Ep. 641 - Author Stephen Dittmore "Jim Gilliam The Forgotten Dodger" 12.22.25

Well, we're going to have an author on today and this Dr. Stephen Ditmore sent me his book a while ago and I was really bad because it took me a while to read the book. But I'm sure glad I did. And I think you're pretty happy you read it. It's about Jim Gilliam and he's he called Forgotten Dodger. We're very excited to have.

Have the, know, another author on our podcast. We're really excited to talk to Dr. Ditmore and I'm I'm very, you know, it was a fascinating read, especially from somebody like me who doesn't know a lot about that period. It was eye opening on a lot of different levels and we're really excited to talk to him about it. But we also want to take this opportunity to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and happy holidays. If you don't get back to us after that, it's Hanukkah is going on right now. And so we're

We're grateful for the support and the listeners and the people that follow us and want to keep hearing us talk baseball. we're very appreciative and Merry Christmas to you.

I'll just bring him on.

So as Gordon and were talking about, we're happy to have Dr. Steven Ditmore join us today on the podcast. Dr. Ditmore is a higher education administrator and he got his PhD from Louisville. I think that's how you say it out there. ⁓ And as an assistant editor at Athletic Director U and he has his own sub stack and as a fellow sub stack writer, it's a lot to do that too with all the other stuff he does called Glory Days. ⁓ He's an active member of Sabre. This is his first book and

As I introduced you, Dr. Dittmoor, wanted to know, you sent the book to us a while back and it took us a while to read it, but Gordon and I both want you to know we're really glad ⁓ that you did send it to us and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Mark and Gordon. It's great to be here. I appreciate that. And I definitely just have to start off by asking you, know, what made you remember to write about The Forgotten Dodger? Because certainly for me, unfortunately, when you're my age,

Pretty much anybody from that time that wasn't in the Hall of Fame is sort of a forgotten Dodger. So what made him stick out? What made you choose for him to really be your first book you've written? Yeah, you know, I'd wanted to challenge myself with writing a book and working in higher education, having two degrees in journalism. Writing is kind of second nature to me. It's something that I do. And I knew I wanted it to be about the Dodgers. I was born in Los Angeles, grew up there in the 1970s during the period when

They were going to the World Series, losing to the Yankees in 77, 78, that time period. And I, I was always a student of that. And I became a student then of the Negro leagues. And I kept seeing over and over Jim Gilliam's name on World Series teams from the 1950s, World Series teams for the 1960s. And I certainly knew when he passed away because I remember the Dodgers during the 1978 World Series, wearing that 19 patch on their sleeve. And so I knew about him. And then I started researching more and realized,

Hey, the guy also played in the Negro Leagues. And it's kind of interesting because he was part of that second wave of integration in baseball in the 1950s after Monty Irvin, Larry Doby, Jackie Robinson, course, Willie Mays. That next wave that came in in the mid-50s or so. And ⁓ the guy spent 27 years with the same organization. ⁓ It's pretty remarkable. And as a Dodgers fan, you know that the number 19 is retired.

But you don't really know the story about that because just about everybody that the Dodgers retire number for is in the Hall of Fame. Fernando Valenzuela, the only other exception at this point in time. And they didn't retire Gil Hodges as number 14 until he did make the Hall of Fame. So all of that led me to think, wow, why doesn't anybody know about this guy? And it's funny you say that because when I was growing up and...

I was actually was at SC when the Dodgers won in 77 and 78. So I experienced it as a New Yorker, you know, from the LA perspective. I'm not a Yankee fan, but because I was from New York, that everybody kind of thought I'd be a Yankee fan. Yeah, so that was a little bit weird, but.

I was confused when I was even younger, my cousin was a baseball fan, between Junior Gilliam and Jim Gilliam. I thought they were two different players. No. Yeah. They were definitely the same person. didn't, from what I can tell, he didn't really like the nickname Junior. ⁓ But I will say this, you know, there's a number of Facebook groups ⁓ devoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers and a lot of fans that grew up ⁓ in Brooklyn in the 1950s that refused to call him Jim Gilliam. They remind me all the time that a.

