A five-year-old boy strutted down a Los Angeles sidewalk with so much swagger that his father started calling him Duke. That confident kid grew up to rule center field for the Brooklyn Dodgers as the Duke of Flatbush, standing alongside Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays in New York’s golden era.

This deep dive traces a career of bulletproof public persona and private battles, including a plea to be traded, a botched MVP ballot, a stadium that neutralized his swing, and a late-life legal downfall.

• Begged owner Walter O’Malley to be traded but was trapped by the reserve clause
• Hit 40 or more home runs in five consecutive seasons from 1953 to 1957
• Lost the 1955 MVP by five points on a ballot naming Roy Campanella twice
• Saw his power vanish when the Coliseum’s right field wall stood 440 feet away
• Led all of Major League Baseball in RBIs for the entire 1950s decade