"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." — Tommy Edison
Author: fartheroffthewall
Tom Hoffarth is a sports journalist in Los Angeles, born and raised (reared is the correct phrase, but it just sounds wrong) and specializing in the sports media business. A USC graduate from the School of Journalism (it still exists, somewhat) in 1984, he is also available for service at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhoffarth/
Shohei Ohtani: Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers Bill Kilmer: UCLA football Phillip Rivers: Los Angeles Chargers
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 17:
Carl Erskine: Los Angeles Dodgers Jari Kurri: Los Angeles Kings and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Jeremy Lin: Los Angeles Lakers
The most interesting story for No. 17: Shohei Ohtani: Los Angeles Angels pitcher/designated hitter/outfielder (2018 to 2023); Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher/designated hitter (2024 to present) Southern California map pinpoints: Anaheim, Los Angeles (Dodger Stadium)
Everything, everywhere all at once, Shohei Ohtani made himself the pre-season favorite to win any Major League Most Valuable Player trophy merely by deciding which league he wanted to play for. Or more specifically, which Los Angeles team.
The best way to capture this hitting-and-pitching phenomenon may be with an English-created adjective that has yet to find a Japanese-translatable character. Yet.
In a June 2025 Substack post, former MLB player-turned-media analyst Doug Glanville seized on what he felt was a true measurement of the seismic things worth documenting for future generations:
“I landed on ‘Ohtanic’ … ‘When Shohei Ohtani does something that only Shohei Ohtani can do.’ ” Glanville explained. “Circular? Yes. True? Also yes. … He exists in this strange stasis. Maybe like the Last Action Hero or Batman — super, but without superpowers. Ohtani does not need smoke and mirrors. He is right there, in the open. And that is the point. …
“He embodies a kind of limitless greatness, rooted in craft, powered by discipline, and entirely human. And still, that does not quite capture the essence of who he is and what he does.”
Glanville came up with this word nearly four years after Ohtani made the AL All-Star team as a member of the Los Angeles Angels. He was named both as a hitter and pitcher. He batted leadoff as the DH and started on the mound, credited with the victory in the final box score. But that’s a mere exhibition.
“Ohtanic” came nine months after Ohtani had a game in Miami for the Los Angeles Dodgers that resulted in him going 6-for-6 with three homers, 10 RBIs and two stolen bases, he reached the 50 HR mark as well as the 50 SB mark for the season. The game also clinched the NL West title for the Dodgers. Had he also pitched in that game, consider the superlatives added in.
Joe Posnanski wrote on Sept. 20, ’24: Did Shohei Ohtani just have the greatest game in baseball history? … Let’s instead call it the most amazing game in baseball history. Let’s instead call Ohtani the most amazing player in baseball history. All the great players in baseball history, Ruth and Mays and Aaron and Bonds and Gehrig and Clemente and Pujols and Bench and Ichiro and Charleston and Mantle and Morgan and Griffey and Gibson and Trout and on and on… and we’ve never seen anyone like Shohei Ohtani.
Shohei Ohtani just had one of the greatest performances in MLB history:
6-for-6 3 Home runs 2 Doubles 1 Single 10 Runs Batted In 4 Runs Scored 2 Stolen Bases
He became the first player in MLB history to reach the 50/50 (and now 51/51) club.
Then, on Oct. 16, 2025, during Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium, this happened:
Add to that Ohtani, as the starting pitcher, went into the seventh inning and 100 pitches (66 strikes) before coming out. He was credited with throwing six shutout innings and striking out 10 Milwaukee Brewers hitters. As the DH — effectively, hitting for himself — Ohtani rocked solo homers in the first, fourth and seventh innings, off three different pitchers. The last one went over the right-field pavilion roof and was listed at 469 feet, one of the greatest hit in the stadium’s history. It wasn’t even the longest he ever hit.
Sportswriters, historians and pop culture hyperbolic hyperbolists may have essentially squeezed all available digital thesaurus in landing on his status of “The Unicorn” or “GOAT of MLB history.” Still, we’re circling back to “Ohtanic.”
Like Titanic, only a larger disaster if it ever submerges into the depths of our memories as something too good to believe.
The Washington Post’s Chelea James wrote of that playoff performance: “This was Beethoven at a piano. This was Shakespeare with a quill. This was Michael Jordan in the Finals. This was Tiger Woods in Sunday red. This was too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of every debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game … Friday night, (he) was Mona Lisa.”
Jayson Stark, writing for The Athletic/The New York Times under the headline “Ohtani, the Greatest Shoh on Earth, just had the greatest game in baseball history” declared: “A man named Ohtani had the single greatest game any human has ever had on a baseball field … assuming that term,’human,’ even describes him.” New Yorker writer Louisa Thomas checked in with: “It was the greatest performance by the greatest player in history.”
