100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (22 page)

59. The Ballplayer

Day after day, for 24 days, the Dodgers and their fans kept vigil for Jim Gilliam. Day after day, they awaited word of his improvement, and day after day, the only update was no update.

“Dodgers coach Jim Gilliam remained unconscious Sunday in Daniel Freeman Hospital where he was admitted last month following a massive brain hemorrhage,” a typical September 1978 report in the
Los Angeles Times
stated. “A spokesman for the hospital said his condition has not changed since the surgery.”

The team soldiered on under this cloud while wrapping up its second consecutive NL West title. Gilliam had been a Dodger for nearly 30 consecutive years, in many ways a model Dodger for his dedication and acumen. He thrived upon being underestimated. Though his public nickname was “Junior,” close friends and teammates knew him as—“The Devil”—after a cheeky, daring challenge at a pool hall.

“Every year we'd go to spring training and some hotshot was going to take his job away,” former Dodgers manager Walter Alston told Milton Richman of United Press International. “Jim would start the season on the bench and never bitch or moan, and after a while he would have the job back again.”

For that reason, perhaps—no matter how bleak it seemed—people couldn't quite believe that Gilliam, a young 49 when stricken, wouldn't make it back. He was tenacious to the point that he could seemingly slow down time.

“My first recollection of him goes all the way back to when he was playing for Montreal [the Dodgers' minor league team], and I was managing the club,” Alston recalled. “We were playing in Toronto and I was on the lines, coaching third, when I put on the hit-and-run with him at bat and a runner on first.

“The runner didn't go and Jim didn't swing.... When we got back to the dugout, we talked about it, and Jim told me he could see the runner wasn't going to go out of the corner of his eyes and that was why he didn't swing at the ball. I was in baseball quite a long time but Jim was the only man I ever saw who could do that.”

As Gilliam transitioned to coaching (though the Dodgers kept pulling him from the sidelines back to the active roster in 1965 and 1966), he became in every sense of the word a mentor, one whose absence would be keenly felt. The Dodgers dedicated their 1978 division title and then their league title to Gilliam.

“It seems like all the things he preached and practiced to us became more vivid when he was no longer there to see us do those things,” reserve infielder Lee Lacy told Scott Ostler of the
Times
. “We utilized the knowledge and skills learned from him at a time when we had to be at our best. He was just a helping hand that made us strong.”

The Dodgers earned their trip to the World Series on October 7. The next night, at 10:55
pm
, Gilliam passed away. “It's going to be very difficult not to keep thinking about him,” said second baseman Davey Lopes, another Gilliam protégé.

On October 10, the franchise ensured that he would never be forgotten and retired his No. 19. Taking the field that night with his number on the shoulders of their uniforms, the Dodgers opened Game 1 of the Fall Classic with an 11–5 victory, with a distraught but galvanized Lopes blasting two homers and driving in five runs.

On the afternoon of October 11, with Game 2's first pitch hours away, baseball paused and gathered at Trinity Baptist Church to pay their respects—2,000 strong—at Gilliam's funeral. A memorable photo from that day shows Dodgers tormentor Reggie Jackson of the Yankees standing solemnly between Lopes and Tommy Lasorda. All three delivered eulogies.

Jim Gilliam was NL Rookie of the Year in 1953, a two-time All-Star, and one of the best in team history at drawing a walk, but finished his career with lesser stats than many Dodgers whose uniform numbers won't ever be retired by the team. Every other retired Dodgers jersey was worn by someone in the Hall of Fame. If Gilliam was the team's greatest citizen, even that by itself wouldn't have been enough to forever hang up his No. 19.

His death just hurt that much. It was a Hall of Fame hurt. If future generations aren't meant to realize it, his retired number will have to do as a reminder.

 

 

Sing, Sing a Song

Sure, a Dodger fan knows to expect “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch at Dodger Stadium, and anyone who has listened to the team on the radio for any length of time knows the first verse to “It's a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame.” There's also music that's uniquely special to the team's Brooklyn past—plenty of it, in fact, such as “Follow the Dodgers,” performed by original Ebbets Field organist Gladys Goodding. A master class in the Dodger songbook certainly includes the Woodrow Buddy Johnson & Count Basie number, “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?”

But to be a real cut above the crowd, you've got to know “The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh, Really? No, O'Malley),” an epic composition recorded by Danny Kaye and co-written by his wife, Sylvia Fine, with Herbert Baker. The jaunty opening is the part most fans encounter:

So I say D,

I say D-O,

D-O-D,

D-O-D-G,

D-O-D-G-E-R-S, team, team, team, team

 

Near the climax, however, as the action heats up in the imaginary Giants-Dodgers game depicted in the lyrics, the turns of phrase spin you like a whirligig:

 

Gilliam up

Miller grunts

Miller throws

Gilliam bunts

 

Cepeda runs to field the ball and Hiller covers first

Haller runs to back up Hiller, Hiller crashes into Miller

Miller falls, drops the ball and Conlan calls “safe!” Yeah Conlan!

