Davey Lopes, the no-nonsense base-stealing second baseman on a historic Dodgers team that played together for a record 8½ seasons, died Wednesday at age 80, the Dodgers announced.
The first 10 years of Lopes' 16-year major league career were spent with the Dodgers, and he returned to the organization in 2011 to serve as first base coach for five years. Lopes was a four-time All-Star who won two stolen base titles, a Gold Glove and helped the Dodgers win four World Series, including the championship in 1981.
Selected in the second round of a 1968 Dodgers draft considered the most talented in baseball history, the 5-foot-9, 170-pound Lopes emerged from a hectic upbringing in Rhode Island to become the team's second baseman and regular leadoff hitter in 1973.
Lopes played outfield in the minor leagues, but became part of a bold move by Dodgers manager Walter Alston before the 1973 season: Lopes would move to second base, Bill Russell from center field to shortstop and Steve Garvey from third to first base. Ron Cey would be installed at third. The Dodgers moved veteran coach and scout Monty Basgall, known as an exceptional infield instructor, from the front office to the field to help players adjust to their new roles.
The quartet took the infield together for the first time in the second game of a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds at a sold-out Dodger Stadium on June 23, 1973. They stayed together through the 1981 World Series championship season, after which Lopes was traded to the Oakland Athletics for Lance Hudson, a utility player who never made it to the major leagues.
Lopes continued to play well and did not retire until 1987 at age 42. He stole 557 bases and was successful on 83% of his attempts, one of the best rates in Major League history. He also showed leadoff power, hitting 155 home runs, including a career-high 28 for the Dodgers in 1979.
Although Lopes' career batting average was .263, he had an excellent eye, walked almost as many times as he struck out, and posted an excellent .349 on-base percentage. He scored 1,023 runs in 1,812 career games.
As games progressed, Lopes typically batted after the pitcher, who was at the bottom of the order. He became adept at stalling tactics that gave pitchers ample rest if they had just returned to the dugout after running the bases.
Times assistant sports editor Houston Mitchell, a lifelong Dodgers fan, described what happened next: “Lopes was a wizard at wasting time to give the pitcher a chance to dry off and cool down a bit. Especially if there were two outs. Lopes would spend an extra moment or two in the on-deck circle. He would take his time removing the round weight from his bat. Then he would walk slowly toward the batter's box.”
David Earl Lopes was born on May 3, 1945, and raised in East Providence, Rhode Island, a town of Irish, Portuguese, and Cape Verdean immigrants who sought work in factories and along the coast. Lopes, one of 12 siblings, was a small child when his father died. Lopes' mother, Mary Rose, worked as a maid.
Lopes often described his upbringing as difficult, referring to his neighborhood as a “ghetto” and describing it to Times columnist Jim Murray as “cockroaches, rats, poor living conditions, drugs as prevalent as candy.”
“If it hadn't been for sports, there's no telling what I would be or where I would be,” Lopes told the Times' Ross Newhan in 1973. “All I had to do was get off the porch and choose from all the things that are associated with a ghetto.”
Long before he became an accomplished base stealer, Lopes said he became an expert at stealing. “I never stole anything important, just clothes, baseballs and bats,” he told Murray.
Lopes needed an adult role model and one appeared in opposing high school coach Mike Sarkesian, who grew up in a Providence building but became basketball coach and athletic director at Iowa Wesleyan College the year Lopes graduated from high school.
“Everything I missed by not really having a father, Sarkesian provided,” Lopes told Newhan. “He could identify with my problems, my environment. The drive, the determination not to give in to the ghetto, to do something with my life, comes from my relationships with him.”
Sarkesian recruited Lopes to play baseball at Iowa Wesleyan. Two years later, Sarkesian became athletic director at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and Lopes went with him. Lopes was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the eighth round of the 1967 MLB draft, but opted to return to Washburn, where he played baseball and basketball well enough to be inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1987.
The Dodgers drafted him in the second round a year later and Lopes signed for $10,000. He skipped spring training his first two minor league seasons to complete his classes at Washburn and graduated in 1969 with a degree in elementary education.
Lopes spent the 1968 and 1969 seasons at Class-A Daytona Beach and married Linda Lee Vandover during his first season. The night before the wedding he broke the no-hitter in both games of a doubleheader with hits in the late innings.
In 1970 there was a promotion to triple A Spokane. Their coach was Tommy Lasorda and the team was exceptional, with a record of 94-52. His teammates included Garvey and Russell, as well as other future major leaguers Bill Buckner, Bobby Valentine and Tom Paciorek.