He's not forgotten and B he's he's Junior Gilliam. So and and and and I also noted that, you know, well, he's not quite Yogi Berra when it comes to winning. He he bridges two eras, right? You know, because he comes from the the he played with all the Hall of Famers when they won in 55. Right. There were six future Hall of Famers on that team. Correct. They with and and then he went all the way with the Los Angeles. And so he kind of split it where you had.

and the Campanella's and the Peewee Reese and all those guys and then they moved to Los Angeles and he had the other group of people that he played with but he was a guy who played on winning team. The Dodgers won in 55 and they won in 59 and they won in 63 and they won in 65. So that's pretty cool to have that legacy of where he went the team was a winner. Absolutely and as you're saying that the thing to note here is that Gilliam is the only Dodger in history to play on four World Series winning teams.

Kofax was on the roster in 55 but did not play in the series. Johnny Padres was on the roster in 65 but did not play against the twins. So Gilliam was the only one to appear in four World Series winning teams for the Dodgers. And he played on seven World Series teams total because they lost in 53, they lost in 56, and they lost in 66. So he's one of only Pee Wee Reese, Carl Ferrello, Duke Snyder, those are the ones that have played in seven World Series.

Yeah, he does have a pretty remarkable career. And even to this day, he ranks 11th all time in World Series games played in Major League Baseball history. 39, 39 games. That's not an easy list to get on. And you think about it even I think he's probably one of the might be the only non guy that like not Hall of Fame person that can say this when he was playing in the Dodgers in 55. He's on the field.

with five other Hall of Famers at the same time, which is like, can't imagine kind of like having the perspective he must have had looking back on that and thinking about what that was like. Like, wow, I'm playing with like one of the greatest collection of players that have been assembled in the field at a given time like that. Yeah, I mean, it would have been fascinating to actually speak to him about that. You know, he was the 1953...

Rookie of the Year in the National League. So he's playing with a lot of World Series or Hall of Fame players and on that team as well. And some people argue the 53 Dodgers were better than the 55 Dodgers. ⁓ And it is remarkable. And I think that's part of the reason that he's kind of forgotten in some ways is because you did have all those players on the 55 team. And then you go to the 60s and all anybody wants to talk about is Kofax and Drysdale and understandably so. ⁓ And the Dodgers team was just very different how they won games in the 1960s.

You know, they held the Yankees in the 63 World Series to four runs. Right. You know, right. And his career is, well, when you look at those two eras of the Dodgers where you have the end of the Brooklyn era and the beginning of the LA era, he's one of the, you know, one of the probably the biggest named guy that was really a part of both of them. He was there at the end of one and the beginning of the other.

So his career is sort of bisected by that, which means the people that know of him are kind of bisected by that. The relationship LA Dodger fans have with Jim Gilliam is very different than the relationship the Brooklyn Dodgers have had with Junior. Yeah, no, that's an absolutely correct observation there is that talking to people that watched him in Brooklyn, they definitely had a different opinion of him than just kind of what you read about.

Jim Gilliam as a member of the Dodgers in the 1960s in Los Angeles, where he's out in the community a lot. His wife is featured in social pages in Los Angeles newspapers. you know, he was just, he was always a company person that would do whatever it was that the Dodgers wanted him to do. And obviously they transitioned him into a coach role as soon as he retired and things like that. So yeah, he was two different, almost two different players, two different personalities ⁓ between those two locations.

You know, ⁓ he was a five time All-Star. So as a player in his own right, I think he gets shortchanged a little bit there as well. And to boot, he won a Negro League Championship ⁓ in 1948 and then didn't get to go to the major leagues for five years. And that was the time where the Negro leagues were kind of breaking down after Jackie came up in 47. And I wanted to ask you, you know,

How much, do you know how much he felt that held him back? Because his all time stats would have been ⁓ five years from age 19 to 24. Those are pretty prime years. Yeah, it's interesting. I had an opportunity to speak to his widow, Edwina, back in 2020, as I was researching and writing this book. And she said he was never one of those that said, gosh, I wish I would have done this, or I wish I would have had this opportunity, or whatever. That was never the way that he approached his.

his craft there. But I think you're absolutely right, those years that are lost. And I try to make the case in the book that he was a major league caliber player in 1951 and 1952 while playing for the Montreal Royals. And ostensibly, the only reason the Dodgers didn't add him to the roster was because they already had four black players. you know, I pick on

Bobby Morgan a little bit I had a chance to talk to Bobby Morgan before he passed away and one of the first things he said to me was why do you want to write a book about him he's been dead for 40 years I said well that's kind of the reason I want to write a book but I don't think that Bobby Morgan was a better player than Jim Gilliam but Jim Gilliam was in the binders and Bobby Morgan was not he was on the Dodgers roster as a utility infielder and you know can't help but think maybe Gilliam could have helped win one more game during the 1951 season that would have avoided

a playoff with the Giants and we wouldn't talk about Bobby Thompson or Ralph Branca in the same way anymore, had he just won, helped the Dodgers win one more game while he was runner up to the MVP award in the International League for the Montreal Royals and was hitting over 300 in AAA.

