100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (28 page)

81. Was Brooklyn Still in the League?

In 1920, the Brooklyn Robins won their second NL pennant in five seasons and reached Game 5 of a best-of-nine World Series with Cleveland, all square at 2–2. In the next five innings, Brooklyn ace Burleigh Grimes allowed a grand slam, and Clarence Mitchell gave up a three-run homer to opposing pitcher Jim Bagby before coming to the plate and lining to Indians second baseman Bill Wambsganss for the only unassisted triple play in World Series history.

Over the next 20 years, Brooklyn's fortunes hardly improved upon those five frames. Brooklyn finished the 1920 Series with one run in its final 32 innings and did not win another NL pennant until 1941, landing as high as second place only once. From 1922–1929, whether you called them the Dodgers, Robins or Superbas, Brooklyn finished in sixth place in the eight-team NL every year but one.

Having played in October during the previous two presidential campaigns, the Robins did bid for re-election to the World Series in 1924. Twenty-seven years before the New York Giants would succeed in the comeback for the ages, the Robins (as the Dodgers were then known, under manager Wilbert Robinson) tried their own. After losing to St. Louis on August 9, Brooklyn sat in fourth place with a 56–50 record, 13 games back of New York. What followed was as remarkable a stretch of baseball rallying as Brooklyn ever saw.

Led by Dazzy Vance, a rookie two years earlier at age 31 but now in the midst of posting a 2.16 ERA (174 ERA+) and 262 strikeouts in 308
1/3
innings, the Robins started their rally by winning 11 of their next 13 games to pull within seven of the Giants. When St. Louis swept Brooklyn in a doubleheader, the second game by the score of 17–0, one could easily have concluded the Robins were spent. Instead, they won the last two games of the series at Sportsman's Park, then swept three from the Giants at Ebbets Field to draw within four games of first.

“I recently saw the Robins win three straight from the Giants at Ebbets Field, and I formed one conclusion, that Uncle Robby's men would come out on top,” wrote
Sporting News
columnist Joe Vila. “McGraw's team was clearly outplayed and outclassed in those games which, by the way, drew 63,000 paid admissions, averaging 80 cents each.”

Rather unbelievably, because of makeup games, Brooklyn now faced four consecutive doubleheaders. Even more unbelievably, the Robins swept them all, scoring 57 runs in four days. At the end of play September 4, the Giants were 78–52, .003 ahead of 80–54 Brooklyn. Wins in their next two games extended the Robin streak to 15 in a row and, for a couple of hours in between a September 6 doubleheader, the Robins could claim they were in first place.

However, Brooklyn couldn't complete the comeback. Though the Robins won 10 of their final 18 games to complete a season-ending 36–12 run, and were .001 back with four games to play, the Giants clinched the pennant on the second-to-last day of the season with a 3–2 victory over Brooklyn. No miracle here.

Charles Ebbets died the following April, and with him seemingly any semblance of competitiveness for his team. Brooklyn had no greater achievement for the next 10 years than responding to Giants manager Bill Terry's rhetorical wondering if Brooklyn “were still in the league” in 1934 by spoiling the Giants' postseason chances with a two-game sweep at season's end. The Dodgers' record that year: 71–81. A Pyrrhic victory, to say the least.

When the Dodgers finally returned to the World Series in 1941, they were the only NL team besides the Phillies that had never won it. That drought continued for 14 more years, but at least in that latter stretch they eliminated any doubters over what league they belonged in.

 

 

“The Dodgers Have Three Runners on Base” —”Which Base?”

The Dodgers have never had a .400 hitter, but Babe Herman came closest, batting .393 in 1930. You'd think that might be what Herman is remembered for, but when the legend next to your name says “doubled into a double play,” that tends to trump all (although admittedly, Russell Martin escaped this fate in the 2006 playoffs).

On August 15, 1926, Brooklyn had the bases loaded (Chick Fewster on first, Dazzy Vance on second and Hank DeBerry on third) when Herman drove one toward the right-field wall. The base runners had different reads on whether the ball would be caught—and no read on what their teammates were reading—so that when Herman raced to third base, he found Chick Fewster at the base and Dazzy Vance abandoning his attempt to score and retreating there as well.

Sorting through the confusion, the umpires ruled Herman and Fewster out. Though Vance was the primary cause of the roadblock and Fewster also should have been able to score, for decades baseball storytellers remembered Herman as the culprit. Great story, but too bad for the Dodgers' Babe.

