L.A. Dodgers Sign Up Della Femina Agency

There’s one thing that former New York Mets and newly signed Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Darryl Strawberry didn’t leave behind in the Big Apple: his team’s ad agency.

The Los Angeles office of the flashy New York agency Della Femina McNamee on Friday was handed the Dodgers $1.5-million annual ad business. The agency’s New York office has handled the Mets’ advertising for years.

“We’ve got a big story to tell,” said Barry Stockhamer, vice president of marketing for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “It was clear to us that these guys (Della Femina) have the creative and the commitment to help us tell it.”

The Dodgers selected the West Coast branch of the same ad firm that has promoted the Mets by pure coincidence, Stockhamer said. “Della Femina was not the player to be named later,” he said.

It has been more than a decade since the Dodgers used a full-time agency, and in the team’s 101-year history, it has generally preferred to create its own ads.

But in 1991, the Dodgers plan to promote a flurry of new things. Among them: new players such as Strawberry and Brett Butler; a new food concessionaire--Marriott Corp.--which is believed to have signed on Carl’s Jr. and Pizza Hut to sell fast food, and a costly new Diamond Vision screen to show clearer replays of the close calls.

“I have 200 people in my office who want to work on the account,” said Peter Stranger, president of the ad firm’s Los Angeles office. “It’s a hot ticket.”

The Dodgers will not run ads that promote just Strawberry, who recently signed a $20.25-million contract. “He’s the newest Dodger and he’s certainly hot,” said Stockhamer, “but it wouldn’t be consistent with the team’s philosophy to focus on one player.”