This was one of my older brother's baseball cards and one of the few that didn't end up with a goofy face being drawn on it. We've had this card in the family for 45 years and how it remained intact is a mystery to me.
When I first saw this card I saw a nondescript southpaw who looked more like a professor then an athlete. When my wife saw me posting this picture she said he looked kind of puffy. As a kid I called him Professor Podres as I had no idea how important a player he was to the Dodgers. The back of his card gives no mention that he was the architect of possibly the most important game in Brooklyn Dodger history. His picture doesn't show the young brash confident pitcher who boasted of victory before the game. This was the guy who finally brought down the Yankee juggernaut?
It wasn't until much later in my life that I even learned who Johnny Podres was. Then I started reading my Brooklyn books and it took me a while to understand that my Professor Podres was the man in Brooklyn. The main man.
Here is an Obit and here is a nice rememberance
As a LA Dodger, he had 88 win shares which placed him 11th among starting pitchers. During the early days of the LA Dodgers he was a mainstay in the rotation from 1958 - 1962 and had his best season in 1960 when he garnered 18 win shares.