Yeah. And I think one of what you called out there for me was one of the most interesting parts in reading the book was sort of where you highlighted it's like he was being kept down purely because the Dodgers are like, oh, we don't want to have this many black players on our team at this time. So you had this the concept of the four gates. And that was just really interesting because it was this I think as a younger baseball fan.

Unfortunately, we kind of treat the breaking of the collar barrier of like, and Jackie Robinson came in one day and then everything was fixed. And we don't really talk about what happened after that. It was like, Jackie Robinson showed up and then everything was fine. And that was it. Yeah, I appreciate the comment. I mean, I think that was one of the things that was important to me was to talk about these different gates. And you allude to the four, which is how I characterize them. So you have Jackie going through gate one, which is integrating baseball in 1947.

Then you have what is known as the saturation point. That's not my term. That was something that you found in the media and in the popular press at the time. But at what point in time does a team field a majority black lineup on the field? And the Dodgers became the first one to do that in 1954 when they started five black players. had Campanella, they had Sandy Amoros, Jackie Robinson, Don Newcomb, and Jim Gilliam. And they had avoided that. Every time it seemed like

They were going to start four players like Newcomb was going to pitch. Somehow mysteriously, Roy Campanella had the day off or Sandy Amorose had the day off. And they just didn't do that until sometime in 1954. I forget the exact date off the of my head. ⁓ But that was the second gate. The third gate becomes who's going to become a black coach? How are we going to infuse blacks into management in baseball? And Buck O'Neill is the first black coach in baseball, no doubt. ⁓ Was a bench coach for the Cubs.

But what Gilliam became, and Gene Baker was also a coach as well before Gilliam, but not on the field. And that was what Gilliam became was the first base coach. So now you had a black man on the field in a position of leadership to advise players, to tell them what to look out for and things like that. And then the last gate was when are you gonna hire a black manager? And of course, that doesn't happen until 1975 when the Indians hire Frank Robinson.

And Gilliam was never given that opportunity. he wanted it. he what? He wanted it. He did want it. Yes. I think he definitely wanted a chance to manage. the Dodgers never, they sent him to Winterball one year in Puerto Rico. He went down in 1973 and managed a team in San Juan. And I talked to some of the players that were on that team, some kind of fringy.

Major Leaguers, Tom Walker and Baylor Moore and Eliseo Rodriguez. And I asked them, what was his managerial skills like? And they all said, we learned a lot from him. And these were pitchers and catchers that I talked to. I didn't talk to any position players. So he certainly had the ability to do that. And I talked to a number of his contemporaries, people that said they learned a lot about the game of baseball from him. But I think one of the things that stuck with me is that Al Ferrara, before he passed away, he said that Gilliam would have been

in today's baseball, the perfect bench coach, the person that's in the manager's ear saying, you need to think about this three batters down the line. This is what's gonna happen. You need to get somebody into this position or whatever it is. That's where he excelled was just the baseball IQ. He would not have been good with the media. That wasn't anything that he really enjoyed. ⁓

Dusty Baker told me that for sure. He's like, yeah, I don't think he wanted to deal with that, which is part I don't know anybody from that era though, there they would have been particularly good with the media. Just the way that people were and players were with religion, it's a different time. It's hard to put it in that kind of context. absolutely. And he and Tommy Losorio, who ultimately replaced Walter Alston, were polar opposites in terms of personality like that. But they had played together in Montreal. They certainly knew one another, respected one another for sure. Yeah.

And I noticed that, know, Charlie Dressen was his manager for the first season that he was there, but then they hired Walter Alston. And I remember, you know, looking at Walter Alston being, I always say this about Alston, he had 23 one-year contracts as the Dodger manager, but he was Gilliam's only manager then after Charlie Dressen until the end of his career. Yeah, you know, was, ⁓ so he managed, Alston managed the first two years in Montreal too. So Gilliam played his entire career with the Dodgers.

