Ex-Dodgers receive 334 HOF votes
The complete list of 2017 HOF votes
- Jeff Kent – 74 votes (16.7%)
- Manny Ramirez – 105 votes (23%)
- Gary Sheffield – 59 votes (13.3%)
- Fred McGriff – 96 votes (21.7)
- Casey Blake and JD Drew got zip
- Dodger killer of dreams Matt Stairs got zip
Gary Sheffield has quite a HOF case and gets little recognition. As David Young noted on TBLA comments, Sheffield has over 500 home runs and 1000 XBH. When you look that up, the only players not in the HOF who did that were PED users Bonds/ Sosa/ Palmeiro, future HOF Thome, possible future HOF ARod, future HOF Pujols, future HOF David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Gary Sheffield.
Jeff Kent has the following numbers to his credit:
For 2nd baseman in the history of baseball:
- Most home runs by a second baseman with 377
- Third most doubles with 560
- Second most RBI with 1518
- Second highest slugging % at .500
- Tenth most hits at 2461
- Ninth most runs at 1320
- Fourth highest OPS at .855
- Tenth highest OPS+ at 123
Kent may not have been much of a defensive 2nd baseman but when you are in the top ten of just about every offensive number, you might get a little more respect than 74 votes. Kent can take solace that the HOF simply doesn’t like second baseman. Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich know this all too well.
Manny Ramirez should simply have retired after 2008 and I expect he’d have waltzed in.
LAD second base has a fine history, Part Two
Today we will use bWAR to examine the same seasons, and careers which will show huge differences since bWAR incorporates all of a players production, not just the offensive side.
As you can see, Davey Lopes dominates the top ten best season list by bWAR. Lopes holds four of the top ten seasons. What is fascinating about Davey Lopes is that he didn’t make the major leagues until he was 28. The converted minor league outfielder made second base his home from 1973 – 1981, ending his run with the championship 1981 team. To the surprise of many who followed the team, Lopes beat out the much younger and much more ballyhooed prospect Lee Lacy in the spring of 1973.
His successor Steve Sax makes the top ten with his 1986 season which was the best offensive season for a LAD second baseman. Sax stole a lot of bases but he got caught quite a bit. Lopes would steal 557 while getting caught only 114 times. Lopes was the best base stealer of his time. By comparison, Sax would steal 444 bases but get caught 177 times.
Jim Lefebvre had a brilliant 1966 season that doesn’t get recognized very much. His 24 home runs for a 2nd baseman in 1966 was a unique accomplishment at the time.
- Roger Hornsby who did it five times
- Bobby Doer who did it twice
- Joe Gordon who did it six times
and in 1966, Jim Lefebvre joined that select group.
Before the injuries, he was also a fine defensive 2nd baseman.
| Player | Age | OPS+ | bWAR | PA | Year |
| Davey Lopes | 30 | 104 | 5.3 | 726 | 1975 |
| Jim Lefebvre | 24 | 126 | 5.2 | 610 | 1966 |
| Jim Gilliam | 34 | 121 | 5.2 | 605 | 1963 |
| Steve Sax | 26 | 137 | 4.8 | 704 | 1986 |
| Davey Lopes | 33 | 118 | 4.8 | 665 | 1978 |
| Davey Lopes | 34 | 128 | 4.7 | 692 | 1979 |
| Davey Lopes | 32 | 110 | 4.6 | 589 | 1977 |
| Jim Lefebvre | 23 | 106 | 4.6 | 631 | 1965 |
| Charlie Neal | 28 | 105 | 4.4 | 686 | 1959 |
| Orlando Hudson | 31 | 109 | 4.1 | 631 | 2009 |
Now for the most bWAR in a career as a LAD second baseman. As expected Davey Lopes sits on top of this list by a high margin. What is noteworthy is that second place is occupied by Steve Sax which means from 1973 – 1988 the Dodgers had their two best second baseman playing the game. It is no surprise that is also when the Dodgers went to five world series winning two World Championships. One other note on that, after each World Championship the Dodgers replaced their 2nd baseman.
