We’re excited about the newest title from August Publications, now in wide distribution from the likes of Barnes & Noble and Amazon: Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History.
The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers were always groundbreakers on the player-development front, and when MLB instituted a amateur player draft in 1965, the Dodgers were ready: by 1968, the disciplined front office and scouting department put together what is still considered today as the greatest draft class in pro baseball history.
That year, the Dodgers drafted six future All-Stars—Doyle Alexander, Bill Buckner, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Tom Paciorek, who would be selected for a combined 23 All-Star games—plus Joe Ferguson, Bobby Valentine, and Geoff Zahn. Most of these draftees—joined at various stops by Tommy Hutton, Charlie Hough, and Bill Russell—would form the core of outstanding minor league teams as well as Dodgers teams featuring a remarkably stable infield that would play together for eight years, highlighted by a 1981 World Series win. It’s widely regarded as the best draft class ever, and the 1970 Spokane Indians—featuring most of that draft class, led by Tommy Lasorda—one of the greatest minor-league clubs ever.
How the Dodgers put together that legendary draft class and how they were developed by Lasorda is told in Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History, Eric Vickrey’s exhaustively researched history of the development of the 1968 Los Angeles Dodgers draft class. Key to the development of this draft class: Lasorda, who worked his way through the minors as the manager of virtually all these draftees at stops in Pocatello, Ogden, and Spokane, culminating in his appointment as Walt Alston’s replacement as Dodger manager near the end of the 1976 season.
“In the early days of the MLB draft, and before the advent of free agency, the core of four pennant-winning teams came up together, along with their manager, through the Dodger farm system. The last chapter before big-league glory played out in Spokane, where Tommy Lasorda’s squad of future Dodger stars won the Pacific Coast League championship. This is a significant piece of baseball history, and a story brimming with figures soon to become boldface names.”—Bob Costas, 2018 Ford C. Frick Award winner and longtime MLB broadcaster
“Like many fans, I enjoy baseball books that examine a nexus point in the history of the sport. Think of Jim Bouton’s Ball Four here, or Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer, or Dan Epstein’s Big Hair and Plastic Grass. Eric Vickrey’s Before They Wore Dodger Blue opens with the well-covered heyday of the early 1960s Los Angeles Dodgers but then breaks new ground by examining how the first major-league amateur draft, instituted in 1965, completely upended the Dodgers and changed the culture of the major leagues. Whereas an ecosystem of cigar-chomping regional scouts, bushwhacking birddogs, militaristic coaches, and tightly prescriptive training philosophies had ruled before the draft, the aftermath not only knocked the über-traditional boys in blue from its perennial pennant pedestal, but pushed the sport toward sharper analytics, new-style player-friendly managers, a restive players union, the first-ever collective players strike, the overthrow of the reserve clause, and the emergence of free agency. Vickrey deftly paints a portrait of these changing times, reaching a climax with the 1981 World Series, when the rebuilt Dodgers and their core draftee class of 1968 come back to defeat the juggernaut New York Yankees and their team of superstar free agents. Before They Wore Dodger Blue is an exciting and essential look at how a brave new world emerged out of the primordial, old school baseball soup of the 1960s.”—Michael Fallon, author of Dodgerland: Decadent Los Angeles and the 1977–78 Dodgers
“The amateur draft was supposed to let poorer clubs compete with the big-money franchises, such as the Dodgers. But picking winners was about more than money and the 1968 draft proved it. There was the scouting that recognized Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Ron Cey, Bobby Valentine, Bill Buckner, Tom Paciorek, Joe Ferguson, Doyle Alexander, Sandy Vance and Geoff Zahn that spring. And there was the player development system, epitomized by Tommy Lasorda, that transformed the talent into major league stars. Vickrey profiles them all, delving into their backgrounds and careers in a crisp presentation that makes the story sparkle.”—Andy McCue, author of Seymour Medal-winning Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball’s Westward Expansion
Before They Wore Dodger Blue is available directly in paperback and eBooks (Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play) from August Publications, in stock and ready to shop for holiday gift-giving. This title is also widely available from paperback resellers (Amazon | Ingram | Barnes & Noble | bookstore.org | Powell’s | Books-A-Million | Hudson Booksellers) and eBook retailers (Amazon | Ingram | Barnes & Noble Nook | bookstore.org | Kobo). This title is also available via Ingram and Overdrive.