To punctuate if further, Peter Wehner wrote in the Atlantic under “A Truly Awesome Performance: “Ohtani’s performance shouldn’t be of interest just to sports fans. His triumph offers all of us a ray of hope at a troubled time. … Enjoy Shohei Ohtani while you can. He embodies athletic excellence, which will bring you joy, and moral excellence, which will bring you hope. We could benefit from some of both these days.”
That was written just months after ICE raids in Los Angeles, including the Little Tokyo area of DTLW, brought to light photos such as this:
If Ohtani came perhaps at the right time in our existence, in one stream of thought, there was another idea more philosophically obtuse that Michael Weinreb reflected on with his “Throwbacks: A Newsletter About Sports History and Culture,” under the headlined: “Ohtani Is a Hero for the AI Age“:
“I began to wonder if Ohtani’s performance will wind up meaning much of anything at all outside of baseball itself. And I wondered if — through no real fault of his own — Shohei Ohtani could wind up becoming the avatar of an empty cultural age. … He is everything and he is nothing. And you might argue, in an era where everyday life in America feels increasingly detached from reality, he is the quintessential hero of our age.”
Breath deep and meditate on more iterations of adulation:
Above is an excerpt of the New York Times’ list of the “67 Most Stylish People of 2025,” for the way he turned “a hand gesture originally featured in a Japanese cosmetics commercial into something of a craze” as he ran around the bases after a homer.
Where do we find a true origin story amidst all the Ohtani gaga?
Christmas came early for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023, and the cross-town Los Angeles Angels were left with nothing more than a lump of coal. If only it was something more like Gerrit Cole if they could have pried him away from the New York Yankees in a deadline trade that would have sent Ohtani to the Big Apple for a different kind of curtain call.
Not only did Ohtani come gift-wrapped courtesy of the Angels, but it took the Dodgers a creative way to set up a 10-year, $700 million deal with much of it craftily deferred so it wouldn’t prevent them from building a heftier team around him. He most expensive gesture and pivotal moment in Southern California professional baseball created the most distinct example of the big business intersection of sports and entertainment.
That’s just no-sham, no-shame, global Sho-business.
In the past, a welcome-to-L.A./SoCal gala fetted for the likes of Wayne Gretzky, LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, or David Beckham had their own fanfare. But Ohtani was just changing addresses that involved a carpool lane on the SoCal freeway. He put in six seasons in Orange County. Now it was time for DTLA. There was no need for re-introductions, but the Dodgers did so anyway at a press conference set specifically in the afternoon at Dodger Stadium on Dec. 14, 2023 so that it was prime morning viewing in Japan the next day.
A 2017 piece on CBS’ “60 Minutes” explained to all U.S. viewers what was happening in Japan when Ohtani was 22 and trying to figure out his next move.
Earlier, Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times went to Japan as well to write about how “Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani could be double threat in big leagues.” The story started: “SAPPORO, Japan — The best player on the baseball team pitches and bats fourth. Not on a Little League team. Not on a high school team. On a professional team that plays at this country’s highest level. Shohei Ohtani has the kind of extraordinary talent that could change the sport. He’s done it here, and he soon could do it in the major leagues, all the while maintaining the innocence of a boy playing a kids’ game despite the scrutiny and pressure he faces as Japan’s most-popular athlete.”
When he showed up at Dodger Stadium a week before Christmas, Ohtani said through then-interpreter Ippei Mizuhara: “I am very humbled and happy to see all of you guys here … I was told that it was only media today, so I was not expecting this.”
Dodgers broadcaster Joe Davis interjected: “It actually is only media.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Los Angeles Dodgers Roman Gabriel: Los Angeles Rams Bill Russell: Los Angeles Dodgers Dave Taylor: Los Angeles Kings Cade McNown: UCLA football J.J. Stokes: UCLA football
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 18:
Jack Robinson: UCLA basketball Rudy Bukich: USC football
The most interesting story for No. 18: Roman Gabriel:Los Angeles Rams quarterback (1962 to 1972) Southern California map pinpoints: Los Angeles Coliseum; Pomona
Roman Ildonzo Gabriel Jr., became the first NFL quarterback of Filipino-American descent when he came to Los Angeles in the 1960s. And this also remains true:
Any kid who grew up in Southern California with a poster of him on their wall, or had another copy of Sports Illustrated come in the mail with him on the cover, might have thought it was more important than ever to eat Roman Meal bread to make us bigger and stronger.
