local boy makes good

hey didja hear?  former dodger robin ventura will be the white sox's manager next season.  i was pretty surprised to hear the news as were a lot of folks since he has been largely out of baseball since he retired a few years ago, but i was also happy since he's a guy whose career i have been following since high school.  his high school days, not mine.  that's why his 2004 topps card is in the blog header, too.

you see, he and i are from the same neck of the woods.  just like jim lonborg and roy howell and pat kelly (the blue jays prospect from the late '70's) and bryn smith.  having played baseball year-round growing up and hoping to have had what it takes to make it in the big leagues, i've always felt a kinship to those players who hail from my hometown that have, in fact, "made it".  ventura was a favorite of mine, primarily because he came along after i had outgrown my dream of taking the field for the dodgers someday.

i've mentioned lonborg and howell and smith before.  since then, i've had smith sign a few more cards for me, like his 1989 topps card

and his 1989 upper deck card

that photo may or may not be from a visit to dodger stadium.  there is no doubt about his 1990 upper deck card

love the baby blues

there was also this guy who made it to the majors from the central coast 

in fact, i played little league with his son. 

ventura won't be the first major league manager to hail from santa maria.  this guy is from the central coast, too

although i don't recall hearing much about him while i was growing up and he was coaching and managing in the majors. 

here's another guy who grew up in the santa maria valley

we played high school ball together.  last season, simas was a coach for the dodgers' minor league team in ogden.  i, sadly, was not. simas attempted a comeback with the dodgers a few years ago but his elbow was not cooperative.  that was as close as i have been to personally knowing a dodger player.  almost.

brad dandridge, who i believe is some relation to ray dandridge, was in the dodgers' minor league system in the mid 1990's.  here's his 1996 best card from his time with the dodgers' aa team in san antonio

he also grew up in my hometown and we played against each other in babe ruth and high school ball.  during the spring of 1995, i turned on my tv to watch a dodger spring training game, and there he was behind the plate.  unfortunately, this was during the strike so he would have been labeled as a 'scab' had he advanced to the majors.  i don't know if that impeded his progress or not, but he wound up only getting as high as aaa in 1996 and 1998.  and that's as close as he got.

good luck, robin.  i'll be watching.

the evolution of the left fielder, part 3

continuing the evolution of the dodgers' primary left fielders (here are parts 1 and 2), billy ashley filled the role (just barely) in 1995

billy ashley (1995)

the 'can't miss' prospect missed, unfortunately.  ashley played in 81 games (69 in left) during the second straight strike-shortened season.  he hit just .237 with 8 home runs and an ops of .692.  he was the dodgers' version of rob deer, going for one of the three true outcomes 121 times in 244 plate appearances.  in fact, in all three of ashley's postseason appearances (including two pa's in 1995), he either struck out or walked.

todd hollandsworth (1996-1997)

holly won the rookie of the year award in 1996, patrolling center field for the dodgers and playing in 149 games.  he hit .291 with 12 home runs, 21 stolen bases and 59 rbi.  as the 1997 upper deck card above state, he did in fact drive in three runs against the giants on 7/21/96. he had also driven in three runs on opening day.  in 1997, hollandsworth played in only 106 games (80 in left, but only 39 starts there) and his numbers dropped across the board.  the dodgers also used billy ashley and eric anthony in left, and even picked up darren lewis at the trade deadline.  still, left field was hollandsworth's to lose, and he lost it in 1998 due to injury. 

matt luke (1998)

luke took over for hollandsworth in left after holly's season ended in early june thanks to a shoulder injury.  the most interesting thing about luke's 1998 season with the dodgers is that, in addition to being their primary left fielder, he was an in-season double dipper (post coming soon)!  he had played in 33 games and was hitting .286 when the dodgers waived him in early june.  the indians claimed him, and he appeared in 2 games for the tribe.  11 days after losing luke, and just after losing hollandsworth for the season, the dodgers purchased luke's contract from cleveland and he finished out the season patrolling left field for the blue.  he wound up hitting .236 with 12 home runs and 34 rbi on the season, which included a 4-at bat span in which he hit 3 home runs over two days in saint louis.

gary sheffield (1999-2001)

sheffield moved from right, where he played after the dodgers acquired him in the 1998 mike piazza trade, to left in 1999 as raul mondesi returned to right field after a year in center.  it's too bad sheffield was such a, how do you say, jerk (?) during his career because he was as good of a hitter as the dodgers have ever had.  his three full seasons in la included no less than 98 runs, 34 home runs, 100 rbi, 98 walks and a .301 average.  his 43 home runs in 2000 were not only a career high, but were also the most ever by a los angeles dodger, and tied the franchise mark set by duke snider in 1956 (since eclipsed by shawn green and adrian beltre).  he made the all-star team in 1999 and 2000, and finished 9th in the league's mvp voting in 2000.  sheffield holds the la dodger single season records for obp, slugging and ops, along with atbat/hr.  he is also the dodgers' all-time franchise leader in each of those categories.  still, he complained and moaned badly enough that the dodgers wanted nothing more to do with him, and they traded him to the braves prior to the 2002 season.

brian jordan (2002)

jordan was one of the guys the dodgers got in the sheffield deal.  he played in 128 games for the dodgers in 2002 and hit .285 with 18 home runs with 80 rbi.  he was hitting .299 in june of 2003 when his season ended with a knee injury.

