Doug Camilli, whose nine seasons in MLB included a World Series title with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1963, died March 17 in Vero Beach, Florida. He was 89.
Camilli, the son of former Brooklyn Dodgers MVP Dolph Camilli, married a native of Vero Beach, the Dodgers’ spring training home from 1948-2008. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn, four children, 10 grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.
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Camilli played 313 major league games, hitting .199 with 18 home runs and 80 RBIs for the Dodgers (1960-64) and Washington Senators (1965-69).
Camilli was the Dodgers’ catcher on June 4, 1964 in Philadelphia when Sandy Koufax threw the third no-hitter of his career. Koufax allowed only one walk in the game. He attributed that mistake in part to shaking off Camilli on the pitch that was called ball four to the Phillies’ Dick Allen.
“Camilli had called for a curve, but I shook him off … then right in the middle of my windup I realized I had made a mistake, that Allen would be looking for the fast one,” Koufax said after the game. “But just like you don’t stop a golf shot on the backswing, I kept right on going. There was no doubt about the call. It was a ball.”
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Camilli was born in Philadelphia in September 1936, in the middle of his father’s second full season with the Phillies. He attended high school (Santa Rosa) and college (Stanford) in Northern California.
Although he never was a star to the same degree as his father, Doug Camilli got something in his fourth major league season that eluded Dolph: a championship ring. Camilli never left the bench in the 1963 World Series as John Roseboro caught every inning of the Dodgers’ four-game sweep of the New York Yankees.
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After retiring as a player following the 1969 season, Camilli joined the Boston Red Sox as a bullpen coach for four years (1970-73).
After briefly retiring from baseball, he returned in 1981 as a Red Sox minor league coach, a role he maintained in various capacities in Boston’s minor league system until 1992.
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