Add new comment

OK, OK. If you compare the two teams you will find a lot of DIS-similarities, especially the fact that LA in 1988 finished in the middle of the pack offensively.
But I hung on every Dodger game in 1988, the year most remember the remarkable pitching of Orel Hershiser and the incredible World-Series-changing home run by Kirk Gibson off Dennis Eckersly. This Southern California born and bred boy had just picked up and moved his wife of 6 years and their 3-year-old daughter to Vancouver, Washington. Plans were made to do this after we were squarely faced with the reality that our first house, located in Rialto, California because it was the only place we could afford, was in a war zone. Five shots fired one night while watching Monday Night Football, shouting to my wife to “Pancake! Hit the floor!” and diving myself to the living room floor with my daughter wrapped in my arms. So we moved to the Northwest where we knew nobody in order to raise our family in a safer place. OK, back then it was. Following the Dodgers was the only link to my previous life. Starting, oh, about 8:30pm to 9pm on summer evenings if I tuned my transistor radio just right I could get a scratchy, snowy in-and-out signal of Dodger broadcasts. So that’s what I did most every evening. And I watched them whenever I could on TV..
Those Dodgers simply could not stack up offensively with the elite competition in baseball that year. But they, like the M's, were second in the league in Team ERA. And they had something else. They were tough as nails, and they found ways to win. And guys who simply weren’t stars, much less superstars, kept beating guys who were stars and superstars when it counted. They beat teams they had no business beating.
Take the (loaded) New York Mets who they downed 4 games to 3 in the NLCS, with Gary Carter behind the plate, and Keith Hernandez, and Darryl Strawberry, a 111 Team OPS+, and and incredible pitching staff led by Doc Gooden and David Cone (Team ERA+ 112). The Mets and Dodgers both had outstanding pitching, but the Dodgers offensively were not in the same league as New York.
And LA then went on to beat the even more loaded, fearsome Oakland A's 4 games to 1 in the World Series, a team that had McGwire, Canseco, Lansford, Henderson, and Baylor on offense, with a 111 ERA+ pitching staff headed by Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley with one of the best seasons ever for a closer.
Who did the Dodgers have on offense?
C) Mike Scioscia, tough as nails, but no superstar like Gary Carter
1B) An overhyped 92 OPS+ Franklin Stubbs who, now 27, never really panned out. Not Keith Hernandez, and certainly not Mark McGwire.
2B) Scrappy Steve Sax. He’d put pressure on your defense with his speed and base-stealing.
3B) Jeff Hamilton. Ugh. Decent defense, but no bat to speak of. Not Lansford, not Howard Johnson who had hit 24 home runs for the Mets.
SS) Alfredo Griffin at his worst, hitting .199 for the season.
LF) Kirk Gibson. He was good, and again, tough like Scioscia and scrappy like Sax. But match the Dodgers’ best hitter with the Mets left fielder, Kevin McReynolds, and statistically they were a wash.
(CF) John Shelby, a defensive whiz, nothing special with the bat. Not like Oakland’s Dave Henderson, and a lesser player than New York’s Lenny Dykstra.
(RF) Mike Marshall, another LA overhype who fared somewhat better than Stubbs, but never became much more than a slightly above average player who sometimes looked very average. Match this guy up against Darryl Strawberry and Jose Canseco, and you get the point.
(Bench) I only mention the bench to bring up the name Mickey Hatcher. Put him in a category with Scioscia and Gibson as gamers. He played a little third, a little first, a little left field. He didn’t start because he just didn’t have as much talent as the other guys, even the guys on his own team.
This collection of misfits beat the Barry Larkin, Eric Davis, Paul O’Neill Reds for the NL West crown, then downed two great teams, consecutively, in the postseason. They had a bloomin’ 90 Team OPS+. They had no business winning the division. They had no business winning a postseason series. But they did. And the reason was they were tough. They were born giant-killers.
Like the 2011 Mariners.