All but that one year 53, he was in the same dugout as Alston, either as a player or as a coach. ⁓ It's funny, was Mark Wicker's book on Don Drysdale that came out earlier this year. One of the things that he points out is that Drysdale was the answer to the trivia question of which player had the longest stint playing under the same manager on the same team, because Drysdale, from the time he debuted in 56, all the way through his retirement, played with Walter Alston.

That's interesting. That's interesting. ⁓ Talk about, because you mentioned it in the book quite a bit in terms of, know, as Gordon said, Jackie Robinson was first and Jim Gilliam came after. And then it wasn't a question of replacing, but coexisting on the same team with Jackie Robinson when you come up and you're Jim Gilliam. ⁓ You know, I think all of us want to think, they were good buddies and they supported each other because, you know, that's what you did then. that's not necessarily, you know, the actual, you know, the way that it went.

Yeah, I mean, think they were certainly friends. There's no doubt they were roommates together. Gilliam's freshman year on the road. So they got along well. But you Gilliam actually technically took Robinson's spot at second base. And so there was a lot of attention to Gilliam in the winter ball the year before in winter of 52 to 53, right before he went to spring training with the Dodgers when he was eventually promoted to the Major League roster. A lot of discussion about that.

They were good friends in the clubhouse, played cards together, things like that. But in terms of how they approached the business aspect of baseball, certainly after Jackie retired, he became much more outspoken about things. And Gilliam, that was just not his nature. He was very quiet, very unassuming. ⁓ Gilliam was a pallbearer at Jackie Robinson's funeral to the extent that that shows you the level of relationship that they did have. ⁓ But they were not people that were.

you know, they were not closely aligned. think Gilliam related more easily to Joe Black, who he'd played with on the Baltimore Eli Giants throughout his time with that team. And then in Montreal, and then later in Brooklyn, ⁓ Gilliam became Joe Black's son's godfather, Chico Black's godfather, and things like that. So they had a much tighter, I think, relationship than Jackie and Gilliam did, although they were certainly, you know,

good buddies and contributing to the Dodgers victories there.

when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and that was probably, and I never really think about this too much. It was a shock probably to everybody that managed to make that carryover from Brooklyn. And by the way, Jackie Robinson decided not to do that and did not, he actually was traded at the end of his career to the Giants and wouldn't report and said, I'm done. But you know, the players that went there and then the Duke Sniders to go play and obviously going to SC.

You know, it was always hard for me when I went to the games of the Coliseum, the football games, to think they had a baseball field in this ballpark. And so in addition to going to LA, they played their games in this wacko layout that, you know, was the Coliseum. ⁓ How did that, you know, affect Gilliam and his adapting to now moving to Los Angeles when he was not a West Coast guy? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. think ⁓ certainly he was never a power hitter. I mean, he didn't hit more than 70 professional home runs. ⁓

He did hit ⁓ two home runs in the 1953 World Series, ironically, and he is the only player ⁓ in baseball history to hit a home run in an Eagle Leagues All-Star game and a Major League All-Star game. And he did that in 1959 in the second Major League Baseball All-Star game that season, which happened to be at the LA Coliseum. And he did hit it over the short porch, the screen in left field. So he benefited from it from that standpoint.

⁓ I think the biggest thing that the Dodgers kind of experienced was just all the bright lights and the Hollywood effect of coming to see games in Los Angeles, the Coliseum. Carl Erskine famously, I had a chance to talk to him a couple of times before he passed, ⁓ talked about looking up into the stands and seeing all the celebrities and trying to look at women in the crowd and stuff like that. That was just kind of what the Dodgers became was this.

the IT team and it helped that they won the World Series in 59, their second year that they were in Los Angeles. But Gilliam was not a power hitter so he wasn't impacted too much by that. If anything he might have benefited from the spacious outfield that the Coliseum had by hitting some line drives, hitting some gaps, things like that.

I thought one of the most, you another interesting part, you know, I talked about, you know, before, like in terms of not knowing as much about the four gates and how that was kind of a hidden part of baseball history. There was another part of baseball history sort of hidden me in that just like you don't know about these players in these teams and these things that happened to them throughout the whole season. Like reading about the whole bus incident that happened where the team basically like the manager has to pull a bus over and yell out all the players of like, you're getting an air conditioned bus when you deserve an air conditioned bus. But then also just

the confusion I had when I'm reading the beginning and it's like it's got to be weird for for Jim to play with two different guys one guy named Pee Wee and the other guy nicknamed Pee Wee at different points in his career. Yeah I mean he played with Pee Wee Reese and then he played alongside Nate Pee Wee Oliver and you know and I think that was that was the relationship I really enjoyed talking to Pee Wee Oliver who has also since passed it's one of the sad things about about doing this research is that there have been quite a few people that I had

the pleasure of speaking to you for the book that have passed away. Just talking about how Gilliam mentored young up and coming talents, and they talk about in the media, and I allude to it in the book, phenoms that were always gonna replace Gilliam in the lineup. And that was one of the things that I think was a stigma about him was that he had no permanent place. He came up as a second baseman. He started at third base. He started in left field. He actually played every position except center field, shortstop.