From the 1969 Sears Christmas Wish Book catalogue, one could get a sweatshirt and a poster of Roman Gabriel (top left), representing the Rams. (From BeautyOfAGame.substack.com)
It didn’t matter if Roman Gabriel wasn’t part of that branding. It was just seared into our vision of the world at that point in time.
A 1970 Topps poster insert with its NFL trading cards. Which looks really nothing like Roman Gabriel. Or a Rams’ uniform. Still, if this was in a kid’s pack of cards, you taped it onto your school notebook.
His name was as much Hollywood blockbuster as it was an angelic figure from the Book of Genesis, trumpet in hand. An talent agent couldn’t have given him a better calling card.
In his 11 seasons spent in Los Angeles, Gabriel made three Pro Bowls and was the 1969 NFL Most Valuable Players Award, having finished runner-up for the honors to Johnny Unitas in ’67.
And he came to Los Angeles somewhat reluctantly. But he had been here before to scout it out. Twice.
In 1962, the North Carolina State quarterback ninth in the Heisman voting was the No. 1 overall choice by the new-ish American Football League’s Oakland Raiders, in the league’s second year of existence. He was also the NFL’s No. 2 overall pick by the Rams, who secured in a deal with the New York Giants by way of Minnesota. Ernie Davis, the Heisman winning running back from Syracuse, went No. 1.
It was a draft where the Rams not only secured Gabriel, but, with the No. 3 overall pick as well, scooped up Utah State defensive tackle Merlin Olsen — one spot behind Gabriel as well, at No. 10, in the recent Heisman vote.
Gabriel had played at the L.A. Coliseum in his sophomore year of college as his Wolfpack lost to UCLA, 21-12, in November of 1959.
At 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, he put on the garb and played a leading man played the role on the floor of the Los Angeles Coliseum, a gladiator using his catapults against encroaching Vikings and Giants.
In a return visit in October of 1960, Gabriel matched up against UCLA’s Billy Kilmer, and the Bruins snuck away with a 7-0 win.
His first four years employed by the Rams at the same quarry was just as frustrating.
Gabriel angled for playing time with Zeke Bratkowski, Terry Baker and Bill Munson. Yet, when given a chance to start, which he did 23 times over that stretch, Gabriel led the team to an 11-11-1 result. The other three combined: 4-27-2 . Couldn’t blame him if he loved being in L.A. but hated it at the same time.
In 1965, with Harland Svare as the new Rams head coach, Gabriel made his mark when he engineered impressive wins over the eventual NFL-champion Green Bay Packers, 21-10 in Week 11. He then directed a 42-7 win in Week 13 against the 11-3 Cleveland Browns. Those two wins were half of an otherwise forgetful 4-10 season.
The pivotal point in Gabriel’s L.A. run would come when George Allen took over as the Rams’ head coach.
SI cover: 1966
Gabriel was ready to bold and cash in on the rival league with the Raiders — a $300,000 deal for three years, plus a $100,000 signing bonus. He already signed and took a $32,000 payment, more than the $22,500 he was making with the Rams.
Allen not only told Gabriel to send back the check but promised him a $32,000 salary for the 1967 season, plus a $100,000 bonus when he retires. Gabriel believed in Allen, content by officially having the starting job.
SI cover, 1967.
After a 8-6 finish in ’66, Gabriel and the Rams posted division titles in 1967 (11-1-2) and ’69 (11-3) under Allen. Gabriel was not only the offensive engineer, but was a vastly reliable short-yardage runner, piling up 28 rushing touchdowns – most in franchise history by a quarterback. His 22 rushing TDs from 1966 to 1972 were more than any of the team’s other running backs.
Bernie Casey, whose NFL career in L.A. during the ’67 and ’68 seasons led to his post-playing career as an actor, painter and poet, had the leading role as Gabriel’s primary receiver those seasons. The most memorable Gabriel-to-Casey connection was a 1967 game-winner with less than 30 seconds left in the Rams’ 27-24 comeback victory in the next-to-last regular season game against Green Bay. That kept their divisional hopes alive. The next week, Gabriel was 18 of 22 passing for three TDs in a 34-10 win over the Baltimore Colts at the Coliseum.
The Sporting News: December 1969
Gabriel’s first Pro Bowl season, along with Casey’s, had him record 2,779 yards passing and 25 touchdowns in ’67. But in the playoffs, the Packers eliminated the Rams, 28-7.
Gabriel’s MVP season: 2,549 passing yards, 24 touchdowns against seven interceptions, and a league-best 156 yards rushing and five more TDs as a quarterback. Again, a heart-breaking playoff loss to Minnesota ended that season.
