Mike Marshall: They Called Him Moose

He was one of the bigger players ever to put on a Dodger uniform. 6’5″, 215lbs, and his nickname was Moose. Mike Marshall was born in Libertyville, Illinois, on January 12th, 1960. His parents were Frank and Sandy Marshall, and he had a sister, Terri.

His father was raised on a farm until he bought a printing business. Libertyville is located about 35-40 miles from downtown Chicago. When he was selected in the 6th round of the 1978 first-year player draft, he was finishing up at Buffalo Grove High School, about 10 miles from Libertyville and about 30 miles north of Wrigley Field.

” When I was a kid, I used to skip out of school and take a bus down to see the Cubs play. It was a different world down there. You don’t ever think you will play in the majors, and then it happens so fast.” He spoke. Well, not everyone makes it fast.

He was signed for just under $30,000 dollars by Dodger scouts Guy Wellman and Glen Van Proyen. He was sent to the rookie league ball at Lethbridge in the Pioneer League. He played 1st and right field. He had a good year with a .324 BA, 12 homers, and 70 RBIs in 65 games.

In 1979, he went to Lodi in the Class-A California League. He was the DH and the 1st baseman. In 137 games, he hit .354 to lead the league with 24 homers and 116 driven in. He was named the league’s MVP. After turning 20, Mike was sent to the AA Texas League affiliate, San Antonio. He was already being touted as the successor to Steve Garvey at first.

He had a solid year, hitting .321 with 16 homers and 82 RBIs in 134 games. After the season, there was some talk of a trade with the Red Sox that would have brought Fred Lynn to LA for Marshall and a couple of other players going to the Red Sox, but that did not happen. Lynn would be traded to the Angels in January of 1981. Oddly enough, the Dodgers missed a chance to draft him in 1973 out of USC. He thought they would take him with their first pick, but they drafted Ted Farr, a catcher out of Spokane. LA hoped to grab him in the second round, but Boston drafted him 1-pick ahead of the Dodgers’ second round selection. LA whiffed on that one.

Mike moved up to AAA in 1981 for the Albuquerque Dukes. He played in 128 games, batting .373 with 34 homers and 137 driven in. He was the first player in 25 years to win the triple crown in the PCL. The Dukes went all the way -winning the division and their league championship under manager Del Crandall.

The Dodgers called him up, and he debuted on September 7th as a pinch runner for Garvey. In his first AB, he doubled off of Giants pitcher, Ed Whitson. Cey followed with a 2-run homer, and Mike scored his first run. He said that was more exciting than getting a hit. He just wanted to get the whole thing over with.

I had totally forgotten, but Marshall was on the playoff roster and earned his first World Series ring when LA beat the Yankees in the 1981 series. His only at-bat in the playoffs came against Houston, and he struck out against Joe Sambito. That winter, he was named Minor League Player of the Year for 1981 by The Sporting News.

He began the 1982 season at Albuquerque. He batted .388 in 66 games with 14 homers and 58 RBIs. He was recalled by the Dodgers on June 27th and hit his first MLB homer 2 nights later in a 7-5 loss to the Padres. He hit a solo homer and his bases-loaded walk drove in another run in a 4-1 win over the Mets on July 5th. Two days later, his 2-run shot made the difference in a 3-1 win over the same team. He appeared in 49 games, batting .242 with five homers and 9 RBIs.

In 1983, he became a regular. He played 109 games in right and 33 at first. Both Garvey and Cey had left, Garvey as a free agent and Cey was traded to the Cubs. They moved Pedro Guerrero to third from right, installed rookie Greg Brock at first, and put Marshall in right.

Marshall was beaned on April 9th and then being knocked unconscious in a series collision on the base paths with Duane Kuiper on May 27th, he was hitting just .224 by the end of May. He would finish the season at .284 with 17 homers and 65 RBIs. He hit .311 after the All-Star break. The Dodgers won the West but lost to the Phillies in the NLCS. Mike was 2-15 in the series.

He changed positions again in 1984, moving from right to left. He won LA’s second game of the season with a 3-run walk-off homer in the 12th inning. On April 27th, he had five hits, including two homers and six driven in during a 15-7 drubbing of the Padres. Despite spending 21 days on the disabled list due to surgery on his left foot in May, he was selected to the All-Star team. Later in the season, he learned that he needed surgery on his right knee for a loose patella tendon. His average dropped from the .280’s to .257, but he led the team in homers with 21 and drove in 65 again, second to Guerrero’s 72. He was named the team’s MVP by the Southern California baseball writers.

The 1985 team won the West by 5.5 games over the Reds. Marshall hit .293 with 28 homers, second to Guerrero, and 95 RBIs, which led the team. He was on the injured list for 27 days due to an emergency appendectomy. In his last 11 games of the season, Mike drove in 13 runs, including 3 in the October 2nd clincher against the Braves, where he also homered. “Nobody believed in this team except Tommy and the 25 guys in the locker room,” he said.

The Dodgers met the Cardinals in the NLCS and would eventually lose in six games. Marshall went 5-23 with 3 RBIs. In the 8th inning of game six, with the game tied at 4, Marshall hit a homer off of Todd Worrell, giving LA a 5-4 lead. Jack Clark’s 3-run homer in the top of the 9th won it for the Cardinals.

1986 proved to be a struggle for Mike. Despite a 16-game hitting streak, he suffered constant back pain and missed many games. He did not play at all in September. He played in just 103 games, hitting just .233 with 19 homers and 53 driven in. One criticism of Mike was that he never saw a pitch he did not like. In 85, he struck out 100 more times than he walked, 137-37. In 1987, he had 428 plate appearances but only walked 18 times.

