‘Most powerful’ Dodger 39 years old
Utley inspires, leads a young improving team
PHOENIX – It felt like a gut punch at the time, but nearly five months after the Los Angeles Dodgers experienced baseball’s cruelest defeat — in Game 7 of the World Series — some value was derived from that setback to the Houston Astros.
It happened on Monday night, the moment Oakland Athletics starter Kendall Graveman’s pitch struck Dodgers All-Star third baseman Justin Turner, breaking his left wrist.
Turner won’t need surgery but will be out until at least May.
Yet inside the Dodgers clubhouse, you will find empathy but no panic. If anyone had any feelings of despair, all they had to do was look at the old guy in the corner locker and realize life will be OK.
His name is Chase Utley, 39, the oldest position player in baseball after 44year-old Ichiro Suzuki and the guru of this Dodgers team.
No one has more influence, no one provides more inspiration and no one carries more clout than the only active Dodgers player who has a World Series ring.
“With all due respect to everyone in this clubhouse,” Dodgers outfielder Trayce Thompson tells USA TODAY, “he has the most powerful voice of anyone in this building. For us players, his word goes further than anybody else’s. You don’t even have to talk to him. You just watch what he does. He’s seriously one of a kind.
“He’s a guy I’ll be able to tell my kids one day that I got to play with this guy named Chase Utley, and he represents what it means to be a professional baseball player.”
Utley, a six-time All-Star who received MVP consideration in five consecutive years, now represents far more than a veteran hood ornament on baseball’s Rolls-Royce.
Turner’s injury requires the Dodgers to slide second baseman Logan Forsythe to third base, says Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who will platoon Enrique Hernandez and Utley at second base.
The Dodgers have little doubt they can survive Turner’s loss with their depth, but if they had won Game 7 of the World Series, it might be a completely different story.
You see, if not for that Dodgers defeat, Utley says he would have seriously considered retiring on top.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” says Utley, who keeps his 2008 Phillies ring in a drawer at home. “I love baseball, I love the competition, but it’s all about winning. It’s hard to answer that question, but maybe it would have changed things.”
A World Series title could have had greater consequences than anyone could have envisioned.
“Shoot, I might not have come back if we won,” three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw says. “I get it. I get it. Winning the World Series is the only reason he plays.”
A Game 7 loss never looked so beautiful.
“That may have been the only good thing about us not winning it,” Dodgers President Andrew Friedman says. “We have Chase back.
“He has had the greatest impact in a clubhouse that I’ve ever seen. The number of guys that I hear say, ‘I don’t want to disappoint Chase,’ is something that is real.”
Certainly, the Dodgers look no further than Utley to see how they should react to Turner’s loss. Utley was one of the first to arrive to Camelback Ranch the morning after Turner’s injury. He went to the weight room. Took cuts in the batting cage. And was riding the team bus to Mesa, Ariz., for a day game after a night contest.
No one is going to feel sorry for the Dodgers, so it’s up to them, Utley says, to make sure they don’t feel sorry for themselves.
“I’ve had a lot of experiences in this game, so anything I can pass along to these guys that is beneficial,” says Utley, the only active position player from that 2008 Phillies team, “is important. I know as a young guy I would have wanted that information.
“You look back, and last year was a pretty spectacular year. I mean, you can focus on the last game we lost, but it was pretty exciting. I think it will be even better this year.”
Utley, with 22 home runs and 86 RBI his past two full seasons with the Dodgers, is playing better now than at any time since 2014.
He didn’t want to play for any other team than this hometown Dodgers when he signed a two-year, $2 million contract. And the Dodgers didn’t want anyone other than him for that secondbase role.
He joined the Dodgers in an August 2015 trade, seemingly a short-term gig for postseason roster depth. Now, it’s like he can’t leave — nor will the Dodgers let him.
“When the offseason started, he said playing for us is the only thing he wanted to do,” Friedman says. “In turn, we said, ‘This is a role I set aside only for you.’ It was never going to be a negotiation like, ‘Hey, there’s another team,’ or, ‘Hey, we’re going to sign someone else.’ ”
The reality is the Dodgers needed him back.
Roberts calls him the greatest teammate he’s ever seen. Austin Barnes marvels over his ability to detect pitchers’ tipping pitches. Forsythe says he changed his workout routine because of Utley. Thompson says he now breaks down video in an entirely different manner. Rich Hill equates his baseball IQ to Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux. Corey Seager gushes about his influence. Andrew Toles says he simply wants to grow up and be just like him.
You won’t hear Utley when you enter the clubhouse, and rarely will he call team meetings, but you’ll constantly feel his presence. He’ll be the one talk- ing individually to players, offering advice, giving constructive criticism and letting them know just how to be the ultimate professional. It’s his way of paying forward, remembering how former Phillies outfielder Pat Burrell took him in as a rookie.
“I don’t think many people realize how hard of a worker he was,” Utley said of Burrell. “He made me go to the field early with him. I had no choice. He made me get into the weight room with him. He made me do a lot of things that I still do to this day.”
It’s Utley’s turn now, and he has a whole room full of guys paying attention.
“We were playing the White Sox last weekend,” Thompson says, “and in his last at-bat he grounds out into a double play. Here we are, it’s late March, and this 39-year-old guy’s running 100% to first base in his 16th year in the big leagues. It was inspiring, honestly.
“My goal is to be viewed as a guy like Chase with my peers. He’s a guy I think everyone in here wants to emulate.”
And before Utley walks away from the game, wanting to spend time with his wife, Jennifer, and two boys, 6-yearold Benjamin and 3-year-old Maxwell, he would love to leave his teammates with a parting gift.
A World Series ring of their own. “Just being here, around all of the young guys, and having a chance to win,” Utley said, “has kind of rejuvenated me. There’s nothing like winning a World Series. I’d love for these guys in here to experience the same thing.
“Really, that would mean everything to me.”
The feeling is mutual.