Nearly a decade ago, I was tipped off that an outlier had interviewed for the vacant Dodger managerial job.
It was the first time anybody had connected his name to the job, yet, what the heck, the surprise candidate seemed like a good fit.
“If the Dodgers want a combination of old-school hardball and new-thinking smartball, they could do worse,” I wrote at the time, adding, “You hire Dave Roberts because a team of underachievers needs to be prodded by an overachiever, a team of chill needs a manager whose career could never withstand even one day of complacency.”
I still remember the excitement in Robert’s voice when I phoned him in San Diego for comment.
“To have an opportunity to work for the best franchise in sports would be a huge honor,” he said.
Nearly 10 years later, the honor is all theirs.
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Dave Roberts officially became Dodger royalty Monday when he agreed to a contract extension that makes him the richest manager in baseball and the rightful heir to the most coveted sports throne in Los Angeles.
He is the Dodgers’ MVP. He is the organization’s face and voice and heart. He is the new Tommy Lasorda.
He has evolved from an afterthought into a superstar, a guy who was only interviewed because ownership wasn’t ready to hastily hand the job to heavy favorite Gabe Kapler, a hiring whim who has become a deep-blue cornerstone.
You haven’t always liked him. You still might not like him. Some of you may never like him
Of the eight different Dodger managers hired since Lasorda retired in 1996, Roberts has been the most universally criticized, second-guessed and roundly booed.
You’ve said he was a puppet. You believed he couldn’t handle late-game situations. You kept waiting for management to fire him.
Yet here he is, the new owner of a four-year, $32.4 million contract that barely edges the deal struck by the Chicago Cubs’ Craig Counsell and is now the most lucrative managerial pact in the sport.
Deservedly so, because Dave Roberts has become the best manager in the sport by consistently adhering to the words that he first spoke to me on that November day in 2015.
To have an opportunity to work for the best franchise in sports would be a huge honor…
He’s never forgotten that honor.
With a permanent smile backed by an unrelenting drive, the man known as “Doc” has represented the Dodgers with dignity and grace through championships and collapses and endless chaos.
In his nine seasons his teams have won two World Series championships and four National League championships while winning the division an amazing eight times. Yet he’s been just as impressive in failure, holding the team together while refusing to publicly parse blame after two recent stunning first-round playoff defeats to the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.
He has won a higher percentage of his games — 63% — than any manager in history with at least 250 games. Yet as much as he is known for dancing to Ice Cube after last fall’s title win over the New York Yankees, he is also known for stoically withstanding the jeers that have rained down on him as he has stalked to the mound after nine years of controversial postseason moves.
He handles the job the same whether the Dodgers win or lose, he handles it like the “honor” he once described, and this firm belief in the Dodgers’ brand has been passed on to the players in creating baseball’s best clubhouse culture, a place where no fingers are pointed yet nothing less than championship effort is accepted.
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This season was his best ever, beginning with his seamless leadership in integrating Shohei Ohtani into an All-Star, no-ego lineup and ending with his masterful use of a bullpen that essentially saved them in all three postseason series.
The appearance of worldwide star Ohtani into a room of quiet greatness could have blown everything up. But Roberts treated Ohtani with just the right mix of deference and authority to make it work.
In the end, it was Ohtani who finished the World Series while playing with basically one arm, refusing to let a serious shoulder injury sideline him in an environment created by Roberts that rewarded not just talent, but toughness..
The last-minute move of Mookie Betts from right field to shortstop — and then back again — could have also blown everything up. But Roberts continually gave Betts both the public and private support he needed to subjugate his ego for the good of the team.
In the end, in all the series-winning celebrations, nobody hugged Roberts more often than Betts, and that was not a coincidence.
Then there was Freddie Freeman, a self-made superstar in need of little maintenance but nonetheless enduring the most difficult personal and injury difficulties of his career. Roberts kept him focused, supported him endlessly, and what happened on a cool night in October?
Freddie Freeman became Kirk Gibson.
Finally, Roberts was forced to juggle all these potential implosions with the constant decimation of his starting rotation. All summer he needed to figure out a way to keep his pitchers rested and resilient, and so he did, and the ultimate reward was breathtaking,
In the deciding Game 5 of the World Series, he needed to rely on weary reliever Blake Treinen and struggling starter Walker Buehler to record the last 10 outs.
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He asked them to do the improbable. They succeeded with the nearly impossible, 31/3 scoreless innings to win a World Series championship.
Afterward, in keeping with a theme visible after every playoff series win, nobody danced and hugged and led the cheers quite like Roberts. And, in turn, nobody was cheered quite like Roberts, who felt the redemption of nine seasons of second-guessing and an end to the scoffing at his talented team’s singular short-season 2020 championship.
“I’m sure there’s no asterisk on this one,” he said at the time, adding, “This is something I really wanted, I wanted this one.”
Finally, fittingly, with Monday’s lucrative contract extension, there’s also no more asterisk on Dave Roberts himself, a worthy successor and daily personification of the great Lasorda.
Doc now not only bleeds Dodger blue, he is Dodger blue, a color fitting, an honor indelible.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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