Excuse me except shortstop pitcher and catcher. He did play in centerfield. So he played all three outfield positions at some point He even had a couple of putouts at first base I mean he would go wherever and that was the thing he started more opening days on the bench For the Dodgers than he did in the lineup yet by the end of the season. He had 150 games played 625 plate appearances. He hit 270 or whatever it was

Walked twice as much as he struck out, bunted... Old bases, right? Bunted Wills over to second base, stole some bases, had led the league in triples in 1953. I mean, he just did a lot of little things and they couldn't keep him out of the lineup. And I think that goes back to that relationship with Alston. Alston just trusted him, wanted him in the lineup, you know? And I begin the book with that play that Gilliam makes in game seven of the 1965 World Series because I thought it was truly emblematic of Gilliam's career.

Here he is playing third base at the age of 37 years old, stops a screaming line drive off the bat of Versalis down the third base line, gets a force out and helps Kofax get out of an inning in which Kofax is struggling and the Dodgers go on to win the World Series. And Alston replaces him at the end of the game for defensive purposes and Gilliam watches games, the ninth inning from the clubhouse. And it was just, he was always just kind of this unsung person who was.

there for all these monumental things in Dodgers. He started all four of Kofax's no hitters. He played in seven no hitters, including Don Larson's perfect game. ⁓ He was always around, yet I don't ever feel like he truly got the appreciation for being such a steady player. ⁓ And that's unfortunate. mean, people overlook him. It's easy to talk about the 60 Dodgers and talk about Drysdale, Kofax, Maury Wills.

Tommy Davis hitting 153 runs batted in and Willie Davis in center field. Where's Gilliam? Well, he, yeah, right. The least appreciated five time all star and having the least secure job in the major leagues for a guy who was a five time all star every year he came into the camp. was like, well, who are we gonna try to get to replace Gilliam now? Yeah.

Like I was saying, like he's probably a player who, when you look at his career, like this guy had like five seasons where he put up four war or more. Like when you're going, when he was going into that 63 season where they're like, we're not sure if we want him in the starting lineup, we want to get younger. It's like he was coming off a four war season. He was about to put up a five war season. Teams would be screaming to have this guy in their everyday lineup. then they're like, no, man, he can't. I mean, he's a career 41.7, I think is his career war. I mean, that's, that's pretty reputable. I mean,

But, I brought all that stuff up because Nate Oliver reminded me. mean, that's one of the players that was supposed to replace him. And he didn't. John Warhouse, another player that had come up from the minors that was supposed to replace him. Darrell Griffith, all of these young up and coming early 20 players in the 1963 to 65 time period that just didn't materialize for the Dodgers. And Gilliam was the consistent thread throughout that. Yeah, I think as Chapter 16, you

called it a ball player's ball player. I think that that is, you know, it's interesting to think about who parallels to that kind of a player even in today's, you you might use like a recently Ben Zobrist had that same kind of, you know, vibe to him in terms of being multifaceted and multi-talented in different positions. think think Gilliam actually is a better player than.

was a better player than Ben Zobos was, but it's hard to, you know, Kike Hernandez is not the equal of Jim Gilliam. It's really not even close, but because he's had such a great postseason career, people think that they're, they're equal. Yeah. And, you know, and obviously contemporaries benefit from greater television exposure. They, they benefit from more playoff games. I mean, remember that the Dodgers didn't have any league championship series when Gilliam played. It was either you win the pennant and go to the world series or not. So

Imagine how many more postseason at bats he would have playing on seven World Series teams in today's environment where you've got DSs and CSs and things like that. Yeah, I mean, think the comparison to Zobrist is a good one. I can't remember if Zobrist was a switch hitter or not, but that was one of the attributes that made Gilliam unique was that he did bat from left and from right side of the plate and was equally adept at both, although he was a natural right-handed hitter. He could certainly slap the ball as a left-handed hitter and...