Willie Davis gets a hit and Tommy does the same

Here comes Mr. Howard with a chance to win the game

Hit it once

Big Frank...bunts?

Cepeda runs to field the ball, so does Hiller, so does Miller

Miller hollers Hiller

Hiller hollers Miller

Haller hollers Hiller points to Miller with his fist

And that's the Miller-Hiller-Haller hallelujah twist!

 

The five-minute song really is the Dodgers' Odyssey. It'll cheer you up when you are down, and when you're up, it'll pump you upper. It is, in so many ways, the embodiment of the spiritual craziness of this team.

60. See the Dodgers on the Road

You ready to live a little? As definitive as the Dodger Stadium experience is, you can't ignore the reward of seeing the Dodgers at another team's ballpark. Away from Los Angeles' own friendly confines, you're impelled to root a little harder for a win and die a little harder over a loss. Emotions are more naked when you're in the minority. But there are several ways to go about this, and it's worth considering the differences.

Though times have changed since the Giants moved from Candlestick Park to AT&T Park, situated beautifully at water's edge and offering something of a pacifying effect, the most intense ride for a Dodgers fan on the road remains San Francisco. Showing up in neutral colors will sufficiently expose you to the loathing, but an appearance in Dodgers paraphernalia or even just some pro-Dodgers cheering will give you the added jolt of being a target of Bay Area disdain. There may be no sweeter victory than walking out of a Giants home game wearing the colors of a victorious Dodgers team.

San Diego's PETCO Park can offer a slimmed-down version of the San Francisco challenge. The Padres are also in a 21
st
-century facility, though not quite as breathtaking as the Giants', and the town detests the Dodgers, though not quite as venomously as San Francisco. But one thing to consider is that over the years, the Dodgers have fought more of an uphill battle down south than up north. In the past 35 seasons (1978 through 2012), the Dodgers have had a winning record in San Diego only 13 times.

Trips to the Dodgers' other NL West rivals, Arizona and Colorado, are only about as intense as the pennant race in that given moment, though Colorado's Coors Field offers a sensational skyline as a backdrop. Once you leave California's NL cities, a Dodgers road game becomes less an exercise in traditional rivalry and much more of an excuse to simply view more of the best baseball has to offer. Wrigley Field in Chicago, the only remaining NL park still older than Dodger Stadium (by a lot—48 years), is a must-see for fans of all stripes—not just for the nostalgia, but also because it really is a fun, intimate spot to take in a game. If there's any ballpark to visit when the Dodgers
aren't
playing so that you can soak in the atmosphere without mitigating loyalties, it might be Wrigley. Otherwise, most of the rest of the National League presents a tour of new construction, as nearly every other NL city has something fresh. New York opened two parks in 2009: the Mets' Citi Field (modeled after Ebbets Field and featuring a Jackie Robinson rotunda) and a new Yankee Stadium for the Bronx Bombers.

Ah, the American League. Nearly the entire 20
th
century was played without the Dodgers visiting an AL park during the regular season, but interleague play created all kinds of possibilities. Again, modern facilities dominate, with only Fenway Park in Boston providing a true Old School locale. The not-really-in-Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim offer the closest shot at accompanying the Dodgers on the road, but that's a rivalry that has arguably become less special through frequency, compared with the days when the Angels were a mysterious opponent seen only during March's Freeway Series.

Ultimately, the Dodgers road experience
nonpareil
belongs to fans of the team who live in other cities. A pilgrimage to Dodger Stadium from afar, a prodigal son finding home—that's a win-win. And if the Dodgers win, a win-win-win.

 

 

 

61. Take the Field

You don't have to suit up for the Dodgers to roam the Dodger Stadium outfield—nor do you need to make the mad dash in the middle of a game with security guards tackling you and hauling you off to the cops. Fans have more ways than ever of treading the thriving Stadium grass. Here are some recent popular examples:

• At least twice a year, including an evening on or around July 4, Fireworks Night lets you lay a blanket out on the grass, lean back, and watch the colorful explosions above the stadium.

• Before every game, eight children are picked to meet and get autographs from the Dodgers starting position players as they take their warmups—moments before the first pitch. Another slot is open for one lucky fan to grab a microphone and say to the crowd, just like Vin Scully, “It's time for Dodger baseball.”

• Every year for Father's Day, the Dodgers invite parents and kids on to the field to play catch.

• Photo Day allows you to come onto the field to snap pictures of the Dodgers as they parade by, but get there early if you want to stake out a good position.

• Concerts at Dodger Stadium—past performers have included the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, U2, the Police, and Madonna—turn the field into baseball's biggest mosh pit.