jeromy burnitz (2003)

a couple of weeks after jordan went down, the dodgers went out and acquired burnitz from the mets.  in dodger blue, burnitz hit .204 with 13 home runs and 32 rbi.  the dodgers didn't re-sign him after the season, and he instead went to colorado and had a monster season.

jayson werth (2004)

werth had been picked up in a pre-season trade with the blue jays.  he was the nl west champion dodgers' primary left fielder, atlhough juan encarnacion, dave roberts, and fellow jim tracy 'league of ja(y)son' member jason grabowski also saw a good amount of time in left.  89 games, werth hit 16 home runs and had a .267 average.  in the nlds against the cardinals, he was pretty much the only bright spot for the dodgers offensively, hitting two home runs and a double in their four game loss.  unfortunately, his number slipped in 2005 and for the fifth time in five years, a different dodger spent the majority of the time in left (just barely).

rickey ledee (2005)

ledee spent just a few more innings in left for the dodgers in 2005 than did werth (390.1 to 345.1).  ledee's offensive numbers weren't too much to get excited about either, as he hit only 7 home runs to go with his .278 average.

up next, andre ethier, manny ramirez, and...

...jerry sands?  here's hopin'.

more out of place guys

wlecome to the third installment of the 'evolution of the dodgers' out of place guy'.  the first installment covered about 20 years, from skowron to stanhouse, and the second got us about 16 more seasons, from belanger to bonilla.  i realize now that i should have included don sutton and eddie murray and their second tours of duty with the dodgers in 1988 and 1997 to the last list.  really, how many people remember that they ended their careers in la?  that is truly out of place.

anyway, due to the higher frequency of free agency and trades and one year contracts and all of that stuff, this post won't even get us to the present day.  we'll start in 1999 with the 1997 world series hero, craig counsell

i believe that this 2000 pacific crown collection card is the only one of counsell as a dodger.  that's how out of place he was.  even the card companies don't want to recognize his tenure in la.  the dodgers acquired counsell halfway through the 1999 season from the marlins, giving up a minor leaguer.  in 50 games with the dodgers, he hit .259 with just 6 extra base hits (all doubles) for an ops of .626.  the dodgers released him during spring training 2000, and the diamondbacks picked him up.

did you remember that kevin elster ended his career with the dodgers in 2000?  that makes this 2001 topps card a final tribute.

elster's old manager, davey johnson, was leading the dodgers and convinced elster to come out of retirement (he missed the second half of the 1998 season and all of 1999 after being released by texas), presumably because he was scared of an entire season of alex cora at short.  in his 5th game back, elster helped to open the giants' new stadium (pac bell park, i believe it was known as back then) with 3 home runs to lead the dodgers to victory.  another candidate for out of place guy from the 2000 dodgers was geronimo berroa, but that is too obscure of a player even for me to address.

in 2001, james baldwin was a dodger and was only sort of out of place, and in 2002 marquis grissom came aboard.  i would have added grissom to the list, but he actually played in la for two seasons.  you can't be out of place if you hang around that long.

2003 brought a bevy of out of place guys, starting with the crime dog, fred mcgriff

mcgriff joined the dodgers as a free agent with 478 home runs.  having hit 30 in 2002 with the cubs, i sure thought he would get to 500 with the dodgers.  he didn't.  instead, he hit 13 dingers in just 86 games leaving him 9 short of the milestone.  the dodgers released him after the season and he went home to tampa to play for the devil rays in 2004.  unfortunately, he hit only 2 homers there and is forever sitting on 493.

joining mcgriff on the 2003 dodgers team was jeromy burnitz

the dodgers got burnitz in a deal that cost them a minor leaguer and two diazes.  it was the second time the mets had traded burnitz away.  for the dodgers, he performed worse than he had performed for any team in any season in his career.  he hit just .204 with an ops of .643.  he went to colorado for the 2004 season and i am sure he would have won the comeback player of the year award if chris carpenter hadn't been so good after missing all of 2003 and/or if burnitz hadn't (allegedly) been on steroids.

rounding out the triumverate of 2003 dodger out of place guys, we have rickey henderson.

rickey is a throwback out of place guy, like frank robinson or hoyt wilhelm.  a hall of famer who hit tinseltown for a short time at the end of the line, or in frobby's case - close to it.  rickey was 44 when the dodgers signed him to a contract in july of 2003.  he wound up hitting just .208 in 30 games with 2 homers and 5 rbi.  he scored 7 runs and stole 3 bases without getting caught.  his final career home run was, what else, a lead off home run - the 81st of his career.

2004 brought steve finley to town for 58 games.

he managed to win his 5th gold glove (he made just one error with the dodgers and just 3 overall in 2004) but is better known for his walk off grand slam against the giants on the next to last day of the season that gave the dodgers the nl west crown.  finley signed with the angels as a free agent for the 2005 season.

in 2005, the dodgers had a lot of no-names who weren't so much out of place as they were just not very good players.  norihiro nakamura?  jason grabowski?  come on.  i would love to say jd drew was out of place, but he stuck around (barely) for more than one season. 

then, in 2006, kenny lofton became a dodger.

lofton had one of the best years ever by an out of place guy.  he hit .301 with 79 runs scored and 32 steals as the dodgers' primary center fielder.  his 2007 season was pretty good, too, but he was back in the american league then as the dodgers didn't re-sign him.