My Favorite Dodgers: Players Who Were Dodgers For A Short Time.

Ah, love the guys who came to LA and played for a short time and made some impact. Brooklyn had a few of those two, so I will touch base on a couple of those guys, too. But sometimes, they also make very little impact. And then there are those guys who get traded or signed, and you are like, why in the world would they want that guy? Might be a former Giant or some other player you do not like. The best example for me was when they brought in Juan Marichal. There had to be some kind of forgiveness going on for that one. But his stay in blue was very brief. So I will get started… Some you might agree with, and others you might not even remember.

ALBERT PUJOLS

Pujols # 55

Albert Pujols was one of the best players in the majors for the first 11 years of his baseball career. Well over .300 BA, he hit .329 his rookie year, garnering the ROY award and finishing 4th in the MVP voting. He was a three-time MVP winner with the Cardinals and helped them win two of the three World Series they went to. The only season as a Cardinal where he hit under .300, was his last in 2011, when he hit .299. A free agent, he signed a 10-year deal with the Angels for 240 million. After getting 16 million in 2013, the contract escalated 1 million a year until it was over in 2021.

Albert never became that hitter again. He was very good, but nothing like he had been in St. Louis. They sold a lot of his jerseys, though. During his 10-year stint with the Angels, they made the playoffs once in 2014 and were knocked out in the ALDS by the Royals. Pujols hit .167 in the three games.

In 2021, Albert was in the final season of his contract with the Angels. He started the season badly, hitting .198 in 24 games with five homers. On May 13th, he was un-ceremonially released by the Angels. Four days later, the Dodgers, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and improve their hitting against LHP, signed Pujols for the MLB minimum. The Angels said they had cut him because he wanted to play every day. Albert said that was not the case, and he would do whatever the Dodgers asked. The Dodgers, at the time of the signing, were suffering a rash of injuries. Pollock was out, so was Seager; Taylor had a sore wrist.

On May 18th, Pujols started at first base and hit clean-up, becoming the oldest Dodger ever to do so. Muncy slid over to second, and Lux went to SS. Pujols flew out on the first pitch he saw, but later in the game against Bumgarner, he delivered an RBI single up the middle to help beat the D-Backs. Albert would later credit the Dodgers with renewing his love of the game. Tio Albert batted .254 as a Dodger. He contributed 12 homers and 38 runs batted in. He had some clutch hits. He missed a walk-off homer by inches in a game against the Giants when Michael Tauchman robbed him at the wall in Dodger Stadium. When he made his return to LA last year with the Cardinals, he got a standing ovation from the crowd. The cheers were just as loud after he hit homers # 699 and 700. Probably one of the best-liked former foes who ever wore the Dodger uniform.

KEN BOYER

Boyer # 45

Sometimes your team gets a player who you have a lot of respect for. Boyer was one of those players. 7-time All-Star with the Cardinals, 5 Gold Gloves, 1964 NL MVP. What was not to like? Boyer was an ultimate team player. In 1957, he volunteered to play center field for the Cardinals so exceptional rookie Eddie Kasko could play third base. The Cardinals lost nothing in the move because Boyer led all outfielders in the NL in fielding percentage that year. The next season, Kasko was injured, and the Cardinals traded for Curt Flood to play center; Boyer moved back to third and earned his first Gold Glove award.

Boyer was one of the more consistent Cardinal players. He hit double-figure homers in all 11 of his seasons in St. Louis. His high was 32 in 1960. He started slowing down some, and the year after his MVP season, he was traded to the Mets in October of 1965 for Al Jackson and Charley Smith. He hit .266 with 14 homers for the Mets in 66. But the following year in July, he was traded to the White Sox with a player to be named later for Bill Southworth and a player to be named later. JC Martin went to the Mets, and Sandy Alomar to the White Sox.

In May of 1968, the Sox released him, and he signed with the Dodgers 8 days later. Boyer went on to play in 83 games for the Dodgers that year. He split time between 3rd and 1st base. He hit .271 with 6 homers for a pretty bad Dodger team. In 1969, age and injuries caught up with him, and he only appeared in 25 games. After the season, the Dodgers released him, and Boyer retired.

He wanted to be a manager and accepted a position with the Cardinals as a minor league coach. He then went to the big club as a coach for two seasons before returning to the minors to start his managing career. The Cardinals fired Red Schoendienst in 1977 and replaced him with Vern Rapp. Boyer was disappointed and joined the Orioles as manager of their AAA team. When Rapp was fired after a 6-11 start in 78, Boyer replaced him. He would manage the rest of that season, the full season in 79, and then in 1980, in June, between the games of a doubleheader, with the team off to an 18-33 start, he was fired and replaced by Whitey Herzog.

Boyer never garnered much Hall of Fame support. In his 15 years on the ballot, he never got more than 22%. He died at the age of 51 in September of 1982 of lung cancer. He’s a gritty player and a total team guy. An excellent third baseman.

DICK ALLEN

Dick Allen # 15

Dick “Don’t call me Richie” Allen was one of those players you just loved to hate. He was the Phillies’ first ” Black Superstar”. Much like Reggie Smith in Boston, he played in a town not so kind to players of color. He was pretty controversial right from the start. He was the NL ROY in 1964, and he could hit a ball a mile. The first two years in Philly, he played exclusively at third base. He was not the greatest fielder in the universe, making 67 errors in 322 games.