82. “Gonna Take 'Em Down to the Camelback Ranch”

The Dodgers' spring training home since 2009, Camelback Ranch has been a big hit with fans, who can be there in six hours by car or fewer by plane. Built nearly half a century after Dodger Stadium, the facility features numerous modern amenities for both players and visitors, yet still retains a good chunk of the homey Vero Beach atmosphere—including meeting members of the team after their daily workouts are done. One of the practice fields is an exact replica of Dodger Stadium. During the games, there are great sightlines but not a lot of shade, so sunglasses are imperative.

“The best part of Camelback Ranch is all the access to see Dodgers players up close,” says Dodger blogger Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. “Fans can watch the major league team practice on a field with dimensions identical to Dodger Stadium, or watch the future perform on the minor league side, all while franchise legends like Tommy Lasorda or Maury Wills, for example, roam the grounds.”

Stephen offers the following key pieces of advice: Because there is limited shade, be sure be sure to bring sunscreen in bulk. In addition, he says bringing food from outside is the best bet—something that requires advance planning because there aren't many nearby restaurants.

 

 

 

83. Question the Conventional Wisdom

For decades, people were told that Jackie Robinson retired rather than play for the New York Giants, that Walter O'Malley was the ogre in the takeover of Chavez Ravine, that free agency would bring financial ruin to baseball. None of it was true.

Baseball myths, even if they're based on as much fact as George Washington and the cherry tree, have a way of being accepted at face value. It takes some nerve to challenge a story that hits just the right notes. One man's falsehood is another's bond with his father. A .300 batting average served as the standard for success for more than a century—who gets any joy out of suggesting it can be a flawed statistic? Paying attention to on-base percentage or the number of pitches someone throws in a game has been taken in some parts as a form of outright rebellion.

But why? Is baseball sacred? No way—it's too alive to be sacred. Rather, baseball is great, great because it stands
the test
of time.

This is not to say that some conventional wisdom isn't real wisdom, nor that all change is good. You can study the importance of a pitcher getting first strikes and conclude yep, they really do matter. You can take a long look at the revenue generated by increased advertising inside Dodger Stadium and decide whether or not it's not worth the sacrifice in the ballpark's beauty. But it never hurts to test the accepted, and that goes for Dodgers fans, Dodgers beat writers, Dodgers broadcasters, and Dodgers management. Tradition is an argument, sometimes the best argument, but just one argument and not an infallible one. Too often, precedent is used as a crutch for a hollow contention, and an extreme or dogmatic position is held at the expense of a more reasonable middle ground. Too often, a time-honored aphorism blocks a better understanding of the game, even blocks the making of a better team.

Let's face it—we've all been questioning already. It doesn't matter how much Tommy Lasorda insists that pitching to Jack Clark was the right thing to do—countless Dodgers fans feel no compulsion to agree. Second-guessing a manager or general manager with decades of experience is challenging the canon—and it's part of being a baseball fan. There's no reason this approach shouldn't extend to other areas of the game. If you hear “it's always been done that way,” alarm bells should go off in your head.

No, you don't have to be a jerk about it. Patience and open-mindedness are true virtues when it comes to challenging the conventional wisdom. But the same goes to those receiving the challenge. No one who cares enough about the Dodgers to study them is out to destroy them. If there's a statistic or a scouting report that shows more than meets the naked eye, that's a good thing.

When Vin Scully called the 4+1 game in 2006 and the Dodgers' victory while being no-hit in 2008, nearly 60 years into his broadcasting career, he had never seen anything like them before. You
never
know. Baseball is designed to be humbling, and no matter how many years it's been a part of your life, there is always more to learn—just as there's always more to see. As you follow the Dodgers, this old franchise that employed a pioneer in developing the use of advanced statistics, that showed that the West Coast deserved baseball, that performed the game's greatest service by killing the notion that you could only have players of a certain color on your team, let that spirit be your guide even over something as small as whether or not they should bunt. No matter what the facts reveal, the romance will always be there.

 

 

84. Rookies, Rookies, Rookies

No team has introduced more Rookies of the Year than the Dodgers: 16. They boast the man the award is named after—Jackie Robinson—cherished figures from Brooklyn like Don Newcombe and Jim Gilliam, early Los Angeles prodigies like Frank Howard, as well as more contemporary names like Fernando Valenzuela, Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, and Hideo Nomo.

Here are the remaining Rookies of the Year—memorable in their own right but at risk of slipping through the cracks.