Pull it when he needed to in order to move wills along if wills had gotten on base Talk about late in his career the failed retirement that he that he went through And why it happened and what what transpired? Yeah, so the 64 season was arguably his his worst ever as a professional He just things didn't click for him. They didn't click for the Dodgers either They were coming off high expectations after sweeping the Yankees in the 63 series and he just

He was age 36 and he just wasn't having things go his way. So the Dodgers wanted to move on from Leo DeRosier as a coach. And so they announced that Gilliam would become base coach for the Dodgers for the 1965 season and he would retire. But almost immediately going back through and looking at the newspaper archives, people speculated, well, is this really gonna happen? We don't see that. They may need Gilliam at some point in time. I'm sure he's gonna stay fresh.

⁓ And then sure enough on May 1st of 1965, Tommy Davis breaks his ankle sliding into second base. And they're trying Griffith, they're trying Warhast, they're trying all these other solutions just to add offense to the lineup. Nothing worked. So they finally did activate Gilliam and he put up pretty good numbers and actually got MVP votes for the 1965 season despite really not becoming a regular until midway through the summer. ⁓

and hit well and played every, started every game at third base in the 1965 World Series for the Dodgers. ⁓ So the same thing happens again in 1966 where ⁓ he begins the season retired as a full-time coach, but again, the Dodgers activate him. didn't quite grab lightning in a bottle like he did in 1955, or excuse me, 1965 there in 66, but did get into the World Series against the Orioles. It was interesting going back through and thinking about it.

started the first two games of that series, but was benched because he just wasn't hitting. Nobody was hitting for the Dodgers in Absolutely, that's a fair point. Nobody hit for the Dodgers in the 66 World Series. Palmer McNally, etc. really had the number on them. So they went with somebody else, John Kennedy at third base, just to try and see if they could get some more pop. Cost him maybe two more games. He could have had 41 World Series games played instead of 39 or whatever the number was.

We didn't talk ⁓ in this podcast so far just about the personal side of it. And then you did cover some of his personal life and the marriages and his family and so on and so forth and how he managed it. he certainly was a guy who the people around him had great respect for him as a human, beyond just what he did in the baseball field. And I think that that's something that kind of gets lost a little bit when we just think of these people as baseball players only.

Yeah, and I think that was absolutely one of the things that was really ⁓ fascinating to learn was just everybody I talked to from whether it was a player in the 1960s, someone that he coached in the 1970s. So a Ron say a Bobby Valentine, Billy Grabarowicz, some of those players that were infielders on the Dodgers teams in the 70s, ⁓ Dusty Baker, who was very close to him. They were just all effusive in what a good person he was. What a great.

Baseball mind he was what a great soft-spoken teacher of the game that he was ⁓ You know, he was supposedly a sharp dresser. He was a good golfer. He was a really good card player You know bridge or poker whatever it was, you know, that was the thing run say you told me a story that ⁓ Back when the Dodgers had the ko2 the plane that Walter O'Malley got then he named after his wife Kay ⁓ They would have card games in the back of the plane

And ⁓ Ron says, you know, I never saw any money trade hands on the plane, but I think Jim did pretty good for himself. So, and Ron was quick to point out, I wasn't in those games. So he wanted to make sure he was clean on that. But ⁓ yeah, they just, he was a personality that everybody just around the game. And that was true. That was what he always wanted to do with his life. He never graduated high school. He dropped out of 11th grade and segregated Nashville.

And he just wanted to be a baseball player. And I guess that's part of the ball player's ball player, that chapter. I that's kind of the thing for him. And connecting eras, I like that Branch Ricky was the guy that basically signed some, Branch Ricky had been around for a long time by the time Jim Gilliam came around, and that was near the end of his tenure. And so there's this connective tissue between the past to an even greater degree when you think about Jim Gilliam and how he got to the major leagues. Yeah.

Rick Ricky's signing of Jackie Robinson was certainly something that Gilliam and all the other Negro Leaguers were paying attention to. And I think that was really inspirational for Gilliam about, hey, I think I can do this. that's, ⁓ you know, back to our earlier conversation about the relationship with Jackie. I think he, definitely looked up to him as an aspirational person and just what he had done for the game. And certainly Ricky gets credit, you know, deserves some credit for that as well. When he got brought up by

by the Dodgers. That wasn't the first time that he had tried to get in, right? Didn't he try to get in with the Cubs earlier in his career? He did. He had a tryout in March of 1950 with several other Negro Leagues players at ⁓ Yale Athletic Field in Haines City, Florida, ⁓ which was home to spring training home for the Yankees and the Phillies ⁓ at different points in time. And the Cubs, for whatever reason, just didn't feel like he was ready. They went with the older.

