The first line of the song was “Johnny Podres has a halo round his head.” If you were a Brooklyn Dodger fan in the summer of ’55, you knew all the words. It was a time of “Giants” Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, Jim New-combe and Gil Hodges. They battled the “Titans” Yogi Berra, Gil MacDougal, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Casey Stengel, Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto and Billy Martin, legends of the game. There was an aura about all these men, each a kid’s hero in their own right. The invincible New York Yankees seemed des-tined never to lose a World Series and surely not to the likes of the Brooklyn Dodgers. After all, they were named candy bars after Yankees, the Baby Ruth. It was always “wait till next year” for the Dodgers. Those Dodgers were destined in 1955 to make sports history. Few events in sports every equaled the feat, at least in the eyes of a kid who idolized the “Ole Brooklyn Bums.” The old Daily News cartoons had a shabby, chubby, guy with a five-day shadow (beard) and the stub of a cigar in the corner of his mouth swinging a bat that, when it hit a ball, produced a shower of stars “Da Bums.” The Yankees were the “Royalty.” They were depicted with sparkling jewel-studded crowns on their heads and “pristine pinstripes.” Podres did them in with a dramatic flare — the seventh game of this “Subway Series” is legend, and now with his passing, Johnny Podres, the classy hero of ’55, now gets his ‘halo’ for real. For kids like me who watched in awe as he shut out the Yankees, his name and his song will never be forgotten. “Johnny Podres has a halo round his head.” ANTHONY DISIMONE Wildwood