You’ve got to hand it to Roberts
The secondguessing came early and furiously.
Chipper Jones tweeted, “Fire me … I’m riding my horse!”
Alex Rodriguez said, “Worst decision I’ve seen in all of the # WorldSeries I’ve watched.”
When kids dream of a big league future, no one tells them that taking the sport’s biggest stage also exposes them to the sport’s most feral critics. You find that unpleasant part out later, like Dave Roberts did many years ago.
Roberts never will have to pay for a bottle of wine or a five- course meal in Boston thanks to his stolen base in an American League Championship Series game 16 years ago. But his story in Dodger blue is, or was, a different one. No matter how much he won, which has been a lot, Twitter was there to never let him forget the losses.
After the Dodgers’ disastrous Game 5 loss to the Washington Nationals in last year’s National League Division Series, calls for his firing were, forgive me, at a fever pitch. Roberts later told me that while he heard the boos in Dodger Stadium that night, he had no idea so many in the media naturally assumed he was not returning.
Roberts heard the Game 5 boos again, this time in Sunday’s World Series game against the Tampa Bay Rays. He pulled Clayton Kershaw, suddenly cruising after a rough start, with two outs in the sixth inning of a close game, for Dustin May, who decidedly had not been cruising in his most recent postseason appearances.
It worked out. May got the third out and the Dod
gers bullpen would not give up another run in October.
That’s baseball, as Roberts has been known to say.
The tweets referenced at the start of this column were not targeted at Roberts’ decision- making, but at Rays manager Kevin Cash. Two nights after Roberts’ bullpen gambit, Cash one- upped his Dodgers counterpart by pulling Blake Snell, cruising and dominant from the very first pitch, with one out in the sixth inning with a one- run lead.
It did not work out. Two batters later, the Dodgers had a lead they would not relinquish.
That too is baseball. But clearly no one wants to hear it.
As for Roberts, whose .614 winning percentage is third all time, he is undoubtedly relieved this postseason concluded with someone else being ridiculed for a pitching change that didn’t work out. He just wants his ring, his place in history and perhaps, to paraphrase LeBron James, some damn respect.
Despite the championship, the division titles, the 2016 manager of the year award and that winning percentage, Roberts is still getting a side- eye from fans who claim the Dodgers won despite his decisions and not because of them. Alas, when you dare to helm one of the game’s crown jewels, there’s no shortage of armchair auditors on hand to make sure you don’t depreciate its value.
My hope is that more Dodgers fans come to realize Roberts is also a jewel to be cherished. That doesn’t mean he’s above reproach or that I have never questioned his decisions. Of course I have. But he continues to carry himself with dignity and grace in times both good and non- championship. You’d be hardpressed to find anyone in baseball who will say anything negative about his character.
I would like to think that still counts in sports — especially since he also wins.
Roberts is the franchise’s first Black manager and just the second Black manager to win the World Series. When you’re first to do something of significance, there is an added sense of responsibility not to screw things up for those who dare to follow. That might be uncomfortable for some to read but it’s real talk. Every groundbreaking sports figure I’ve spoken to has expressed some variation of this sentiment, from Valerie Palmer, the NBA’s first female referee, to Willie O’Ree, the first Black player in the NHL.
Roberts too, who had the added burden of being the go- to interview for the team during the summer of protests against racial inequities. Imagine juggling questions about systemic racism while also trying to decide whether a struggling Kenley Jansen should pitch the ninth inning, recognizing there isn’t an answer to either query the masses won’t pick apart.
It’s a lot, but he handled it all masterfully, despite the criticism.
A botched May outing in Game 5 and Cash hitting on his Game 6 risk and it’s the Rays who would have been stampeding across Globe Life Field on Tuesday night. For Roberts, it very well could have been the end of his Dodgers years.
No complimentary meals or bottles of wine in L. A. No history- making victory. No respect from those hesitant to give him much to begin with.
Instead it’s Cash on the outside looking in with Roberts no longer wondering how much longer he gets to stay.