• Your company or organization can arrange a sponsored batting-practice event that allows you to take a few swings in the same spot where Gibby hit his home run in '88.

• Sing the National Anthem before the game. You can submit your rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” any time to the Dodgers' Special Events Department.

• Attend a four-day youth baseball camp, where current and past Dodgers guide your child with instruction on fundamentals of the game, four hours per day. Scholarships to the camp are available.

• Sign up for a Dodger Stadium tour, which not only includes field access but visits to the dugouts, press box, and other hidden areas of the ballpark.

 

If you've got your wallet and future wife aligned, you can even rent Dodger Stadium for your wedding. Whether you can get Vin Scully to pronounce you man and wife is another matter.

 

 

Beach Balls: Fun or Folly?

What is it about the beach ball? What is it that is so addictive, so beguiling that a child's toy can draw the attention of so many fans of all ages away from the actual baseball contest they theoretically came to see at Dodger Stadium?

Though they're the bane of the hardcore Dodgers fans who find them a distraction, beach balls nevertheless delight a majority of those they bounce to, near, or even off of. They're a sign of how much people really want to get in the game, admittedly at the most remedial level possible.

Beach ball fans should recognize that the annoyance beach ball foes feel for the bounding orbs is legitimate, and shouldn't be offended if one were to fall victim to the sharp poke of a car key or ballpoint pen. But perhaps some tolerance for beach balls is deserved. After all, the umpire isn't utterly specific when he calls out, “Play ball!”

62. When Were the Dodgers Born?

If you want to ski the black-diamond runs of Dodgers expertise, one useful tidbit to know is that the roots of the franchise predate Brooklyn's entrance into the National League. Just make sure you don't get lost among the several other baseball clubs calling Brooklyn their home.

In
The Dodgers
, Glenn Stout traces organized baseball in Brooklyn back to the mid–1850s:

“By 1857,” Stout writes, “Brooklyn sported no fewer than four well-organized, formal baseball clubs. One year later they were invited to join an association of clubs in Manhattan to create what can be considered the first baseball league, the National Association of Base Ball Players.”

Brooklyn was the home of the man generally acknowledged to be baseball's first star player, Jim Creighton, who brought the wrist snap to pitching and began its transformation into an art form. Creighton was also the game's first martyr, dying at age 21 of internal injuries said to have been suffered during a game.

But it's between then and Brooklyn's 1890 NL debut that the Dodgers franchise as it's known today was born. The 1890 Brooklyn Bridegrooms, who won the NL pennant in their first season, were brought over by co-owner Charles Byrne from the American Association, which was foundering with the establishment of a rival confederation, the Players' League. Previously, the same franchise had spent the 1884–89 seasons in the AA, using such other official and unofficial nicknames as the Grays (1885–88) and the Atlantics (1884). The AA, though a bit inferior to the NL in strength was nonetheless considered a major league—the top echelon of professional baseball.

And the journey back in time goes back yet one step further. Brooklyn's arrival in the AA came after it won—under the same ownership and in the same locale—the 1883 Interstate Association title. That team came into being when, Stout writes,
New York Herald
night editor George Taylor, ex-journalist/real estate investor Byrne, Byrne's brother-in-law and business partner Joseph Doyle, and Rhode Island casino operator Frederick Abell applied for an IA franchise, found a place near the Gowanus Canal to build a ballpark, and recruited 40 ballplayers from which to form a squad. That group took the first step as the franchise that today operates nearly 3,000 miles and more than 100 years away in the splendor of Dodger Stadium.

 

Touchdown, Dodgers!

More than half a century before the NFL almost came to Chavez Ravine, pigskins flew at Pigtown. From 1930–43, the Brooklyn Dodgers football team gave the borough's World Series-starved fans something to root for in the fall. In those 14 seasons, unfortunately, the team never finished in first place.

However, like their baseball counterparts who hosted Cincinnati for major league baseball's first telecast on August 26, 1939, the football Dodgers also have the distinction of playing in their league's first televised game, which they won 23–14, on October 22 that same year.

After changing its name to the Tigers before a 1944 season in which it went 0–10, Brooklyn football merged with a team whose name must have been very difficult for the city's baseball fans to swallow: the Boston Yanks. Football briefly left Ebbets Field, but in 1946, a new Brooklyn Dodgers team began play in the All-American Football Conference. In the winter of 1947–48, Branch Rickey, John L. Smith, and Walter O'Malley purchased the squad.

“Rickey told O'Malley and Smith that operating a pro football team in Ebbets Field would be both a good community gesture and, ultimately, a money-making proposition,” Lee Lowenfish wrote in his Rickey biography. Peter O'Malley recalls going as a child to the games with Rickey. But the team went 2–12 and was in the red by about $300,000 at the end of 1948, and once again, it merged into oblivion.