In Week 13 of the 1970 season, the Rams made their first Monday Night Football appearance in the Coliseum. It was ABC’s first season for this prime-time TV package — but the game was blacked out in L.A. with a 9 p.m. local kickoff. Gabriel showed the rest of the country his value as he threw for 334 yards and rallied the Rams from a 21-6 deficit, scoring 17 in the fourth quarter, of an eventual 28-23 loss to Detroit, leaving them just behind the Lions in the NFC wildcard spot with one game left.
That seems to be a script Gabriel was frequently handed — get to the cusp of something special, and come up short. Even if the Rams were 41-14-4 with Gabriel running the offense from ’67 to ’70, there was nothing to show for it.
Sport Magazine: December 1970
Allen left in 1971, and knee injuries limited Gabriel. The Rams lost to Allen’s Washington Redskins 31-24 in a key Monday night game where an interception thrown by Gabriel and returned for a touchdown killed the Rams’ chances. (That was also the game when a kid from L.A. named Andy Reid won a punt, pass and kick competition at halftime that became legendary).
During a 6-7-1 season in ’72 with coach Tommy Prothro — one that has been referred to as the “Silence of the Rams” — Gabriel’s consecutive games played streak of 89 over eight seasons finally ended. He threw more interceptions (15) than touchdowns (12).
The Rams decided to not only swap out their head coach (in came Chuck Knox) but also their quarterback (also incoming were John Hadl and James Harris). Gabriel actually considered a $100,000 offer from the Las Vegas Casinos of the fledgling Southwestern Football League. Eventually, he saw a window of opportunity when he was traded to Philadelphia to obtain Harold Jackson, who’d become their top receiver for four of the next five seasons.
Gabriel switched from No. 18 to No. 5 with the Eagles, overcame knee and arm issues, and won the league’s Comeback Player of the Year as he threw for a league-best 3,219 yards (270 completions in 460 attempts) and 23 touchdowns. All were career highs. Yet the Eagles went 5-8-1. Nothing newsworthy again.
In 1976, he went back to No. 18, and started the season 1-3 before he was benched. His final year of ’77 was 13 games off the bench, completing one pass.
In the history of the Rams’ franchise, starting in 1937 based in Cleveland, Pro Football Hall of Famers like Norm Van Brocklin, Bob Waterfield and Kurt Warner were part of the legacy. But Gabriel played more games at quarterback – 130 – and posted more regular-season wins — 74 — than any of them. Jim Everett (1986-1993) comes next closest in wins at 46. During Gabriel’s NFL days, only Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton had more victories.
Gabriel remains the franchise career leader for touchdown passes (154), passes attempted (3,313), fourth-quarter comebacks (13), and 1,146 rushing yards as a quarterback. The later puts him No. 38 on the franchise list of all rushing leaders.
In Football-Reference.com’s statistic called Approximate Value (AV), an attempt to attack a numerical value to every player-season season since 1960, Gabriel (99) is first among any franchise quarterback. Everett is second at 79.
Gabriel was one of the few QBs of his era with a positive TD-to-INT ration (201 to 149).
By the numbers, the Rams have retired eight numbers — Bob Waterfield’s No. 7, Marshall Faulk’s No. 28, Eric Dickerson’s No. 29, Merlin Olsen’s No. 74, Deacon Jones’ No. 75, Jackie Slater’s No. 78, Isaac Bruce’s No. 80 and Jack Youngblood’s No. 85. Those eight are great.
There has been discussion to also honor Warner’s No. 13, Torry Holt’s No. 81, Orlando Pace’s No. 76 and, eventually, Aaron Donald’s No. 99.
Gabriel?
Since he left the franchise, No. 18 has been seen on the backs of receivers Cooper Kupp and Jimmy Raye, Jr., of kickers John Carney and Glen Walker and, in 2025, on tight end Terrance Ferguson.
If throwing for more than 29,000 yards in his career overall, and leading his teams to 86 wins doesn’t seem enough for a Pro Football Hall of Fame recognition, would the Rams, at the very least, consider pulling No. 18 out of circulation for him?
The legacy
Like any athlete in and around L.A., Gabriel could use his exotic looks and muscular physique to tempt producers of TV and film – even while he was still an active player.
Heck, when he was doing razor blade commercials, it looked as if he was vying for the role of Herman Munster.
Roman Gabriel plays a Native American named “Blue Boy” in “The Undefeated,” in 1969, starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson.
Don’t read too much about the time Gabriel played a headhunter on an 1966 episode of “Gillian’s Island” without any lines.
He was a prison guard in the 1968 flick “Skidoo,” with Jackie Gleason, made by Otto Preminger.
He was more notable playing a Native American named “Blue Boy” in “The Undefeated,” a 1969 flick with John Wayne and Rock Hudson. Typecasting presented opportunity.