Jeff Kent slugged his way to 3rd place on this list but a 6.7 bWAR in four seasons is nothing to brag about. The fact that Orlando Hudson is on this list despite playing only one season shows you how slim the pickings have been at 2nd base when the name Lopes or Sax are not involved.
| Player | Age | OPS+ | b_WAR | From | To |
| Davey Lopes | 27-36 | 105 | 32.1 | 1972 | 1981 |
| Steve Sax | 21-28 | 97 | 15.7 | 1981 | 1988 |
| Jeff Kent | 37-40 | 119 | 6.7 | 2005 | 2008 |
| Ted Sizemore | 24-31 | 88 | 6 | 1969 | 1976 |
| Charlie Neal | 27-30 | 92 | 5.7 | 1958 | 1961 |
| Mark Ellis | 35-36 | 92 | 5.5 | 2012 | 2013 |
| Willie Randolph | 34-35 | 101 | 4.7 | 1989 | 1990 |
| Eric Young | 25-32 | 93 | 4.2 | 1992 | 1999 |
| Orlando Hudson | 31-31 | 109 | 4.1 | 2009 | 2009 |
| Delino DeShields | 25-27 | 79 | 3.1 | 1994 | 1996 |
| Chase Utley | 36-37 | 92 | 2.9 | 2015 | 2016 |
| Juan Samuel | 29-31 | 97 | 2.5 | 1990 | 1992 |
| Ron Hunt | 26-26 | 107 | 2 | 1967 | 1967 |
| Jody Reed | 30-30 | 88 | 0.3 | 1993 | 1993 |
What does Puig/Harper/Stanton/Cutch have in common?
Andrew Simon of MLB.com thinks that all of these players are candidates to bounce back in 2017. That isn’t a very big limb to climb out on.
- Harper is just one year removed from being the MVP.
- Cutch is just one year removed from being a top five MVP four years in a row.
- Stanton is one year removed from two straight years with an OPS+ over 150.
Those three are about the sturdiest oak tree limb you could possibly climb out when forecasting improvement in 2017 from 2016.
Puig however, is a different limb. That is a tenuous limb, not made of oak, and could snap at any time. So let us see why he feels this way. Unlike the others, it has been since June 12, 2015 that Puig stopped being a superstar and became an ordinary outfielder.
Simon says:
Yasiel Puig, OF, Dodgers
2016 wRC+: 102
Projected wRC+: 126
Puig just turned 26 in December, and as recently as 2014, he posted the fourth-highest wRC+ in the NL (148). That’s how a guy who has played 183 disappointing games since, and was demoted to Triple-A for a month last summer, ranks 16th in projected wRC+ between Buster Posey and Carlos Correa. As Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said on Wednesday, “I think the upside is significant.”Health and approach at the plate both have been nagging issues for Puig, and there have been questions about whether he maintains the same athleticism and bat speed that he displayed early in his big league career. He still hit .297/.371/.486 and averaged a 92.0-mph exit velocity after returning from the disabled list last June 21 — before and after his time in the Minors.
OK, nothing insightful here about why he is a candidate other than the fact he once was a rising superstar and is still very young. Nothing about why he’s going to hit right-handers again except he did it once. I guess this is the Ron Shandler if you display a skill once you own that skill type of analysis.
I’m taking the leap of faith. I’m on this Puig train this year, and I hope to see this train chugging all year long as he shows his fans and ex-fans why he was the most exciting player in baseball for almost two years.
Updated Dodger Prospect Rankings
Baseball Prospectus chimed into today with their top ten Dodger prospect list. A few days ago I put out the lists by MLB, FanGraphs, Rotowire, and Baseball America.
Today I’ll update that list with Baseball Prospectus and remove Rotowire for the time being.
Yadier Alvarez gets the BP top ranking, giving Alvarez two number one rankings now. Bellinger has either been number one or number two on these lists. There were no surprises on the BP list, the same ten players are on just about every list.
The biggest outlier is still MLB ranking Andrew Toles at 27 considering he’s in the top ten of every other list.
