{"id":178798,"date":"2025-07-15T19:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T19:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/178798\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T19:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T19:13:12","slug":"los-angeles-dodgers-led-baseballs-move-to-more-diverse-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/178798\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Dodgers led baseball’s move to more diverse roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

No organization in all of sports has been as diversified as baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>.\u00a0 Indeed, few businesses in any field can match the Dodgers in terms of employing men and women from every faith, color and ethnicity in the world.<\/p>\n

From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, the Dodgers have a rich and long history of diversity:<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/p>\n

*The Dodgers signed the first African-American to a major league contract and Jackie Robinson, beginning in 1947, built a Hall of Fame career.<\/p>\n

They shortly added Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and Joe Black, who all played major roles in the Dodgers success during those years in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\"Dodgers<\/p>\n

Dodgers former players Don Newcombe and Sandy Koufax throw out the first pitch.<\/p>\n

*The Dodgers had the greatest Jewish player (although not the first, that would be Hank Greenberg) in Sandy Koufax. He retired from the game 59 years ago, but remains a dignified and beloved presence whenever he\u2019s at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

*The greatest \u2013 and most famous \u2013 Mexican to play in the majors played for the Dodgers \u2013 Fernando Valenzuela.\u00a0 And he was more than a pitching star, he was a phenom, especially among the large Hispanic population in Los Angeles.\u00a0 Anyone who ever experienced it will not forget the magic of \u201cFernando Mania.\u201d<\/p>\n

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*Chan Ho Park became the first Korean in the majors, pitching for the Dodgers in 1994.\u00a0 Twenty eight Koreans have followed Park into the majors.<\/p>\n

*The most famous player in the game today is from Japan and wears Dodger Blue \u2013 Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n

(It should be noted that the Dodgers made these moves for the primary purpose of winning.\u00a0 All the players listed above became All-Stars and the team won a World Series with Robinson, Koufax, Valenzuela and Ohtani. Attendance also flourished, especially during \u201cFernando Mania\u201d.<\/p>\n

*Manager Dave Roberts is the only Japanese-American manager in the majors. And a highly successful one, having guided the club to nine consecutive postseason appearances.<\/p>\n

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*Kiki Hernandez is Puerto Rican, Miguel Rojas Venezuelan. Three of their starting pitchers this year are Japanese.<\/p>\n

*There\u2019s also been players in the past from the Dominican Republic like Manny Mota, Adrian Beltre, Pedro Guerrero and Manny Ramirez.<\/p>\n

*One of the first females to work in a major league front office was Kim Ng, an assistant general manager for the team in 2002.<\/p>\n

There apparently is no discrimination in the Dodgers when it comes to the bottom line \u2013 winning.<\/p>\n

Hear hear.<\/p>\n

Pete Donovan is a Palm Desert resident and former Los Angeles Times sports reporter. He can be reached at\u00a0pwdonovan22@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Los Angeles Dodgers led baseball’s move to more diverse roster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No organization in all of sports has been as diversified as baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers.\u00a0 Indeed, few businesses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[6617,5,33094,39,33095,17216,11368,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4,14466,15130,468],"class_list":{"0":"post-178798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-adrian-beltre","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chan-ho-park","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-don-newcombe","13":"tag-fernando-valenzuela","14":"tag-jackie-robinson","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-dodgers","17":"tag-ladodgers","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-losangelesdodgers","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-roy-campanella","24":"tag-sandy-koufax","25":"tag-shohei-ohtani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114858846466779328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}