Is Betts final piece of the puzzle?
Dodgers have knocked on door for a long time. Can star get them in?
When Jerry Hairston Jr. ran out of contemporary comparisons to describe Mookie Betts, the Los Angeles Dodgers studio analyst called his father for added perspective.
“Dad, the way Mookie plays, does he remind you of Willie Mays?” Hairston asked Jerry Sr., a former pinch-hitting specialist who broke into the big leagues as Mays was concluding his celebrated career.
“Jerry,” his father said, “his throwing arm, the accuracy, the way he runs the bases, how smart he is, it’s very, very similar.”
Betts, 28, is a player entering his prime, a few hundred home runs and a couple thousand hits short of Mays. For now, the Dodgers will be satisfied if the dynamic Betts can help craft eight more wins to cap this truncated season in championship fashion and end a 32-year title drought. The Dodgers opened play in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves with a 5-1 loss after sweeping past Milwaukee and San Diego.
On a star-heavy team with a history full of larger-than-life figures, Betts has the opportunity to do something distinct in the sport: leading Los Angeles to its first championship since Ronald Reagan served in the Oval Office, without ever hitting in front of a packed Dodger Stadium crowd.
Despite flexing championship-worthy rosters for much of the past decade, the Dodgers have annually fallen short of replacing Kirk Gibson’s slow trot around the bases in 1988 as their latest moment of championship glory. The string of disappointments includes two World Series losses: one scandal-tainted defeat to the Houston Astros in 2017 and another to Betts’s Boston Red Sox the following season.
The Dodgers’ current roster has much of the same nucleus — including Cody Bellinger, Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen — that has regularly bulldozed through the regular season, winning eight consecutive NL West titles, only to encounter postseason stumbling blocks. There have been some improvements this year: Their bullpen is deeper, the young standouts — pitcher Dustin May and catcher Will Smith — are each a year older and better, and Corey Seager and Julio Urias are now healthy.
But the biggest factor behind more October optimism for the Dodgers is the one they agreed to pay $365 million, the 2018 American League MVP who is surpassing already lofty expectations in Los Angeles.
Fred Claire, general manager of the Dodgers from 1987 through ’98, noted the franchise’s historical jumps from contention to celebration had traditionally coincided with the addition of a memorable, talented player: Maury Wills in 1959, Lou Johnson in ’65, Gibson in ’88.
“It shows the impact that a player can make,” Claire said. “And that’s what Mookie is doing this year.”
The Red Sox parted with Betts, a generational talent known for his generosity away from the diamond, as part of a salary dump that frustrated fans in Boston. The three-way trade, which also included the Minnesota Twins, provided the Dodgers with Brusdar Graterol, ayoung flamethrower who may play a pivotal playoff role out the bullpen, and starter David Price, who opted out of the season, as well.
Once Dodgers manager Dave Roberts slotted Betts permanently in the leadoff spot in mid-August, he and the rest of the offence clicked into position. He finished the sprint of a season with 16 home runs, 39 RBIs and an MLB-best WAR of 3.4. He stacked highlights, flexing a cannon arm, mixing speed, instinct and technique on the basepaths.
He also added to the Dodgers’ rich history of prominent Black players in a sport that has seen both interest and participation among African Americans steadily dip over the past 30 years.
Betts could become the team’s first Black player to win the MVP Award since Wills in 1962 (outfielder Matt Kemp finished as runner-up to the Brewers’ Ryan Braun in 2011).
As Claire was attempting to engineer the next Dodgers championship team in the early 1990s, he landed Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis, two potential cornerstones at the corner outfield positions, two Black stars from Southern California returning home. Injuries and personal issues derailed the collaboration.
“What a difference this could make — not only for our team, first and foremost, because that was my obligation, but for the community,” Claire said of his thinking at the time. “Two players coming back to Los Angeles at really what should have been the peak of their careers, and it just didn’t happen.”
Betts, though, quickly became one of the team’s leaders when the season began in late July. He has also used his voice and platform since arriving in Los Angeles. Though he had stood for the national anthem throughout his career — his father, Willie, served in the Vietnam War — Betts was the only Dodger to kneel during the playing of the national anthem on opening night.
He took the action after seeking further education on peaceful protests and realizing kneeling was not aimed at disrespecting military veterans.
Later, Betts joined other athletes throughout sports in declining to play a game to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. “In my shoes, I couldn’t play,” he said after the walkout in August.