ANDERSON — With each of them drawing from more than 80 years of unique and interesting life experiences, Johnny Wilson and Carl Erskine will bring those lives into focus in a series of videos that begin on Monday.
Last year, Wilson and Erskine sat together before the cameras and talked about landmark moments and lifelong friendship in the series titled “Legends of Anderson: Carl Erskine and Johnny Wilson, In Their Words.”
Erskine went from the Anderson sandlots to the Major League diamonds of Brooklyn and Los Angeles while playing for the Dodgers. He threw a pair of no-hitters and set a World Series strikeout record. His philanthropic endeavors cut across the breadth of the city and country.
Wilson played on the city’s last basketball state championship team and was named Mr. Basketball. He went on to play for the Harlem Globetrotters and in the Negro baseball league. His coaching experience reaches from high school through college and accounts for only a part of his desire to aid young people.
The video segments will appear every Monday and Thursday through late August. The topics include growing up in Anderson, athletic accomplishments, post-playing days and giving back to their community.
There are three segments going up Monday. In the first, Erskine tells about how the two have remained in contact with one another. In the second, both recall their long friendship and growing up together in Anderson. In the third segment, they tell a little-known tale on one another.
In the videos, Wilson tells how he really wasn’t the key to the Indians winning the state championship. He also tells how he and his brothers played an indoor basketball game and why it wasn’t a good idea to walk between him and the radio while he was listening to games.
Erskine offers that people are really pretty ordinary, himself included. He also speaks of his first meeting with Jackie Robinson, the first black player to break into the Major Leagues and the Dodgers move across country from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
The project is sponsored by The Herald Bulletin and co-sponsored by Anderson University, The Community Foundation of Madison County and Star Financial Bank.
Local Sports
Special video presentation brings hometown heroes together again
Erskine, Wilson share their stories about life, careers
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