Jean Baker, who ultimately would help integrate the Cubs and join Ernie Banks in the infield there, but they sent him back to the Baltimore Eli Giants and Gilliam played the 1950 season again with the Negro League Eli Giants and then the Dodgers signed him and purchased him rather him and Joe Black right after the 50 season. think you put in the book that he's one of the only players to have won both a Negro League championship and a Major League Baseball championship.

That's correct. ⁓ I should have these names committed in memory, but it's like Monty Irvin. It's those types, think, Satchel Paige, others like that that are in that group. Then you add in ⁓ a Caribbean World Series title, which he also won with the San Juan Senadores. No, he played with the Ken Graheros. anyway. Ken Graheros, Yeah. So he played, you know, ⁓

He coached the San Juan. But yeah, so he's one of the handful of players that to win both a Caribbean World Series, which was so big in the 1940s in the 1950s and the Negro League World Series and a major league World Series. I know you sent a note through to us today and our friend Scott at the Twinville. were your book was just named a finalist for the best.

Baseball Nonfiction Book of the Year. So congratulations on that. And thank you. We love the twin bill and Gordon. And then we did the movie podcast with with his friend. That's a lot of Yeah. Scott Scott does a great job with that. And he was such a joy to talk to. I talked to him for his podcast earlier this year. Yeah. So, you know, he passed away very young to Jim Gilliam. And I, you know, we talked about, you know, being in 1978, but I didn't realize that it was when he was only 49 years old. Yeah.

You know, and that's it came right on the, I mean, his actual passing came right on the heels of the World Series beginning and his funeral was on game two, the morning of game two of the 1978 World Series, which happened to be in Los Angeles, which created a lot of national media. And so it was pretty well covered. That was fortunate. You know, and in doing research for the book, you know, this is where eBay sometimes can yield amazing treasure troves of things. I found a copy of the funeral program from

1978 from Jim Gilliam's funeral. so I reprinted a couple of the pages in there. But that was so helpful in terms of understanding who was present, who the pallbearers were, who the honorary pallbearers were. just because there's no other record of any of that stuff anywhere. And I was able to ask Edwina, OK, now who is this person? that was a friend of Jim's that, you this was somebody that rented one of our duplexes or whatever it was. ⁓ And so that was, you know, obviously a

a emotional time for the Dodgers. The Dodgers would go on to win game two. They took a two game two zero lead back to New York and then lost the next four, unfortunately. you know, the one thing that came out of all that was right on the heels of that, the Dodgers announced that they're going to retire number 19, which was Gilliam's number. And I was fortunate to speak with both Peter O'Malley and Fred Claire and Fred wrote the forward or the introduction for the book. ⁓

And both of them talked about that, about that decision. And you got to understand that in 1978, retiring numbers wasn't really a big thing. The Dodgers only had four numbers retired, Campanella, Robinson, Kofax, and Walter Alston at that point in time. But they subsequently, after that said, okay, you got to be in the Hall of Fame before we're going to retire your number. But yet 19 still remains retired for the Dodgers. And one of the things Peter O'Malley told me was,

You know, Gilliam embodied everything that we want from the Dodgers. He was in the organization for 27 years, a quarter century. It's not hard to conceive because as you point out, he died at 49. Another 20 years or so, he's 69, maybe he gets to 70. Maybe he's got 50 years in a Dodgers uniform, counting the two years in the minors. And that's unbelievable, right? There's a rule B candidate right there. Yeah, for sure. So he just, you know,

O'Malley stood by the decision, said, I'd make the decision again today. And he said, it's nothing against the people who wanted Gil Hodges' number retired or who wanted Fernando's number retired or Steve Garvey or whoever. That's not against them. It's just at that moment in time, those circumstances, under that context, that was the decision that was made. And he stood by it. So I appreciated Peter's candid conversation on that and his insight.

And he's the sort of guy that he might not be, you know, a baseball hall of fame guy, but if the Dodgers had their own hall of fame, he's got his own entire exhibit in there. You know, it's the kind of thing where a guy might not be that, you know, in the annals of baseball greatness, but to what he means to a team can be so much more than just the stats you put together in a career. Well, absolutely. I I certainly think he would be a candidate for, if you put together an all time roster of 26 Dodgers in history, he should certainly be on the roster.

