Mesa Musings:

It was my private “Field of Dreams.”

Saturday night my favorite Major Leaguers came to life in my den: Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Carl Furillo, Billy Martin and Phil Rizzuto.

I hadn’t built anything in anticipation of their arrival; they simply showed up.

I was watching USC play Boston College in the Emerald Bowl when, during a commercial break, I switched channels. I stumbled across the MLB Network and went from a rainy San Francisco night to a sun-dappled autumn afternoon in Brooklyn.

It was Oct. 7, 1952, and Mel Allen and Red Barber were calling the seventh game of the World Series at Ebbets Field.

The players were just as I remembered them in the 1950s and early ’60s, in glorious black and white on our Zenith 17-incher. I recall watching the Yankees- Dodgers World Series battles of 1955 and 1956 on TV, and I became a huge Dodger fan at 13 when “Da Bums” moved to Los Angeles in ’58.

The game I was watching featured the Dodgers and Yankees of 1952.

To me, the players were younger versions of themselves. I hadn’t started watching them until the mid and late ’50s.

There was “The Mick”: the 21-year-old Mantle, not yet hobbled by injuries, concluding his second season with the Yanks. He hit .311 that year with 23 home runs. And greater things were just ahead.

In the game, Mantle hit a solo homer off starter Joe Black in the sixth. I had goose bumps as he circled the bases.

But the play that most amazed me was Mantle’s unassisted ground out to first baseman Gil Hodges in the top of the ninth. Gil took a couple of steps to his right to snag the ball and turned back to touch the base. Mantle was almost on top of him as Hodges brushed the bag. The Mick had streaked down the line. I’d forgotten how fast he was!

When I sat in Yankee Stadium a dozen years later and saw Mantle hit a towering drive into the right-center field bleachers, he still had that big bat but, sadly, the foot speed was gone.

One of my favorite Dodgers is Hodges. Gil went 0-for-4 in that game, but he reached base in the eighth on an error. The lanky first-sacker looked like a kid. I saw him in person six years later when he made a public appearance as an L.A. Dodger at a Costa Mesa supermarket. He autographed a picture for me.

Hodges played 18 years in the Majors and managed the New York Mets to a World Series title in 1969. He died of a heart attack at the age of 47. But, on Saturday, Gil seemed no mere mortal: handsome, robust and swinging from the heels.

And “Campy” (Roy Campanella) was there. He was paralyzed in an auto accident in 1958 just as the Dodgers were relocating to L.A. On Saturday night, though, he was completely whole. Showing off his great skills behind the plate, he caught pitchers Joe Black, Preacher Roe and Carl Erskine, and he stroked two hits.

Center fielder Duke Snider and second baseman Jackie Robinson both singled in the fifth. The Duke scored on Hodges’ sacrifice fly.

It was wonderful seeing them all again, in the prime of their lives. I sat in my darkened den, eyes wide and pulse racing as the Dodgers brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the eighth. I’d long since known the outcome of the game, yet, for one brief instant…

As the ninth got under way, the Yankee manager, Casey Stengel, strode to the top of the dugout steps and shouted instructions to his players in the field. It was a priceless moment.

The Dodgers went down 1-2-3 in the inning, and Pee Wee Reese flew out to end the game. The Yankees won, 4-2.

Fifty-seven summers have come and gone since that game. Most of my heroes have died.

But, for a couple of hours Saturday, the Mick, Jackie, Gil and Campy were all very much alive. And so was I.

I think USC won the Emerald Bowl. I never switched back to find out.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.