Tim Neverett - COVID Curveball: An Inside View of the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers World Championship Season

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-6 3758-143-8

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-6 3758-144-5

COVID Curveball:

An Inside View of the 2020 Los Angeles Dodg ers World Champions hip Season

2021 by Ti m Neverett

All Right s Reserved

Cover art by Ti ffani Shea

Cover and Insert Photography taken by Jon SooH oo/Dodgers

This book contains research and commentary about COVID-19, which is classified as an infectious disease by the World Health Organization. Although every effort has been made to ensure that any medical or scientific information present within this book is accurate, the research about COVID-19 is still ongoing. For the most current information about the coronavirus, please visit cdc.gov or who.int.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press, LLC

New York Nashville

permute dpress.com

Published in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to m y family.
My wife, Jess, who is definitely my bet ter half,
and my kids, Matt, Kyle, and Drew, who all inherited my love of the game of baseball.

Table of Contents

by Orel Hershiser, 1988 World Series MVP

three and two to Tony Phillips. Lansford down the line at third with two out. Steinbach on deck. Fivetwo Dodgers in the ninth , was how the great Vin Scully set up the last pitch of the fifth and deciding game of the 1988 World Series on the national TV broadcast on the night of October 20. As the Hall of Fame announcer was setting this up to the millions watching, I, the person who the nations collective eyes were on, felt strongly that things were in hand. I had stepped off the mound at the Oakland Coliseum, realizing the gravity of the moment, and told myself that I should take all of this experience in. The vacuum of sound seemed to fill the air, if only for a few seconds. It was just white noise; almost like the intense hum of the ballpark I had experienced a number of times before in my career. This time, though, was different. I remember the emotions were welling up so much that I almost started to cry. I said to myself, I cant do this, and focused on locking everything back in. I shook it off and went back to the things that stimulated me most on a baseball fieldthe dirt, the rubber, the grass, the catchers fingers, and delivering a pitch. This time it was a fastball directed up and in that tailed over the plate, inducing a series-ending swing from the left-handed-hitting Phillips.

Got em. Theyve done it! said Scully. Like the 1969 Mets, its the Impossible Dream r evisited!

After we won, I had a very weird reaction as I just got picked up by catcher Rick Dempsey and gave an awkward fist bump. Then I was mauled by my teammates, and the lady that was in charge of the Disney commercial, which you dont know you are going to get until the very end of the game, was right there. Disney had negotiated before the game for three players from Oakland, and with Tommy LaSorda, Kirk Gibson, and me from the Dodgers. She tapped me on the shoulder, pointed, and said, That camer asay it!

Its absolute chaos on the field, but I looked at the camera and shouted, Im going to Di sneyland!

Then, fifteen or twenty seconds later, in the midst of the pandemonium, she tapped me on the shoulder again, pointed in a different direction, and yelled, That camer asay it!

I looked and shouted, Im going to Disney World! After a bit more celebration, I was seen with both my hands over my head with my glove as I worked my way over toward the dugout to look up at my family in the stands. That is when I finally relaxed and celebrated. Before that moment, it was still odd to celebrate with my game face firmly in place. There was excitement, but it was still kind of semi-work because we had to shoot the commercial and get the line out correctly into the camera while not losing the moment. When that was done, when we began to walk off the field and I saw my family, that is when it really hit me. I had just gone nine innings in the deciding game of the World Series, allowed only four hits while striking out nine great Oakland Athletics hitters, and completing an amazing run through the p ostseason.

It is easier now, thirty-two years later, to revisit the emotions I experienced during our World Series Championship season of 1988 as I watched the last pitch of the 2020 World Series thrown by Ju lio Uras.

The number one person on the 2020 Dodgers that I can relate to is Julio, because of his last pitch that resulted in a strikeout and a World Series Championship. Heading into Game Six, nobody on that team knew who would throw the last pitch of that game. Could it have been Kenley Jansen if the matchup was right? Could it have been Blake Treinen? Could it be Julio? Could it have been Victor Gonzlez? Nobody knew who was going to have that honor and the opportunity to come through with their amazing ability and make history. Not only to be part of a World Series winner but to get that last out as a pitcher is what you never forget. Its what people around the game and the great Dodger fans nev er forget.

When the Series ended, a lot of folks around the team turned their attention to Clayton Kershaw and expressed their happiness for him. Kershaw has a Hall of Fame resume but had been saddled with unfavorable results in postseasons past. He got that piano off of his back and then some in 2020. He went into the postseason with better stuff than in the few past years. I think he went into this postseason with a lot more wisdom on what postseason baseball is about, as far as how hitters attack him. He used both sides of the plate. He understood that even if he wasnt landing his curveball for a strike that he could still use it. There was more variety to his pitch selection, which really helped him. His postseason failures were becoming a large part of his career, and now you can take that context and put World Champion on it. Now you can put that title all the way at the top of his plaque in Cooperstown so that no one will ever be able to walk by it and think He had a great career but never won a World Series . Now no one can say that, and with the way this team is built, maybe he even gets to add more championships before he is all done.

The Dodgers came up short in the 2017 World Series to the cheating Astros, and again in 2018 to Boston. They were well short of the mark in 2019 when they were stunned by the eventual champion Washington Nationals in the Division Series. Those Dodger teams were all really good, but they didnt have Mookie Betts. There were a lot of differences between the 2020 Dodgers and those other teams, but the addition of Betts was big. He came in and emphasized all the details about every aspect of playing the game at the highest level. I think the coaching staff, Dave Roberts, and the front office always emphasized that. Justin Turner is a great baserunner but isnt a fast guy. Mookie has the speed to go along with great decision-making and great knowledge of the game, so you see his impact more than you will with other players. Its one thing for the coaches to tell you how to do something. To have a teammate actually doing it on a daily basis, that is when you truly believe the depth of the knowledge and the depth of the concentration it takes to pull off that level of execution every day. Mookie became that living, breathing example that everybody talks about when they talk about a great player. When Kirk Gibson joined the Dodgers for spring training in Vero Beach in 1988, he had the same effect on our team. There are some important similarit ies there.