GLENDALE, Ariz. – A 9-year-old Chase Utley was in the stands at Dodger Stadium with his father when the Dodgers won Game 2 of the 1988 World Series.
Now 38 years old, Utley is one of a handful of players wearing a Dodgers uniform who is old enough to recall a time when the Dodgers were World Series champions.
They have won eight National League West titles and been to the NL Championship Series four times (all in the past nine years).
The franchise with more pennants (21) than all but two others (the Yankees with 40 and the Giants with 22) has never gone this long between World Series appearances since … the World Series was created.
Had you time-traveled back to spring training in 1989 and told Hershiser it would be this long, he would not have taken it well.
“First of all, I would have taken offense to that because I thought that group had a good chance to repeat in 1989,” says Hershiser who has had time to complete an 18-year major-league career (including two more trips to the World Series with the Cleveland Indians), start a broadcasting career (which took him to the Little League World Series), play competitive poker (including the World Series of Poker in 2008) and work for the Texas Rangers as a pitching coach and in the front office (but not during their World Series years, 2010-11) before returning to the Dodgers as a broadcaster.
“I don’t care if we won last year.
But we didn’t win those years.” Of course, it is better to be lucky and good.
But this team is basically the same team with the addition of Logan and then a lot of guys healthy, a lot of guys signing back.
But having a lot of talent, a lot of depth, a lot of people who are focused and motivated on winning a World Series gives us a really good chance in our mind.”