Maybe not in the starting lineup, but certainly on there as a utility player or somebody that can play third, play second, play left, wherever they need him to play, come in and do special things, sacrifice, bunt, draw, walk, whatever it was that he needed to do to help the team win. That was just kind of his character. But yeah, I I agree with you 100%. He is certainly a hall of famer in the Dodgers history for sure.

Well, you're you're doing a great you've done a great job at sort of reminding people of why he shouldn't be the forgotten Dodger. And before we got on the podcast, Gordon, I talked about, so if you're a Dodger fan, obviously, and in your glory days right now, nobody wants to admit right now, because everybody's like, it's so great to be a Dodger fan. But is there a current Dodger? And it's hard to compare yours and add a context. So it isn't fair. And yet, is there somebody who is unheralded?

there that you could see at some point, 20 years from now, looking back on going, wow, we should have thought more about that player. Yeah, I think it's easy to say this right now, but Miguel Rojas has had a really interesting history with the Dodgers going all the way back to 2014 in the spectacular play he made defensively to save Clayton Kershaw's no hitter. And then he gets traded away to the Marlins, comes back.

And he's one of those guys, he just wants to be there and, ⁓ you know, will pinch it, know, pinch chip in wherever he needs to, you know, the shortstop goes down and he's got to step in and start a bunch of games at shortstop, you know, whatever it was, ⁓ that's got hurt, ⁓ you know, or Trey Turner got hurt or whatever it was, he's filling in with Max Muncie out or whatever, playing all over, you know, even pitching some, you know, he comes in and did some mop up pitching. ⁓ So.

And Rojas has made no bones about it. I want to get into coaching. I want to get into managing. And so I see some parallels between Miguel Rojas and Gilliam like that. I think to your point earlier, Kike has been the guy that plays all over the field. Chris Taylor was somebody that played all over the field. The Dodgers like that position versatility, excuse me. They really like that as a part of what they look for in players. And that goes all the way back to, I think, Gilliam's days.

So you mentioned working on ⁓ some other projects. Is there another book in your future bio like that you might be thinking about doing? Yeah, I've kicked this around a lot. So I've taken on some other responsibilities. I serve as dean of the Silverfield College of Education at the University of North Florida. ⁓ I recently became the chapter president for the Sabre chapter here in Jacksonville, the Poploid chapter. And so I've been focusing some of my efforts on that. ⁓

I've got a couple of ideas. love baseball, but I love college athletics and thinking maybe I can do something around college sport. I love, you know, the books that I really enjoy reading put moments in sports within the context of things going on in the broader society, right? And I did, I don't know that I did as good a job on this as I maybe could have or should have.

know, the Dodgers certainly with Watts Riots in 1965, MLK's assassination in 1968, RFK, all of those things, those were pivotal moments of what was going on in the world and in the United States and trying to provide context for those things. So that's kind of where I see myself wanting to go. But as we were talking before we recorded, know, day jobs sometimes get in the way of the fun jobs, right? Well, you know, here's the book itself.

And you should pick it up and read it because it's really terrific. But it's pretty thick. So if you had a whole thing, including in the Watts Rise and all that kind of stuff, it would probably be twice this size. Yeah. So I mean, that's where my academic pedigree probably hurts me a little bit. A lot of those pages, if you look in the back are footnotes. Because I do pride myself on being thorough and doing as much research. I've talked to enough people that are writers.

are done researching, you just run out of time. And that's kind of what it is. I I've learned things about Gilliam since the manuscript was finished. I was like, gosh, I really wish I could have incorporated that. So you just gotta kind of block that stuff out. But yeah, it did come out a little more thick, I think, than I was anticipating.

Well, the book is entitled Jim Gillian, The Forgotten Dodger. The author is Dr. Steven Dittmore. Gordon and I love the book. There's still time for you to pick up a copy for Christmas. Absolutely. You can get it on Amazon or wherever it is. We're delighted to have you. Love talking to you. as a fellow Sabre member, I think that's how you might have found me. I hope we have the chance to talk to you again about your next project. Yeah, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate the work that you guys do on the podcast and on your Substack. always look forward to getting those things. So appreciate what you guys do.

Thank you very much for your time and hope you have a great holiday season. Yeah, I hope you guys do too. Take care.