johnny Podres Day with his brother, Pat.

Pat Salerno, Jr., without question, has the largest collection of Johnny Podres memorabilia and it will all be on display Saturday. Game-worn jerseys, books, hats, trading cards, photos, pins, stamps and postcards will be shown "just south of the Lee House in Port Henry," Pat said.

"And the Phillies sent a DVD of Johnny talking to his pitchers in the dugout. I'll be showing that on Saturday."

The celebration will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and fill Main St. in Port Henry. In addition,, there will be food, craft vendors, a townwide lawn sale, music and more.

"Johnny — he always wanted to be called Johnny — always came back here. He was a smalltown boy at heart," Pat Salerno, Jr. related.

"And he wanted to make sure a lot of his stuff would remain in the area for people around here to see."

Salerno's extensive collection includes several Podres jerseys, including his 1996 All-Star shirt when he served as honorary captain for the National League.

"It has signatures from 18 Hall of Famers and the biggest is Ted Williams on the front," Salerno pointed out.

Salerno, 52, wasn't alive when Podres shut down the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1955 World Series to give Brooklyn its only World Series championship. However, his father, Pat, Sr., vividly recalls the day.

"Everybody around here was jumping for joy. It meant a lot to the people of the Town of Moriah,'' the senior Salerno recalled. "Moriah was a sports town and it was a great pick-up for the town. The mines were slowly going downhill at that time and the area needed a morale boost.

"People were really proud of Johnny and had a lot of respect for him."

More than 3,000 friends and fans turned out to welcome the World Series hero home on Oct. 9, 1955. The three-mile ticker-tape parade made its way from his parents' home in Witherbee to Linney Field in Mineville.

Bernie Podres, his uncle and a high-school teammate, was not surprised by Johnny's success.

"Once he went up (to the big leagues), he knew he could do it — play at that level," said Bernie. "He worked hard to get where he was."

Bernie, only nine months older than his nephew, and Johnny played baseball every chance they could as kids.

The uncle-nephew tandem delivered the 1949 Southern Essex County League championship to Mineville in a stirring 17-inning contest with Crown Point.

"Johnny pitched the first 12 innings (striking out 15 without yielding a run) and then they brought me in," Bernie reminisced. "I think we beat them 1-0."

The actual score was 6-2 with Sherm Chappell and Roy Brown getting four hits apiece and Johnny Podres, three. Mineville outhit Crown Point, 17-6, but Burris came up with 20 strikeouts in 14 frames.

"Johnny was a tremendous athlete," Brace pointed out. "He was a great basketball player and a heck of pole vaulter, but his father (Barney Podres) wouldn't let him play football.

"His father was a tremendous prospect, too. Guys who knew him or saw him pitch said he could have been a pro ballplayer. He would make Johnny throw everyday for a half hour."

Bernie Podres wasn't able to make many of Johnny's games with the Dodgers, but the two always would get together in the offseason.

"Johnny loved to fish and go hunting. We'd do that every winter," Bernie related.

Pat Salerno, Sr. followed in Podres' footsteps, signing with the Dodgers out of high school. He made it to Class B baseball as an outfielder.

"I played four years in the minors. I hit 15 homers one season, but after my last, they wanted me to go to Class C," Salerno said. "I decided it was time to do something else. At that time, there were 21 farm teams in the Brooklyn organization and a lot of prospects."

By the time Salerno turned pro, Podres had already made it to the big leagues.

"We didn't see much of each other, but we would talk in the dorms during spring training," Salerno recalled. "One time, though, he brought me and introduced me to Sandy Koufax and Duke Snider."

The younger Salernos first met Johnny Podres in the late sixties when they were in Little League in Mineville. Johnny's sons — Johnny, Jr., and Joey — were playing at the time and Johnny would frequent the games.

"He would come out to talk to me and some of the other guys," Pat Salerno, Jr. recalled.

Pat Salerno, Jr. later spent 17 years working in the Los Angeles area, where he would re-connect with Podres.

"I'd call him up and he'd get me free tickets and invite me to come to the park two hours before the game. He'd bring me in to the clubhouse to meet the players. He was so nice to me.

"It was such a big thrill to inter-act with all the great pitchers. I became big friends with Curt Schilling. Johnny was like a father to Curt.

"He influenced a lot of ballplayers — Frank Viola, Tommy Greene — over his 50-year career and a lot of people from this area. That's why it's nice to be able to honor Johnny on Saturday."