More nobly, Gabriel had the distinction of becoming the head football coach at Cal Poly Pomona for the program’s last two years of existence, 1980 to ’82, despite pulling together a 8-24 record.
The lede to an 1983 New York Times story about Gabriel, as he was trying to catch on as a coach in the upstart USFL, began: “Roman Gabriel could throw a football 70 yards into a receiver’s lap while three defensive linemen clutched at his body, a body that Vince Lombardi once described as ‘’a big telephone pole.’”
Gabriel was also involved in pro baseball, as president of minor league teams in Charlotte, N.C., and Gastonia, N.C., near his hometown.
“Here’s one for you,” Gabriel once said. “In Baseball Weekly, there was an article where this dad had named his sons after me. Roman Slaybaugh and Gabriel Slaybaugh. Roman was No. 18, the quarterback, and Gabriel was No. 81, the receiver. They both graduated from the University of Indiana and played football there several years ago.”
Their Wikipedia page says the Slaybaugh twins are now male models in Paris.
“I wouldn’t call myself a gunslinger,” he says. “I”d call myself a snub-nosed .38 because I was kept under wraps most of the time. …”
Considering how famous his life became, Gabriel concluded: “Outside of my college education, there aren’t a lot of things I couldn’t have been able to have than from being a Ram. … For me not having been a quarterback, I could have been on Skid Row being the best garbage man my dad said I could be.
“I don’t know any other Filipino-Irish quarterback that’s played in the NFL. It’s great to know you had a chance to do it for 16 years. Do it the best you could. And the fact that people do remember what you did means you must have left your mark and done something right. I was just lucky.”
Roman Gabriel (18) leading a drive against the New York Giants at the L.A. Coliseum.
Who else wore No. 18 in SoCal sports history? Make a case for:
UCLA basketball coach Wilbur Johns once said of Westwood’s multi-sport star with a deadly outside shot and quick hands: “His timing was perfect, his rhythm was unmatched, he had the valuable faculty of being able to relax at the proper time.” Robinson’s arrival as a junior in 1939 came when the team hadn’t won a Pacific Coast Conference game in more than two years. Robinson’s game-winning shot against Cal broke a 30-game conference losing streak and helped them go 5-19 in the PCC that season.
As a senior, Robinson won his second of back-to-back PCC Southern Division scoring titles. He averaged 12.4 and 11.1 points game in his two All-PCC Southern Division seasons. Robinson accounted for nearly 40 percent of his team’s points during that time. Just a couple years later, George Mikan would be doing the same for his DePaul teams. Could Robinson have launched his abilities into an NBA career? He was probably too far ahead of his time, in a league not yet mature enough to allow him to make a living. In the 1946-47 National Basketball League’s season, Robinson joined the Los Angeles Red Devils for their Nov. 8 season opener. Three other future pro basketball players were on the roster — guard Irv Noren, forward George Crowe and guard Ziggy Marcell. Robinson played his last game for the Red Devils in mid-January after Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey asked him to just focus on baseball and his pending MLB career.
Dave Taylor, Los Angeles Kings forward (1977-78 to 1993-94):
His 17 seasons with the franchise and having played in 1111 games (which had been the franchise leader until Anze Kopitor, Dustin Brown and Drew Doughty passed him up in recent years) will be included in our upcoming posting about the team’s Triple Crown line (with Marcel Dionne and Charlie Simmer). It is fitting that Taylor is the franchise all-time leader in plus/minus (+186, and nearly 80 better than runner-up Dionne) because of his stoic contribution to the team’s success. He ranks currently third all-time in goals (431), fourth in assists (638) and fourth in points (1,069). He’s also fourth in game-winning goals (47) and third in power-play goals (123) to go with eight hat tricks. The Kings made No. 18 the third never they ever retired, in 1994, and it’s hanging from the rafters. He was also the Kings’ general manager starting in 1997 (just three years after his retirement) and kept it through 2006 — responsible for drafting Kopitar, Brown and Jonathan Quick. His 290-261-74-31 record as a GM makes him the winningest in team history.
Best known: The Most Valuable Player of the 2025 World Series was celebrated in a New York Times story that included: “Gangster. Gutsy. Greatness. Yoshinobu Yamamoto authors a World Series for the ages.” In the Dodgers’ seven-game win over Toronto, securing a title repeat, Yamamoto threw a complete game, 105-pitch win during Game 2, kept the team from elimination by going six innings and 96 pitches in Game 6, and then return to pitch the final eight outs/34 pitches of an 11-inning, Game 7 win, giving him his third victory against the Blue Jays in a week’s time. He was also up in the bullpen near the end of what became an 18-inning win in Game 3, ready to go back if there was a 19th inning. “I don’t think you’ll ever see somebody do what Yama did tonight,” said Clayton Kershaw. To go with a 3-0 record in the World Series, Yamamoto also had a 1.02 ERA (in 17 ⅔ innings) with two earned runs, two walks and 15 strikeouts. He actually faced two “Golden Pitch” scenarios, a rare circumstance in which any pitch could win or lose a World Series for either team.