| Prospect | BirthDate | AGE | MLB | BA | FG | BP | Draft |
| Cody Bellinger | 7/13/1995 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4/2013 |
| Jose De Leon | 8/7/1992 | 24 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 24/2013 |
| Alex Verdugo* | 5/15/1996 | 20 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2/2014 |
| Willie Calhoun* | 11/4/1994 | 22 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 4/2015 |
| Yadier Alvarez | 3/7/1996 | 20 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Cuba |
| Yusniel Diaz | 10/7/1996 | 20 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 5 | Cuba |
| Walker Buehler | 7/28/1994 | 22 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 1/2015 | |
| Jordan Sheffield | 6/1/1995 | 21 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 1/2016 | |
| Gavin Lux | 11/23/1997 | 19 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 9 | 1/2016 |
| Austin Barnes | 12/28/1989 | 27 | 10 | 10 | 11 | Trade | |
| Will Smith | 3/28/1995 | 21 | 11 | 14 | 1/2016 | ||
| Omar Estevez | 2/25/1998 | 18 | 12 | 18 | Cuba | ||
| Starling Heredia | 2/6/1999 | 17 | 13 | 16 | Dominican | ||
| Brock Stewart | 10/3/1991 | 25 | 14 | 8 | 7 | 6/2014 | |
| Josh Sborz | 12/17/1993 | 23 | 15 | 2/2015 | |||
| Imani Abdullah | 4/20/1997 | 19 | 16 | 17 | 11/2015 | ||
| Chase De Jong | 12/29/1993 | 23 | 17 | Trade | |||
| Brendon Davis | 7/27/1997 | 19 | 18 | 5/2015 | |||
| Jacob Rhame | 3/16/1993 | 23 | 19 | 6/2013 | |||
| Jacob Scavuzzo | 1/15/1994 | 23 | 20 | 21/2012 | |||
| Ronny Brito | 3/22/1999 | 17 | 21 | Dominican | |||
| Johan Mieses | 7/13/1995 | 21 | 22 | Dominican | |||
| Kyle Farmer | 8/17/1990 | 26 | 23 | 8/2013 | |||
| Keibert Ruiz | 7/20/1998 | 18 | 24 | 13 | Venezuela | ||
| Edwin Rios* | 4/21/1994 | 22 | 25 | 6/2015 | |||
| Mitch Hansen* | 5/1/1996 | 20 | 27 | 2/2015 | |||
| Andrew Toles* | 5/24/1992 | 24 | 27 | 6 | 8 | 7 | Trade |
| Mitchell White | 12/28/1994 | 22 | 28 | 15 | 2/2016 | ||
| Trevor Oaks | 3/26/1993 | 23 | 29 | 7/2014 | |||
| Dustin May | 9/6/1997 | 19 | 30 | 19 | 3/2016 | ||
| D.J. Peters | 12/12/1995 | 21 | 18 | 4/2016 | |||
| Yaisel Sierra | 6/5/1991 | 25 | 19 | CubanFA |
Adrian Gonzalez and age 35 seasons
Eric Stephen did an excellent review of what Adrian Gonzalez did in 2016, but I’m curious about what to expect from him in 2017. As Eric noted Adrian had a slow start but turned things around to end up with a somewhat productive season even though it was his least productive season of his career.
Going forward, I’d be betting on that trend to continue, and that 2017 will be his new least productive season going forward.
For historical context, I used the baseball-reference play index to see just how productive 35 and older 1st baseman have been since PED testing began in earnest. I used 2005 as the starting point. You had to have at least 400 PA, an OPS+ > 120, and played at least 70% of your games at 1st base so we could weed out the 1st/DH types.
The results were not very promising.
| Player | OPS+ | PA | Year | Age | HR | OPS |
| Mark Teixeira | 144 | 462 | 2015 | 35 | 31 | 0.906 |
| Paul Konerko | 141 | 639 | 2011 | 35 | 31 | 0.906 |
| Paul Konerko | 130 | 598 | 2012 | 36 | 26 | 0.857 |
| Jason Giambi | 128 | 565 | 2008 | 37 | 32 | 0.876 |
| Carlos Delgado | 128 | 686 | 2008 | 36 | 38 | 0.871 |
| Todd Helton | 127 | 645 | 2009 | 35 | 15 | 0.904 |
| Scott Hatteberg | 120 | 417 | 2007 | 37 | 10 | 0.868 |
Maybe you think I put the bar too high with an OPS+ of 120? I tried it at 110 and got one extra season from Todd Helton. The Dodgers have to be hoping for an OPS+ > 110 from their $22M first baseman. I doubt they get much more than what they got in 2016. When you factor in the age, the shift, the drop in power, the inability to hit left-hand pitching, I think you get a 2017 Adrian Gonzalez much like you got in 2016.
You will notice one thing off the bat. Everyone on this list but Todd Helton were AL players and they all got time at DH besides first base. They did play mostly 1st base, but they also got reps at DH. Konerko was a late bloomer who did his best work in baseball from the age at age 34 and 35. Teixeira did have the comeback season in 2015, after being average in 2014, and was done with baseball by the end of 2016 at age 36. The one-time workhorse had ten straight seasons with at least 500 PA by the age of 32. After 32, he had one, and of those four seasons, only one was a season you’d want from your 1st baseman.
