I’m telling you, clearing snow every day is not only a lot of work, but it’s also very time-consuming. Where has night owl been? Trying to put snow outside on snowbanks taller than me, that’s true.
So I don’t have much here, just some soul searching.
When I was little, a few weeks ago I was thinking about my favorite players. You know some. Ron Cey for example. He was probably many fans’ favorite, but he didn’t have nearly as many fans as his teammate, Steve Garvey. Cey was the underdog. I was attracted to him, probably partly because he wasn’t Steve Garvey.
My interest in the underdog was even greater when it came to the Dodgers pitching staff of that era. My favorite wasn’t Don Sutton. It wasn’t Tommy John either. It wasn’t even starter No. 3, Burt Hooton. No, it was Doug Rau.
I can’t really tell you why. I just liked him. I think I liked to attach myself to the lesser-known man and then push him to success – while berating management in my head, “If only you knew what you had here!” and then, “See, I told you!”
But I also liked other teams’ underdogs. My favorite Phillies player wasn’t Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton or Greg Luzinski. It was Gary Maddox. My favorite Red Sox player wasn’t Carl Yastrzemski or even the youngsters Fred Lynn and Jim Rice. They were Bernie Carbo and Rick Burleson. My favorite Yankee – although this is an exceptional case in that I couldn’t stand most of them – was Roy White.
I also considered myself an underdog. Often overlooked in gym class, I enjoyed surprising the jocks with a well-placed single or scoring a goal in floor hockey. Even in journalism class in college, there was one time when the journalism professor said I was the “biggest surprise” in the class. Don’t forget the underdog!
My search for underdogs continued for a few years, latching onto players like Derrel Thomas and RJ Reynolds. But a turning point came in the mid-1980s.
I started rooting for an underdog named Orel Hershiser. I didn’t know where this funny guy came from (turns out he was born in Buffalo and once lived in a house my grandmother lived next to!). But I wanted him to be a star.
It may surprise some, but Hershiser didn’t have an easy entry into the majors early on, it wasn’t even a guarantee he would be in the rotation. I rooted it anyway. But then it all clicked. He went 19-3 in 1985 and really exploded in 1988, setting a Major League record that still stands and becoming a World Series champion and MVP. He was for a moment the most famous player in the Majors. My underdog.
All my wishes had worked. Hershiser was now a star. But he was not an underdog. And from then on, most of my selections for favorite player on the Dodgers weren’t underdogs, they were stars.
I also get a little irritated when fans instinctively support the underdog, no matter who it is. I mean, I can see rooting for the Pirates no matter how unhappy they are. But the Rockies? What will that do for you? I now tend to admire teams that can perform the best and players that can perform the best. And they are certainly not underdogs.
Yet…still, there is still something about me that loves the underdog – on an individual level. As a collector I love those basic cards. I love them. I always want to see them. And I like sets like Topps Total, which focused on every player on every team. I also don’t like the sound of sets called “Rookies & Stars”.
That’s because I know the value of the underdogs in sports. The number 8 hitters. The offensive linemen, the backup goalie. Without them, teams cannot function. The 1975 Dodgers needed Doug Rau’s fifteen wins.
And even though the Dodgers are a juggernaut, they haven’t won without Miguel Rojas or Will Klein.
#underdog