He also had a rare complete-game victory in Game 2 of the NL Championship Series against Milwaukee, a first in the playoffs since 2017. In that game, Yamamoto did not allow an opponent to bat with a runner in scoring position. Turned out, the Dodgers didn’t have anyone throw a complete game in the regular season in 2025 otherwise.
In 2026 — the season Yamamoto started to show the No. 18 logo on his glove — he had the team’s only complete game pitched in the regular season, leading the team with 28 starts, 22 quality starts, 14 wins, 182 strike outs, and a 2.53 ERA.
The Dodgers made Yamamoto the highest-paid pitcher in baseball when they signed him for 12 years and $325 million in December 2023. He was 75-30 with a 1.72 ERA in Japan, all through age 25. He also decided to sport a number that had been worn by previous Dodgers’ Japanese pitchers Hiroki Kuroda (2008 to 2011) and Kenta Maeda (2016 to 2019).
Not well known: The New York Yankees tried to sign him by already having a No. 18 pinstripe jersey made for him during their meeting. The Yomiuri Giants’ championship dynasty of the 1960s and ’70s was noted by the fact that uniform No. 18 was given to the ace of their pitching staff, and ever since, on teams all over Japan, wearing that number conveys an implicit stature and respect on a pitcher for what it signifies. But Yamamoto said during his first media gathering that he once visited Dodger Stadium at age 19 and saw Kenta Maeda pitch for the Dodgers in a 2017 NL playoff game. It left an impression front and center as he moved forward in his career.
Bill Russell, Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop (1969 to 1986), coach (1987 to 1991 and 1994 to 1996) and manager (1996 to 1998):
Best known: No one in the Dodgers franchise history wore any number for as long as Russell did – 18 years as a player, seven years as a coach and nearly three seasons as a manager. Only Zack Wheat played more games as a Dodger – and that Hall of Famer played at a time when players did not wear numbers. Russell also played more games with the team since their move to L.A. The three-time NL All Star played all 2,181 games with the Dodgers (15 more than Pee Wee Reese), was on four pennants and one World Series win. And about as nondescript as possible in the legendary infield of Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey. Two notable playoff moments: In Game 3 of the 1977 NLCS against Philadelphia, Russell’s ninth-inning single to center field capped a three-run comeback, all with two outs, to create a 6-5 win. And in the 10th inning of Game 4 in the 1978 NLCS, also against the Phillies, Russell’s single dropped in front of center fielder Garry Maddox (whose rare error allowed Dusty Baker to prolong the inning) and resulted in a walk-off win and a repeat trip to the World Series.
Cade McNown, UCLA football quarterback (1995 to 1998):
Best known: Voted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2020, the bio for his 2009 UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame induction points out he started 44 of his 47 games as the Bruins’ QB between 1995 and 1998, including the final 43 straight. During his senior season, McNown was a consensus 1st Team All-American, third in the Heisman Trophy balloting (eighth the previous year), won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, and was a finalist for the Davey O’Brien Award. In his award-winning senior season McNown set single season UCLA records for passing yards (3,470), TD passes (25), and total offense (3,652). McNown also set single game records in those same three categories (513, 5, 515) in a 49-45 loss at Miami. About that loss at Miami … when UCLA was ranked No. 2 and needed the win to play in the national title game … it came the week after UCLA crushed USC for the eighth-straight time … but that game ended strange with a McNown naked bootleg and 23-yard run … and USC thought he was rubbing it in … and then UCLA lost to Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl as their consolation prize … and UCLA never has seemed to be back on track since then … Want more evidence? Holy Toledo, read more here. And then there’s his Playboy lifestyle during his time with the Chicago Bears that perhaps was some karmic payback to those still not sending him Christmas cards … He’s lately put his BA in history degree to some use in the financial world.