Lasorda recalled that Lopes was so shy that he didn't talk to anyone. “It took him two years, but he finally recovered,” Lasorda said. “[He] “He finally got to the point where he felt like he belonged.”
Lopes showed improvement at the plate in his second year in Spokane, hitting .306 with Cey as a teammate. The Dodgers moved their Triple-A affiliate to Albuquerque in 1972, and in his third season at that level, Lopes displayed the combination of power and speed that would become his calling card, posting a .476 slugging percentage while stealing 48 bases.
Five years in the minor leagues after attending college meant Lopes was 27 years old when he made his major league debut in September. He was the opening day second baseman the following year and turned 28 a month into the season.
Lopes quickly made up for lost time, his stolen base totals increasing in each of his first three full seasons from 36 to 59 to 77. On August 24, 1974, he stole five bases in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming the first National League player to do so since 1904.
It wasn't long before the best catcher in baseball, Johnny Bench of the Reds, praised Lopes, saying, “He's the best there is at stealing. Lopes not only has the knowledge and the speed, but also the quick acceleration. He has it all.”
The once reticent Lopes also showed leadership qualities as early as 1976, when a throw by new Dodgers outfielder Dusty Baker missed the cutoff man.
“We don't play that way,” Lopes told Baker.
“Hey, I almost kicked him out.” responded the newcomer from the Dodgers.
“We don't play like that,” Lopes emphasized.
“I've never had a player confront me like that and I didn't like it very much,” Baker recalled of the incident. “I looked up and the whole team was coming up to back Davey up.”
Lopes was also popular with fans. In 1980, he received 3,862,403 votes to lead all MLB players and start at second base in the All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium. That was the third of four consecutive All-Star Game appearances.
The Dodgers won consistently with Lopes, Garvey, Russell and Cey anchoring the infield, but lost the World Series in 1974 to the A's and in 1977 and 1978 to the Yankees. In 1981, however, they broke through and won the Fall Classic for the first time since 1966 by defeating the Yankees in six games.
“Now they can do whatever they want with us,” said Lopes, who set a record by stealing 10 bases in 10 attempts that postseason. “I have the ring. They can't take it from me.”
Young Steve Sax, however, accepted his position. Lopes, 36, was traded to the A's during the offseason. He barely made it out, playing another six seasons and even stealing 47 bases in 99 games in 1985 for the Chicago Cubs to become the first 40-year-old to steal more bases than his age.
Lopes retired after the 1987 season and spent the next four years as Valentine's coach with the Texas Rangers. He then coached for three years with another former teammate, Baltimore Orioles coach Johnny Oates, and for four years with the San Diego Padres under Bruce Bochy.
In 2000, Lopes got his chance to manage, signing a three-year contract with the Milwaukee Brewers, who posted losing records in his first two seasons. When the Brewers won only three of their first 15 games in 2002, Lopes was fired.
“Many people discouraged me from taking [the Brewers job] because they thought I was setting myself up for failure,” Lopes told the Times’ Ross Newhan, feeling the odds were catching up with him, “but I was determined to show them I could do it.”
Lopes returned to the Padres as first base coach from 2003 to 2005. He spent one season as first base coach and baserunning advisor for the Washington Nationals, and held the same position for the Phillies from 2007 to 2010.
The Phillies led the major leagues in stolen base percentage three times during his tenure and won the 2008 World Series championship, but that season began with a serious health issue for Lopes. Days before spring training, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was in remission on opening day.
In 2011, Times columnist Bill Plaschke pushed for the Dodgers to add Lopes to the coaching staff. CEO Ned Colletti did just that. Lopes showed empathy for the young players, saying: “I've been there, I know what it's like when you're young and you need to know that someone has your back. Sometimes you feel lost and you need a coach or a manager to alleviate that.”
Lopes served as the Dodgers' first base coach for five years, immediately improving the team's base-stealing prowess, before closing out his five-decade baseball career in 2017 as the Nationals' coach under former teammate Baker.
“I'm not doing much. I'm retired and I'm taking it easy,” Lopes said of retirement in a podcast. “It wasn't a difficult decision to make, but I was a little hesitant to make it, but everything turns out well.
“I had the opportunity to play, manage or coach for a long, long time. I'm very grateful. I was one of the lucky ones in the Major Leagues for 45 consecutive years. That's a long time. I have no complaints.”
Lopes is survived by two brothers, Patrick and John, and four sisters, Jean, Judith, Mary and Nina.