At some point, all those games that Adrian has played in are going to bite him in the ass, and I expect that bite to happen in 2017. My first bet of 2017 will be that Adrian does not see 500 plate appearances in 2017 and the last time that happened was 2005 in his rookie season. We already know he has back problems, and that he plays through them. That won’t be easier to do the older he gets.
This is one of the reasons why I thought it imperative the Dodgers don’t trade Bellinger this off-season because I expect they will need him in 2017.
Josh Lindblom hoping this is his time
A few weeks ago we looked at the ex-Dodger prospects who were finding jobs around the major leagues. One of the names we looked at was Josh Lindblom who had signed with the Pirates in early December. At the time he was just a footnote to the story but Adam Berry of MLB.com gave us more details of the Josh Lindblom saga.
He learned some conversational Korean, came to appreciate the food, took part in team events and soaked in the unique baseball culture for two years. He pitched pretty well, too, starting 61 games with a 4.33 ERA in the hitter-friendly KBO. He became a fan favorite in a foreign country.
“We loved everything about it,” he said. “I can’t say enough about our experience over there. No words can describe the way they accepted us. It was unbelievable. … It was probably one of the best, if not the best experience of my career.”
As one of the good guys, I hope Josh not only finds his way onto the Pirate roster, I hope he thrives and becomes a Pirate fan favorite. May Monroe eventually be able to watch her father work on the mound, but more importantly, I hope she just gets to hug her father.
Dipping into DIPS
Fangraphs released their 2017 Dodger DIPS a few days ago. I like to compare projection systems from the previous year to see what they got right.
These were the 2016 Dodger DIPS, and this was the 2016 Actual Dodger stats.
You can click on the links to see the details but for this comparison, I’m going to use wOBA:
| Player | DIPS2017 | Actual2016 | DIPS2016 | Comments |
| Yasiel Puig | 0.352 | 0.320 | 0.360 | Whiff to the downside |
| Justin Turner | 0.346 | 0.353 | 0.355 | Nailed it |
| Joc Pederson | 0.340 | 0.360 | 0.335 | Whiff to the upside |
| Yasmani Grandal | 0.340 | 0.350 | 0.332 | Whiff to the upside |
| Corey Seager | 0.338 | 0.372 | 0.326 | Whiff to the upside |
| Adrian Gonzalez | 0.326 | 0.334 | 0.329 | Nailed it |
| Scott Van Slyke | 0.325 | 0.267 | 0.339 | Whiff to the downside |
| Cody Bellinger | 0.323 | NA | 0.291 | Not Applicable |
| Rob Segedin | 0.323 | 0.292 | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| O’Koyea Dickson | 0.320 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Willie Calhoun | 0.313 | NA | 0.304 | Not Applicable |
| Andre Ethier | 0.311 | 0.263 | 0.327 | Whiff to the downside, but SSS |
| Andrew Toles | 0.310 | 0.365 | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Darin Ruf | 0.308 | 0.245 | 0.309 | Whiff to the downside, but SSS |
| Austin Barnes | 0.307 | 0.222 | 0.303 | Whiff to the downside, but SSS |
| Trayce Thompson | 0.307 | 0.318 | 0.299 | Whiff to the upside |
| Alex Verdugo | 0.305 | NA | 0.307 | Not Applicable |
| Chris Taylor | 0.304 | 0.260 | 0.299 | Whiff to the downside, but SSS |
| Tim Locastro | 0.301 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Edwin Rios | 0.297 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Kiké Hernandez | 0.292 | 0.270 | 0.306 | Whiff to the downside |
| Chase Utley | 0.291 | 0.312 | 0.289 | Whiff to the upside |
| Yusniel Diaz | 0.291 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Jacob Scavuzzo | 0.291 | NA | 0.278 | Not Applicable |
| Johan Mieses | 0.285 | NA | 0.289 | Not Applicable |
| Erick Mejia | 0.267 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Charlie Culberson | 0.265 | 0.288 | 0.276 | Nailed it |
| Kyle Farmer | 0.264 | NA | 0.274 | Not Applicable |
| Jack Murphy | 0.249 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
| Bobby Wilson | 0.249 | NA | NoDips | Not Applicable |
DIPS2017 is once again optimistic that Puig’s best days are not behind him.
My expectations are that they whiffed once again on what Seager will do. That wOBA will be between .350 and .375. Joc will also surprise to the upside.