Rudy Bukich, USC football quarterback (1950 to 1952), Los Angeles Rams quarterback (1953 to 1956):
Best known: Bukich found himself named the 1953 Rose Bowl MVP during a game when he came off the USC bench for the injured Jim Sears (a broken leg in the first quarter) and drove the Trojans down the field, completing a 22-yard touchdown pass to Al Carmichael for their only score in a 7-0 win over Wisconsin. “The coaches were down on Rudy,” Carmichael said once. “He was very outspoken, kind of a rebel, and he had left the team back in October. He had come back a week later, but that sort of got him off on the wrong foot. Four days before the game, one of the coaches said to him, ‘Rudy, you’re not on offense anymore. You’re on defense.’ They didn’t like his personality and his makeup. I don’t think he would have gotten in the game at all if Sears hadn’t been hurt.” Inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2014, “Rudy the Rifle,” who came to USC as a transfer from Iowa, was a second-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Rams in ’53. He took two years off with the U.S. Army before returning to the Rams in ’56, later to play in the NFL with Washington, Chicago and Pittsburgh.
Sam Dickerson, USC football receiver (1967 to 1970): In the 1969 USC-UCLA game, the Trojans trailed, 12-7, late in the fourth quarter at the Coliseum when a Bruins defender guarding Dickerson was called for a pass-interference on fourth down. On the next play, USC quarterback Jimmy Jones lofted a pass toward the left corner of the end zone and Dickerson made a sliding catch on his knees for a 32-yard touchdown with 1:32 left to give the Trojans a 14-12 victory. Dickerson caught 24 passes, six for touchdowns, and averaged 19.6 yards per reception in 1969. The Trojans went on that season to beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, 10-3. As a senior, he led the nation with a reception rate of 22 yards per catch (24 receptions, 527 yards, four TDs), and the San Francisco 49ers took him in the third round of the 1971 NFL draft, but then released him. He was in training camp with the Green Bay Packers in ’72 and the Oakland Raiders in ’73. The World Football League’s Southern California Sun added him in February of ’74, but he was traded to the Portland Storm (16 catches, 289 yards, two TDs). In 1976 he also tried out for Winnipeg of the Canadian Football League. He did of cancer at age 66 in 2015.
J.J. Stokes, UCLA football receiver (1991 to 1994):
Seventh in the Heisman voting as a junior — and the only underclassmen in the Top 10 — it acknowledged his leading the nation with 17 touchdown receptions and more than 1,000 yards, his senior year was derailed a bit by a season-opening injury but he was the 10th overall pick in the 1995 NFL draft by San Francisco. Stokes still holds UCLA school records for receiving TDs in a season and in a career (28), receiving yards in a game (263 vs. USC in 1992) and receptions in a game (14 in the 1994 Rose Bowl vs. Wisconsin). He was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.
Bret Saberhagen, Cleveland High baseball pitcher (1979 to 1982):
At Dodger Stadium, Saberhagen threw the only no-hitter in Los Angeles City Section history when he brought his team to the 1982 title in a 13-0 victory over Palisades High, setting down 21 of the 22 batters he faced. A 19th-round pick by the Kansas City Royals, Saberhagen made his MLB debut at age 19 in 1984 and won the AL Cy Young Award in 1985 with a 20-6 record and 2.87 ERA, pitching the final out of the team’s World Series title and being named the series MVP with two complete-game wins, including Game 7. In a 16-year MLB career, Saberhagen also won the 1989 AL Cy Young and made three All Star teams. He switched from No. 31 to his high school No. 18 for the Royals from 1987 to 1991 and kept it when he moved onto the New York Mets in 1992.
Sasha Vujacic, Los Angeles Lakers guard (2004-05 to 2010-11), Los Angeles Clippers guard (2013-14): Nicknamed “The Machine,” the 3-point specialist from Slovenia made his mark coming off the bench and set a team record with a 43.7 percent from long range in 2007-08. The Lakers’ 2004 pick near the end of the first round from a team in the Italian league ended up on two of the Lakers’ title teams and was in three Finals. He hit two Game 7 free throws to seal their 2010 win over Boston. Vujacic’s 10-day contract appearance with the Clippers (two games in ’13-14) came between the four seasons when he was playing in Turkey and Spain. His other claim to fame: Once engaged to tennis star Maria Sharapova.
We also have:
Jun Endo, NWSL Angel City FC forward (2022 to present) R. Jay Soward, USC football receiver (1998 to 2001) J.T. Daniel, USC football quarterback (2018 to 2019) Bill Rigney, Los Angeles Angels manager (1961 to 1969) Bob Berry, Los Angeles Kings left wing (1970-71 to 1976-77), who became the team’s head coach from 1978-79 to 1980-81 during the Triple Crown line era. Kurt Rambis, Los Angeles Lakers forward (1993-94 to 1994-95): He wore No. 31 in seven seasons as a Lakers from 1981-82 through 1987-88, and came back at age 35 and 36, By then, Sam Bowie had glomed on No. 31 during Rambis’ seven-year absence in Charlotte, Phoenix and Sacramento.