The Phils moved him to the outfield in 67 part-time. He played 47 games in left and 91 at third. In 1968, they moved him back to third, resulting in 35 more errors. In 68 he played primarily in the outfield and in 1969, they moved him to first base. He had begun wearing a batting helmet on the field to protect himself from projectiles thrown from the stands. He would continue that practice for the rest of his career.

Over his time in Philly, he was involved in several controversies accredited to his behavior and disdain in later seasons for his manager, Gene Mauch. He finally told the Phillies owner it was him or me, and the Phillies fired Mauch. Dick did not get along any better with his replacement, Bob Skinner. He missed games, and showed up late for meetings, and finally, the owner agreed to trade him after the 1969 season.

He was traded to the Cardinals on October 7th, 1969, in what would be one of the most historic trades in MLB history, and he was not the reason why. In the deal, he and Jerry Johnson and Cookie Rojas were sent to St. Louis for Byron Browne, Joe Hoener, Tim McCarver and Curt Flood. Flood would refuse to report to the Phillies and in a historic court case, challenged the reserve clause, which tied players to their teams for basically life. Willie Montanez and Jim Browning were sent to the Phillies to complete the trade the next season.

Meanwhile, Dick split time between first base and the outfield hit 32 homers, and drove in 101 runs. But an injury late in the year limited him to 122 games. Rumors circulated that the Cardinals were unhappy with his recovery from the injury. Whatever the reason, five days after the season ended, Allen was traded to the Dodgers for Ted Sizemore and Bob Stinson. Cardinal management insisted the trade was based on a need for more balance on the team. Sizemore, the ROY in 1969, was there to replace the aging Julian Javier.

Because of the trade, the Dodgers were considered a possible pennant contender. Allen would be supplying the power they had been lacking for several years. His love affair with the Dodgers had begun when he was a youth. His family used to go to Pittsburgh when the Dodgers would play the Pirates and they lived 30 miles away. So, putting on the Dodger uniform was special for him. He was a large part of the Dodger success that year according to Dodger coach, Danny Ozark. He did everything he was asked to do.

But the rub was Allen wanted no part of Walter O’Malley’s public-relations commitments. He thought it distracted attention from the team’s mission of winning ballgames. The Dodgers and Giants engaged in a spirited run for the pennant but finished a game back. Allen finished with a .295 average, 23 homers, and 90 runs batted in. Did not matter, he was traded for the third time in three years to the White Sox for Tommy John on December 2nd, 1971. Rumors would surface later that he and Dodger manager Walter Alston did not get along. Allen went on to an MVP season for the Sox in 72. He played there two more seasons before going back to the Phillies for two years and then finishing his career in Oakland in 1977 at the age of 35. Dick passed away on Pearl Harbor Day, Dec 7th, 2020, at the age of 78. He has not been elected to the Hall of Fame.

DAVID FREESE

David Freese was a World Series MVP when he was with the Cardinals in 2011. He was also the MVP of the NLCS. He was 28 at the time and playing in St. Louis, which he considered his hometown. He had an outstanding post-season for the Redbirds. He hit three homers against the Brewers in the NLCS. He drove in 9 runs while batting .545.

Because the home team was still decided by who won the All-Star game, St. Louis hosted games 1-2-6-7. In game 6, Nelson Cruz hit a solo homer to put the Rangers up 6-4. It was his 8th post-season homer that year, tying him with Carlos Beltran and Barry Bonds. In the 9th inning, with the Cardinals a strike from being eliminated, Freese drove home Berkman and Pujols with a triple. The Rangers went back up by 2 in the 10th, and the Cardinals again in the bottom of the inning with 2 outs and 2 strikes on Berkman, when his single knocked in John Jay with the tying run. Ryan Theriot had a run-scoring ground-out before Berkman’s hit brought St. Louis within one.

The Cards kept the Rangers off the board in the top of the 11th, and Freese came up leading off the inning. Mark Lowe was pitching for the Rangers; the count went to 3-2, and Freese hit the next pitch over the center-field fence for a game-winning homer. He joined four other players, Boone, Ortiz, Fish, and Puckett as the only players to hit an extra-inning walk-off homer when their team was facing elimination.

Freese was traded by the Cardinals to the Angels after the 2013 season with Fernando Salas for Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk, who was traded back to the Angels last week for prospects. He spent two seasons with the Halos, then became a free agent and signed with the Pirates. At the August 31 deadline in 2018, Freese was sent to the Dodgers for minor leaguer Jesus Valdez.

Although he only played 19 games for the Dodgers, he hit .385 with 2 homers and 9 driven in. In the post-season, he hit .500 against Atlanta in the NLDS. 1-2. But that one hit, a double, drove in 3 runs. In the NLCS again he had a homer and 2 runs batted in. Against the Red Sox in the World Series, he was one of the few Dodgers who actually had a good series. He went 5-12, .417, and had a homer and an RBI.

In 2019 Freese would hit .315 for the Dodgers in 79 games. He had 11 home runs and 29 driven in. He did spend significant time on the IL. But when he was on the field, he produced good numbers. He hit well in the NLDS loss to the Nationals, 4-8. After the season, he was granted his free agency. He is still listed as a free agent since he has not formally announced his retirement.