LAD second base has a fine history, Part One
As the 2017 LAD search for their second baseman, I thought it would be a good time to look at the LAD historical second baseman.
I first did this using the Bill James Win Share formula over at TBLA in January of 2009. Things have changed quite a bit since that day. Ever since Peter Palmer came up with Linear Weights more advanced models have done a good enough job that we feel fairly confident in how a player’s offensive production is measured. Same can’t be said with defensive stats, but everyone uses them from Win Shares to b_War to f_War.
When you are trying to figure out which players have produced the most value, which stat of the day do you use? Use the stat you trust in, which is either of wRC+/OPS+, or incorporate WAR?
For example, Jeff Kent had the second highest OPS+ for a LAD 2nd baseman in 2005 with a 133 mark. Davey Lopes had the 16th highest OPS+ with a 104 mark 1975. Yet if you add in all the components that make up b_WAR that 1975 season by Davey Lopes checks in as the best bWAR season (5.3) for a LAD second baseman. One of the key components that got Davey Lopes to the top was because he stole 77 bases while being caught only 12 times that year.
I think the only way to do this is to show all of the possible iterations, so I’m going to show OPS+, b_WAR, and w_RC+, F_WAR when I can. It is easier to use OPS+ and bWAR because http://www.baseball-reference allows me to easily incorporate these numbers into my spreadsheets. Fangraphs which is responsible for w_RC+ and f_WAR are not as easy.
It was kind of fun to look back at the values of WinShares and see how they look compared to the newer WAR stats. For example, both b_WAR and f_WAR show Davey Lopes with his 1975 season as his best year with 5.3 and 5.1 WAR respectively. The old Bill James Win Shares rates his 1979 and 1978 seasons higher. I was kind of disappointed that Win Shares went the way of the horse and buggy only because I had spent considerable time manually adding every Win Share for every Dodger from the Bill James annual handbooks to my Dodger spreadsheets.
So let’s start with OPS+, just looking at the best offensive seasons for a season and for a career.
Top Ten Best OPS+ Season:
| Player | Age | OPS+ | bWAR | PA | Year |
| Steve Sax | 26 | 137 | 4.8 | 704 | 1986 |
| Jeff Kent | 37 | 133 | 3.7 | 637 | 2005 |
| Davey Lopes | 34 | 128 | 4.7 | 692 | 1979 |
| Jim Lefebvre | 24 | 126 | 5.2 | 610 | 1966 |
| Jeff Kent | 39 | 123 | 2.1 | 562 | 2007 |
| Jim Gilliam | 34 | 121 | 5.2 | 605 | 1963 |
| Jeff Kent | 38 | 119 | 0.7 | 473 | 2006 |
| Davey Lopes | 33 | 118 | 4.8 | 665 | 1978 |
| Davey Lopes | 32 | 110 | 4.6 | 589 | 1977 |
The LAD have had several ROY winners who played second base but none of those seasons made it to the top ten list. First was Jim Lefebvre in 1965, Ted Sizemore in 1968, and Steve Sax in 1982. Frenchy made the list by virtue of his excellent 1966 season. Steve Sax made the top of the list with his brilliant 1986 season. Ted Sizemore was never much of a hitter and his greatest value to the Dodgers came when they traded him for Dick Allen who was later traded for Tommy John.
Should be noted that Jeff Kent only played four seasons for the Dodgers, but he managed to crack the top ten best OPS+ seasons three times in those four years.
You know who you won’t find here. Delino DeShields.
| Player | Age | OPS+ | b_WAR | From | To | PA |
| Jeff Kent | 37-40 | 119 | 6.7 | 2005 | 2008 | 2146 |
| Orlando Hudson | 31-31 | 109 | 4.1 | 2009 | 2009 | 631 |
| Ron Hunt | 26-26 | 107 | 2 | 1967 | 1967 | 442 |
| Davey Lopes | 27-36 | 105 | 32.1 | 1972 | 1981 | 5308 |
| Jim Lefebvre | 23-30 | 104 | 17.1 | 1965 | 1972 | 922 |
| Willie Randolph | 34-35 | 101 | 4.7 | 1989 | 1990 | 746 |
| Juan Samuel | 29-31 | 97 | 2.5 | 1990 | 1992 | 1353 |
| Steve Sax | 21-28 | 97 | 15.7 | 1981 | 1988 | 4745 |
| Eric Young | 25-32 | 93 | 4.2 | 1992 | 1999 | 1366 |
| Chase Utley | 36-37 | 92 | 2.9 | 2015 | 2016 | 706 |
| Mark Ellis | 35-36 | 92 | 5.5 | 2012 | 2013 | 944 |
| Charlie Neal | 27-30 | 92 | 5.7 | 1958 | 1961 | 2159 |
| Jody Reed | 30-30 | 88 | 0.3 | 1993 | 1993 | 504 |
| Ted Sizemore | 24-31 | 88 | 6 | 1969 | 1976 | 1318 |
| Delino DeShields | 25-27 | 79 | 3.1 | 1994 | 1996 | 1511 |
Jeff Kent owns the OPS+ tables but as we dig deeper into the WAR stats you will see why he would probably be hard pressed to be considered the best LAD second baseman.