He avoided arbitration in 87 and signed a 1-year deal. But once again, back problems plagued him, and he appeared in just 104 games. He hit a career high of .294 with 72 RBIs and 16 homers. He missed most of May, but in June he hit .370, bringing his average up to .304.

There was also an ugly controversy with Guerrero, who accused him of malingering. He missed time with his back, surgery to remove a wart, and a thigh strain. In September, he and teammate Phil Garner got into a scuffle before a game. Fans at Dodger Stadium started to boo him. Despite all that, he still was second on the team in both average and RBIs.

There was a lot of trade talk in the offseason, but Marshall returned to the Dodgers for the 1988 season. He was injury-free and played in 144 games, batting .277 with 20 homers and 82 driven in. He went 7-30 against the Mets in the NLCS with a double, triple, and five driven in. He had a homer and 3 RBIs against the A’s in the World Series, going 3-13. He also hit his second postseason triple.

But the controversy over his not playing hurt continued. Bill Plashke wrote in the Times that Marshall had been unavailable for game four. Fans ripped him for not playing when hurt, and teammates said he was not tough enough. The Dodgers’ media relations department even ridiculed him after it was announced he would not play due to general soreness.

Plashke quoted Lasorda saying of Marshall, ” It is frustrating because this guy had all the ability in the world and did not use it to the extent he could have.”. Lasorda was probably thinking about the 100-plus games Marshall had missed in 1986-1987.

Mike did drive in 8 runs in 12 postseason games, though. 88 MVP, Kirk Gibson was quoted as saying, “I consider him a great teammate, and I could not have accomplished what I did without him.” Years later, Marshall would say, “Some of my injuries, did I handle them correctly, no. That is something I always regretted. I always wanted to be 100%.

That winter, Mike signed a 3-year, $3.3-million-dollar contract. He was hoping the additional security would help him. But the injury bug bit him again in 1989. He played in just 105 games. His back problem landed him on the DL in June. It prompted more suggestions that he did not play hurt. One came from former Dodger Al Downing, who was a talk-show host on the Dodgers’ radio station, KABC. Mike hit .260 with 11 homers and 42 RBIs.

On December 20th, the Dodgers traded him and Alejandro Pena to the Mets for speedy CF, Juan Samuel. At age 30, he won the first base job for the Mets in spring training but would play just 53 games for the Mets, hitting .239 with six homers and 27 RBIs. He had a grand slam and 6 RBI against the Dodgers in an 8-3 win on May 22nd, which had to feel good.

But by mid-June, he was saying, “I don’t fit in here.” On July 13th, he got into a heated confrontation with Mets manager Bud Harrelson over playing time. He ended up in the hospital with gastrointestinal duodenitis….don’t ask me what that is.

Replaced at first by Dave Magadan, he requested that the Mets trade him at the end of the season. The Mets did not wait that long. On July 27th he was traded to the Red Sox for Greg Hansell, a former Dodger, and two minor leaguers.

He would play in 30 games for the BoSox, batting .286 with four homers and 12 RBIs. He had three at bats and one hit in the Sox playoff loss to the A’s. 1991 would be the Moose’s last year in the majors. He had not played much after the trade and was not playing much for the Sox in spring training. He went AWOL for a day, even though he was hitting .464 in exhibition play.

He played in 22 games for the Sox, doing well, hitting .290 with a homer and seven driven in. But after playing only 3 times in June, due in part to toe surgery, and pinch-hitting only twice in July, he was released on July 21st. I was just insurance, he said.

7 days later, he was signed by the Angels. He spent a short time at Palm Springs but had just 7 plate appearances in 2 games. He asked for and was granted his release just 11 days after he signed. Just 31 years old, he signed a 2-year contract with the Nippon Ham Fighters. He played 67 games in 1992 hitting .246 with nine homers and 26 driven in. But once again, he was injured with a groin pull and his 9th trip to the DL. He was sent to the minors for rehab.

In 1993, he signed a minor league deal with the Mariners. He told writer Ross Newhan that he” sometimes had been his own worst enemy, when you make the majors at age 22, you think you know it all.” He also said he should have been open to input from others. On March 17th, he announced his retirement from the game.

Mike coached at Glendale J.C. for a year. He was then a hitting instructor at Southwest Texas State. He said he had chosen to stay closer to his wife and two children, Michele and Marchetta. Both would eventually graduate from Stanford.

He eventually re-engaged with the game, and in 1999 he was signed as a player-coach for the Schaumberg Flyers, an independent league team. He would hit his last 2 professional homers. In 2000, he became manager of the independent Northern Leagues Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs. He did that for 3 years until the team folded.

He then, in 2005 and 2006, ran the independent El Paso Diablos. In 2007-2008 he pretty much ran everything for the Yuma Bullfrogs/Scorpions of the independent Golden Baseball League. He went to Germany and Slovenia with other ballplayers to run a baseball camp for kids.

In September of 1999, journalist Jason Whitlock joined them on a tour of several Army bases during the Iraq War. They also visited hospitals and played softball games. Marshall, being a World Champion, was an inspiration to the kids.

He continued working in different capacities for independent league teams through 2012. He became commissioner of the 4-team Pacific Coast Association of Baseball Clubs in 2013. In 2014, he managed the Fort Worth Cats, a team in the independent United League of Baseball. He then moved to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and coached for New Mexico Highlands University.

Since 2020, Marshall has kept a low profile and maintained his privacy. He spent over 15 years in independent baseball, working in all sorts of positions, in hopes of showing affiliated baseball that he understood toughness and teamwork. Their not listening was their loss.