He learned baseball on the sandlots of Old Greenwich, Conn., then known as Sound Beach, imitating Ruth’s swing. Sandlock never attended high school; instead, he became an electrician during the Depression, earning $200 a month, a job he quit to play baseball for a monthly salary of $75. His parents, Polish immigrants, thought he was crazy, Sandlock said.

Between 1938 and 1942, Sandlock traveled throughout the Northeast and Midwest, playing minor league ball in places like Huntington, W.Va., and Bradford, Pa. One Indiana evening in September 1942, Sandlock recalled, he was jarred awake by banging at his door. The culprits: his Evansville Bees teammates Warren Spahn and Ducky Detweiler delivering good news. All three had been promoted to the Boston Braves, managed by Casey Stengel.

In his first big league at-bat, Sandlock singled against New York Giants pitcher Fiddler Bill McGee. Sandlock then missed the 1943 season to serve in the war effort, making ammunition at a Chrysler plant.

He was back with the Braves in 1944, and in 1945, his best season, he batted .282 in 195 at-bats for the Dodgers under Manager Leo Durocher. He hit two home runs — one at the Polo Grounds, the other at Ebbets Field — both off Giants pitcher Harry Feldman. They would be the only long balls of his career.

To reach Ebbets Field from Connecticut, Sandlock would take trains into Brooklyn, and then walk to the ballpark, signing autographs for youngsters along the way. He said he remembered Ebbets Field as a cozy park, which it was, a place where the ushers always greeted him with a “Hey, Mike!” and members of the Dodgers Sym-Phony band gave him sandwiches between games of doubleheaders.

On his trip home after games, Sandlock often met Red Barber, then a Dodgers announcer, for a beer at Grand Central Terminal. Barber nicknamed Sandlock the Commuter.

Back in Old Greenwich, at a park near the railway station, Sandlock would hit pop-ups to neighborhood children. “Follow it with your nose, and you’ll get it!” he encouraged them.