Rook in his prime:
Joe Black (1952) was a 28-year-old veteran of the Negro Leagues when he made his Dodgers debut on the first day of May. By the end of the season, he had won 15 games and saved 15 more, posting a 2.15 ERA (168 ERA+) in 142
1/3
innings, enough to legitimately beat out New York Giants pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. But Black, who was never a strikeout pitcher, was already at his peak. His career in the majors lasted only another 271
2/3
mostly subpar innings, and he was traded midway through the Dodgers' championship season in '55.

Quick peak:
Another player whose rookie season was his best was Todd Hollandsworth (1996). The longest last name in Dodgers history rode a strong second half (.808 OPS) to overcome the reluctance to give Los Angeles an unprecedented five ROYs in a row. But Hollandsworth would play 100 games in a season only four more times in his 12-year career, stretched across eight major league teams.

Hall of Famer tamer:
Jim Lefebvre (1965) denied Joe Morgan top rookie honors despite posting offensive numbers, even adjusted for Dodger Stadium, nowhere near those of the future Hall of Famer. Lefebvre did belt 24 homers in 1966 and was an offensive asset for most of his career before it ended abruptly following the 1972 season, when he was 30.

Trade bait:
After knocking 160 hits in 159 games to win the vote over, among others, an arguably more deserving Al Oliver of Pittsburgh, Ted Sizemore (1969) lasted 12 years in the bigs, providing competent defense though not once generating an OPS+ over 100. He was the player so nice the Dodgers traded him twice, in 1970 with Bob Stinson for Dick Allen and in 1976 for Johnny Oates.

Better early and late than never:
The Dodgers used Rick Sutcliffe (1979) so sparingly at the outset of his career that he didn't allow a major league run for more than two years after his 1976 debut. Finally, in his first full season, he pitched 242 innings with a 3.46 ERA (106 ERA+) and easily started a four-year run on the award for the Dodgers. Sutcliffe then almost completely lost it in 1980, his ERA swelling to 5.56 (64 ERA+), and the Dodgers dumped him to the Indians in December 1981. But the 6'7" righty ended up winning the 1984 NL Cy Young Award after becoming one of the greatest midseason acquisitions of all time, going 16–1 (144 ERA+) with the Cubs.

Heir apparent:
The first to break into the Dodgers' long-running infield, Steve Sax (1982) weathered the pressure and competition from Johnny Ray, Willie McGee, and Chili Davis to win top rookie honors. Though some remember him mainly for his temporary mental meltdown with regards to throwing to first, Sax would go on to reach base more than 2,500 times in his career. Like his predecessor, Davey Lopes, Sax left the Dodgers right after celebrating a World Series title, in 1988.

Supernovas:
As eyepopping an athlete as ever wore a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform, the speedy, powerful, laser-armed Raul Mondesi (1994) broke out with Hall of Fame potential. Slugging .516 (123 OPS+) in the strike-shortened 1994 season, Mondesi was a unanimous pick for the ROY award. An inability to master the down-and-away pitch separated him from his apparent destiny and washed him out of the game before his 35
th
birthday, but he still finished his career with 271 homers and 229 stolen bases.

Mondesi was preceded by 1980 Rookie of the Year Steve Howe, whose remarkable effectiveness (2.35 ERA in 328
2/3
innings as a Dodger from 1980–84) foundered upon an unending battle with drug addiction. Howe would come back from numerous suspensions to pitch in nearly 500 games for four teams with a 129 ERA+. He died in a single-car accident in 2006, at age 48.

 

 

Sax Recovers

Steve Sax had already established himself as a big leaguer, winning the 1982 Rookie of the Year award, when he made throwing errors in two consecutive games in April 1983. “Pretty soon it just stuck in my head,” Sax later told Steve Delsohn in
True Blue
. “I lost my confidence. I'd wake up in the night sweating. It was the worst thing I ever went through in my life besides losing my parents.”

By the All-Star break, Sax made 18 errors, some on simple throws so outrageously awry that Sax's own Dodgers teammates couldn't resist mocking him (at one point, some drafted a phony memo proclaiming Batting Helmet Day for the fans behind the first-base dugout). And then at the All-Star Game, before its national television audience, he made another error on a routine throw. No one was more frustrated than Tommy Lasorda, who also had to contend with the scattershot fielding of Pedro Guerrero at third base, but the Dodgers manager didn't bench Sax. He did offer plenty of tough love, in vintage Lasorda style.

Amid all the teasing, the concerted effort to rebuild Sax's self-assurance ultimately succeeded—much faster than people might remember. During the final two months of the 1983 season, Sax's throws found their target without fail.