Junior Gilliam played a lot of 2nd base before coming to Los Angeles. While a LAD, Junior only played full-time second in 1962 and 1963 and thus did not meet the cumulative requirement of at least 65% of his games coming at 2nd base.
I like that Delino DeShields holds up this list. Jody Reed is also near the bottom. They deserve each other.
Wendell Tyler didn’t fumble this one
In the fall of 1975, Wendell Tyler became my first UCLA Bruin football hero. The speedy slashing runner would make your jaw drop with his game-changing runs, while also making you wince with his propensity to fumble.
In a ghastly giveaway show before 80,927 people in the stands and a national television audience, UCLA fumbled 11 times, tying the conference record for butterfingers, one game, and lost eight of those fumbles, breaking the conference record in that category. The errors almost overshadowed the other statistics, specifically that UCLA, led by its fine option quarterback, John Sciarra, managed to hang on to the football long enough to gain 414 yards against one of the nation’s toughest defenses and win the game 25-22.
Even though Tyler fumbled his way through the USC game, the Bruins won, and that win gave them the right to face undefeated Ohio State in the 1976 Rose Bowl. Ohio State had crushed UCLA earlier in the season 41 – 20 and was ranked number one headed into the Rose Bowl.
Somehow my Dad got us tickets to this game and sitting in the Ohio State section it was evident they expected to crush the Bruins. Ohio State featured two-time Heisman award winner Archie Griffin while the Bruins featured fumble prone Wendell Tyler. Wendell had amassed 1388 yards during the year compared to Griffin’s 1450. Wendell averaged 6.7 yards a carry to Griffin’s 5.5, but all you heard before the game was how great Archie Griffin was.
But January 1st, 1976 was not Archie Griffin’s day, it was Wendell Tylers. The Bruin defense held the Ohio State offense in check and at half time only trailed 3 – 0. Rose Bowl MVP John Sciarra got things going and gave the Bruins a 16 – 10 lead before Wendell Tyler broke the game open with this electrifying run.
Here is the full second half. Ross Porter starts the broadcast as a sideline reporter. Great to see Ross Porter here.
Tyler had only eight rushing yards in the first half but would end up with over 160 yards.
Tyler would end his UCLA career and get drafted by my Rams. Tyler kept up his fumbling ways, but also his game breaking runs for the Rams. Wendell didn’t play much but was part of the only Los Angeles Rams super bowl team and after coming back from a brutal car accident had his breakout season in 1981. He rushed for over 1,000 yards and caught another 400 yards, but he still fumbled 10 times. In 1982 he led the league in fumbles with 11 while only carrying the ball 137 times and that would be his last year with the Rams.
All of this is long hand for the real Wendell Tyler story. Years later one of his sons would end up being a USC running back. Even though Marc Tyler was the 2nd best running back recruit out of high school he didn’t have the impact on the USC program as Wendell did with the Bruins.
It is, however, Wendell Tyler’s other son Wendell Junior Tyler that this is about.
He’s on the clock starting at 6 a.m. when his eldest son, Wendell Jr., wakes up and is ready for his bath. Wendell Jr. is 28, but has special needs. When he was an infant, an extremely high fever damaged his brain and left him with the mental capacity of a 4- or 5-year-old.
He’s spent most of his life in a group home, but his condition deteriorated this April, leaving him unable to walk, and he’s been living at home with Wendell Sr. and his wife Carmen ever since. Every morning, they must bathe him, feed him, dress him and stretch out his legs so that he might one day walk again.
You can imagine the difference between caring for a child 24/7 and caring for a full grown man. This story is old, I don’t know the situation with Wendell Junior anymore, but I came across it while doing some minor Wendell Tyler research. I’d always respected Wendell as a football player, after reading this story I respect him as a man.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 