Dodgers legend dies

Davey Lopes spent nearly 50 years in Major League Baseball, and the first thing most fans remembered on April 8 was speed: 557 stolen bases as a player, four National League All-Star selections, and a spot on the Dodgers’ 1981 World Series team. The Dodgers announced his death on Wednesday; he was 80. (mlb.com, espn.com) Before he became a coach in dugouts from Texas to Washington, Lopes was the second baseman in the Dodgers’ famous infield with Steve Garvey at first, Bill Russell at shortstop, and Ron Cey at third. That group stayed together for 8½ seasons, which Major League Baseball says was a record for four infielders on one club. (mlb.com, apnews.com) Lopes did not arrive as a teenage phenom. He was born in East Providence, Rhode Island, on May 3, 1945, played at Washburn University in Kansas, and did not make his Major League debut until September 22, 1972, when he was 27. (mlb.com, baseball-almanac.com) Once he got to Los Angeles, he became the table-setter at the top of the lineup. ESPN says he still holds the Dodgers franchise record for games played at second base with 1,134, and his 1,145 games batting leadoff rank second in club history behind Maury Wills. (espn.com) His best years came in the late 1970s, when he made four straight All-Star teams from 1978 through 1981 and won a Gold Glove Award in 1978. He also led the National League in stolen bases in 1975 and 1976, which fit the Dodgers teams of that era: pressure pitchers, take extra bases, force mistakes. (mlb.com, mlb.com) One number from 1975 still jumps off the page. Lopes stole 38 straight bases without being caught, which set a Major League record at the time and showed how much of base stealing is timing and reading a pitcher, not just running fast in a straight line. (mlb.com, usatoday.com) He played 16 big-league seasons in all, leaving the Dodgers after 1981 and later appearing for the Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, and Houston Astros. His career totals finished at 1,671 hits, 155 home runs, 1,023 runs scored, and those 557 steals. (mlb.com, baseball-reference.com) Then came the second baseball life, which lasted even longer. Lopes coached from 1988 to 2017 for the Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies, and Dodgers, and he managed the Milwaukee Brewers from 2000 through 2002. (mlb.com, baseball-reference.com) A lot of younger fans know him from Philadelphia, not Brooklyn-born Dodgers lore or 1970s National League pennant races. Lopes was the Phillies’ first-base coach and baserunning instructor when they won the 2008 World Series, giving him championship rings 27 years apart: 1981 as a player and 2008 as a coach. (mlb.com, baseball-reference.com) The reports around his death filled in the final, hard detail. ESPN reported that the Dodgers were told by his former wife that Lopes had Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and died at a hospital in East Providence, the same Rhode Island city where his life began 80 years earlier. (espn.com) That is why the reaction was so broad on Wednesday: not just one franchise losing an old star, but several generations of baseball losing the same person in different roles. The leadoff man from the Dodgers’ infield of the 1970s became the coach teaching baserunning to players in the 2000s, and both versions lasted long enough to feel permanent. (mlb.com, sports.yahoo.com)