The First Lady of the Dodgers

For four decades, figuratively and literally, with an elegant smile that hid an unimaginable strain, she carried their catcher.

On Monday, the Dodgers tearfully did the same for her.

Former players and executives filled a Forest Lawn chapel to honor a teammate who played every day, played with passion, and played in pain.

Her name was Roxie Campanella, and, wherever she is today, here’s hoping she and Roy are dancing.

“They’re back together again,” said Don Newcombe.

Campanella died last week of cancer after 77 years, 30 of those spent in devotion to her wheelchair-bound husband Roy, the Dodger Hall of Fame catcher.

He was the famous one who posed. She was the unknown one who pushed.

He was the one everyone sought for autographs. She was the one who helped put his quivering hand to the paper.

For the duration of their marriage, he sat front and center while she labored behind him.

Yet she never missed bringing him to games, showed up at Dodger Stadium so much that she became part of it, like the hills beyond center field, only sturdier.

And after Roy died in 1993, she kept showing up, even when the new Fox regime turned the family into a business, even when her husband’s seats were demolished to make room for luxury boxes, even if she sometimes ate her press-room dinners alone.

She was diagnosed with cancer about three years ago, and yet she still came, even as recently as last season, even after a Dugout Club attendant failed to recognize her and refused her admittance.

“They didn’t know who I was, or what I was,” she said at the time. “But that’s OK. I’m still coming back.”

It was no surprise that, besides Newcombe and Reggie Smith and Ron Cey, there was another famous man attending her memorial service, a man named Robert Allen.

Famous, because that’s the way Roxie made him feel.

He is a longtime Dodger Stadium press box attendant.

“I can’t remember a day she wasn’t there, a day she didn’t stop by and smile and say hello,” Allen said Monday. “Such a classy person. You don’t see that as much anymore.”

Even Roxie’s last public act was one of unselfishness -- last year, she auctioned off some of her husband’s memorabilia to help support the struggling Roy and Roxie Campanella Foundation for the disabled.

She started the foundation after Roy’s death. Without his star power, it was a tiny miracle she kept it thriving for so long.

“But this is what I do,” she said at the time. “This is what Roy would want me to do.”

It was also no surprise that, besides Peter O’Malley and Tommy Davis and Lee Lacy, there was a former Dodger’s wife who attended the service alone.

It was Anne Scioscia, whose husband, Mike, was once Campanella’s protege.

When the Scioscia-managed Angels won the World Series in 2002, Roxie surprised everyone by coming to the field to hug him.

“Roxie was a role model for us all,” Anne said.

Consider for a moment that Roxie and Roy married in 1963, five years after Roy had been paralyzed from the shoulders down in an auto accident.

She loved him not for his ability to throw out a runner, or steal a base, or even pick up a cup of coffee. She loved him not because he could win her a championship or make her a millionaire or even pick her a flower.

She loved him for, well, him.

It was a love that endured countless attendants, numerous obstacles, a painstaking existence in the days before disabled access.

But if he wanted to roll down steps and over grass to the batting cage in Vero Beach to teach young Scioscia to block the plate, Roxie would make sure he got there.

And if he wanted to roll back across thick carpet and through narrow doorways into the Dodgertown lounge to talk baseball with the scouts, Roxie would make it happen.

A video shown at his memorial service showed Roxie gently feeding Roy popcorn in the Dodger Stadium seats while they watched another game. Talk about a romance movie.

“Roy once told me, ‘I’m helpless when I’m laying in that bed, I’m not worth anything there, and then Roxie gets me up out of there herself, I don’t know how she does it,’ ” Newcombe said. “Roy said he could not have lived without her.”

Roy’s huge post-retirement contributions to the Dodgers certainly would not have been possible without Roxie, and the Dodgers never forgot.

In her final years, O’Malley would phone her nearly every day. Once, after an earthquake, he sent Smith to her home to make sure she was OK.

Smith was the Dodger batting coach at the time. He and Roxie became so close that he called her “Mom” and was with her on the night before she died.

“Roxie fell asleep so she could be with Roy,” said Smith. “Roxie is OK. They’re both OK.”

Although many current Dodger employees missed the service -- there were no field personnel or members of the new regime -- the three soon-to-be-leaving bosses were there.

It was Bob Graziano’s last day on the job, but he showed up, and Kris Rone and Derrick Hall joined him.

Flying in from a broadcasting job in Texas, Anne Meyers Drysdale was there too. Her husband Don, you’ll recall, died a week after Roxie’s husband died.

Standing behind the batting cage, lending support at stadium club functions, the two women have spent the last decade collaborating on a portrait of dignity and grace.

“Roxie helped me through many hard times,” said Meyers Drysdale. “She was my rock.”

Several years ago, while visiting with Roxie, I wondered whether there was any part of her that was relieved that Roy had left for a world where surely he could stand and run again.

She began crying.

“Of course not,” she said. “I miss him. I miss him every day. He was never a burden, never once. How can someone you love ever be a burden?”

Soon, I, too, was crying, mourning my pathetic ignorance.

How much Roxie Campanella taught us. How much she could teach us still.

Upon their reunion last week, Roy undoubtedly gave her a standing ovation.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.