This Brave Was Once a True Blue Dodger

Don Sutton stretched out his sleeveless arms, held them fast.

“Look at these, goose bumps,” he said.

One might think he was acting, but Don Sutton has never acted. That was his problem.

“Every spring, I open that media guide, look back at that page, this is how I get,” he said.

That page, No. 230 in this year’s book, listing career pitching leaders for the Dodger franchise.

Of eight positive categories for starters, Sutton is the leader in six.

More Dodger wins than Don Drysdale. More strikeouts than Sandy Koufax. More innings pitched than Burleigh Grimes. More than twice as many shutouts as Orel Hershiser.

“Goose bumps,” Sutton said.

For him, maybe.

For the Dodgers, maybe not.

The subtle break between the organization and one of their greatest pitchers was again apparent during the first two games of the division playoff series with the Atlanta Braves.

The widows of Drysdale and Roy Campanella threw out first pitches. Don Newcombe was one of their escorts. Tom Lasorda was in the press box. Bill Russell was in the dugout.

And Sutton? He was with the other guys.

He is paid by the Braves, sat in their broadcast booth, a couple of doors down from Peter O’Malley, a lifetime away.

Although he is one of only two pitchers with more than 300 wins who are not in the Hall of Fame, he has never been invited to work with young Dodger pitchers.

Though well-spoken, knowledgeable and steeped in Dodger history, he has never been approached for any sort of Dodger front office job.

Though his performance for the Dodgers from 1966-80 has been at least as enduring as Steve Garvey’s, Sutton’s No. 20 has been used by a variety of players since then, including Mitch Webster and Candy Maldonado.

Steve Garvey’s No. 6 has been worn by nobody.

The Dodgers won’t officially retire a number until the player is in the Hall of Fame, so both numbers are supposedly eligible.

Now you know who won that fight.

“Nobody worked harder in this game at being a good, prepared, disciplined pitcher,” Sutton said. “But I’m not sure I worked very hard at being a Dodger.”

Being a Dodger?

“Come to think of it, I’m not really sure what that is,” Sutton said.

During an era when glitz was seemingly as important as grass stains, Sutton could be precisely what it wasn’t.

He didn’t schmooze. He didn’t do Hollywood. Only one of his two children referred to Lasorda as “Uncle Tommy.”

He never hung around the manager’s office or in front of the cameras or at the front of a congratulations line after a home run.

“This was not my life, it was my job,” Sutton said. “I didn’t play baseball, I worked baseball.”

And won baseball, a record 233 wins for the Dodgers, 324 wins overall.

Threw five one-hitters. Started seven consecutive opening days. Never won more than 21 games in a season, but rarely humiliated.

And now, seemingly forgotten.

On the paneled walls of the Dodger press dining room, a place where the Dodgers present themselves to the world, there are nine framed posters of famous players and moments hanging on those walls.

None involve him.

Like any breakup, the blame must be shared.

When the Dodgers do invite him places, he turns them down.

He is still asked to old-timers’ days, invitations which he declined because of work with the Braves.

He is still asked to work fantasy camps, but he has had assignments announcing golf.

Some Dodgers feel he needles them on his Braves’ television broadcasts, particularly in the six years that the teams have been competitive.

He says he needles nobody, and, after all, where do they think he works?

“I look at the bottom right-hand side of my paycheck, and it says Ted Turner,” he said.

Old-time Dodgers are still upset that he sounded too gleeful when he left the team for the Houston Astros as a free agent in 1980.

Yet the new contract represented a $700,000 increase.

Sutton still sounds bitter at the way he was released late in the 1988 season--after less than a one-year comeback here--without having a chance to properly retire.

Yet he could have retired before the release if he had properly read the signs.

“I’m a very proud person, and my greatest fear is one of embarrassment,” he said. “I wish I could have exited gracefully.”

Through it all, amazingly, there is hope. There are still those goose bumps.

Sutton still reads and responds to the Dodgers’ alumni newsletter.

And every time he returns to Dodger Stadium as as broadcaster, he walks past the one photo of him on a poster in the right-field cafeteria.

He also still goes into the Dodger owners’ box.

“I take his wine,” he said with a laugh. “Peter has some good Chardonnay.”

Pour him another one, O’Malley.

It will be criminal if Sutton is not elected into the Hall of Fame soon.

It will be worse if he is inducted as anything other than a Dodger.