Before They Wore Dodger Blue

The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers were always groundbreakers on the player-development front, and when MLB instituted an amateur player draft in 1965, the Dodgers were ready: by 1968, the disciplined front office and scouting department put together what is still considered today as the greatest draft class in pro baseball history.

That year, the Dodgers drafted six future All-Stars-Doyle Alexander, Bill Buckner, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Tom Paciorek, who would be selected for a combined 23 All-Star games-plus Joe Ferguson, Bobby Valentine, and Geoff Zahn. Most of these draftees-joined at various stops by Tommy Hutton, Charlie Hough, and Bill Russell-would form the core of outstanding minor-league teams as well as Dodgers teams featuring a remarkably stable infield that would play together for eight years, highlighted by a 1981 World Series win. It’s widely regarded as the best draft class ever, and the 1970 Spokane Indians-featuring most of that draft class, led by Tommy Lasorda-one of the greatest minor-league clubs ever.

How the Dodgers put together that legendary draft class and how they were developed by Lasorda is told in Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History, Eric Vickrey’s exhaustively researched history of the development of the 1968 Los Angeles Dodgers draft class. Key to the development of this draft class: Lasorda, who worked his way through the minors as the manager of virtually all these draftees at stops in Pocatello, Ogden, Albuquerque, and Spokane, culminating in his appointment as Walt Alston’s replacement as Dodger manager near the end of the 1976 season.

Cey, Russell, Lopes, and Garvey proceeded to form an All-Star infield that would play together for an unprecedented eight and a half consecutive seasons. That foursome, along with other homegrown stars and pieces acquired through trades involving the ’68 draft class, carried the Dodgers to three National League pennants in the 1970s and a World Series title in 1981 under Lasorda.

＂[Tommy] Lasorda developed into a master,＂ said Bobby Valentine, the leading light in the draft class before injuries cut his career short, in an interview with the author. ＂His baseball acumen, his ability to manage a game is always overshadowed by his persona. He was a spectacular in-game manager. He knew when to put on a hit-and-run. When a guy was in a slump, he’d give him a high-five when he came into the dugout. That would boost the guy’s confidence for the next at-bat. He knew when to take a pitcher out, when to leave him in, when to challenge him, when to take a kid out for a private dinner, and when to scold a kid in front of the entire team.＂