A tidy exercise from 2019 trying to identify the greatest NBA players best known by jersey numbers lent itself to a free-flow name association of fame and obscure. Some were just one number away from being really famous. Others forged an identity by being different.
Jason Kapono, No. 72? Not on our bingo card. He wore it one year in Philadelphia. Maybe LeBron James might like to be the next.
Kobe Bryant has claim to both No. 8 and No. 24. Dennis Rodman has both No. 73 (with the Lakers) and No. 91 (with Chicago) because, let’s face it, who else wanted them.
The NBA won’t allow No. 69 to be given to anyone – or else Rodman would have that one too.
LeBron James is linked neither to No. 6, because belongs to Bill Russell, nor to No. 23, as it goes to Michael Jordan. For that matter, Jordan could have Nos. 23 and 45 if he wanted. Sorry Rudy T.
James’ decision to leave the Los Angeles Lakers after eight seasons and take his declining talents to Philadelphia for what may be come his 24th and 25th NBA seasons, at ages 42 and 43, leaves an open numerical pallet.
Why not usurp Sean Bradley and take No. 76?
On his Basketball-Reference bio, James’ nicknames number 10: King James, LBJ, Chosen One, Bron-Bron, The Little Emperor, The Akron Hammer, L-Train, Benjamin Buckets, Captain LeMerica and, the latest, LeGOAT.
There are likely 10 other reasons to detest how all this drama continues to play out.
“There’s a price to pay for this,” Giola continued. “A society that trains its youngsters with these degraded values on the sports field will soon find the same vices everywhere else. Long ago, Duke Wellington allegedly boasted that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Nowadays we could make a less enviable claim, namely that the corruption of our institutions starts in the youth sports leagues.
“I’ve criticized LeBron for lacking loyalty. Sports insiders mock this view — but with tremendous hypocrisy. That’s because the whole profession of sports depends on the loyalty of fans. Without loyalty, every pro sports league in the world would soon collapse. So not only is loyalty an important value in team competitions, it’s actually a foundational principle that holds teams together and pays everybody’s salary along the way.
“Yes, I’m an outlier. But I also think I’m speaking in the interests of the sports insiders too when I advocate for more loyalty, not less. If I could, I’d make it harder—much harder—for teams to abandon their cities. I would make it easier for teams to sign home town talent (brining back a variant of the territory draft that once increased the likelihood that an NBA squad would actually include players from its home city. I’d take other steps to maximize the emotional ties between fans and teams, and vice versa.
“There’s an old proverb that says “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” That’s exactly what’s happening in the NBA right now. They wanted a profit-maximizing world in which loyalty meant nothing—with ultimate freedom and mobility. Now they have it. But wait until they see the price to pay when fans ditch their loyalty in response.
“Yes, each fan also gets to make a “decision”—although it isn’t covered in the news or hyped in press conferences. And make no mistake, their cumulative decisions will determine the actual fate of the league, not anything LeBron does in Philly.
“If the honchos running the NBA were really smart, they would be worrying about those decisions, and not the last gasp destination of a soon-to-retire baller.”
A 22-time All Star. Four-time NBA champ, on three different teams. Four regular season MVPs and NBA Finals MVP. Six All-Defensive team picks. A member of the 75th NBA Anniversary team. And the true icing on the cake — the ’23-’24 In-Season Tournament MVP.
The number most head-spinning to us: He has been a professional basketball player for a longer period of time than the first 18 years when he wasn’t.
James has been officially listed as a 6-foot-9 and 250-pound small forward, point forward, power forward, point guard, shooting guard and center. Maybe he’s really just a power guard — the one and only. The most rebounds he’s collected in a game was 20, at age 39, for the Lakers in an epic double-OT win at Golden State. Most assists in a game: 19 in 2020 at age 35 for the Lakers.
He is the only NBA player with more than 30,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 10,000 assists in the regular season.
But really, what do numbers mean when sizing him up?
He’s not even sure.
The first on-sight vision Los Angeles had of James in person is when he came to Pauley Pavilion as a high school phenom. He scored 21 points during No. 1 St. Vincent-St. Mary’s 64-58 victory over Mater Dei in a tournament staged in January of 2023 before a sold out crowd at Pauley Pavilion. James missed all nine of his three-point attempts and committed seven turnovers.
Consider when James officially arrived as a pro in Los Angeles, a free agent to start the 2018-19 season, after his second run with his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, he decided to be No. 23 as a Laker.
Then, for the 2019-20 season, James convinced his friend, Anthony Davis, to leave New Orleans and join him with the Lakers – with a promise he would shed No. 23 and give it to Davis, who had those digits since his rookie season in 2013. Davis started wearing No. 23 at Kentucky, as a tribute to his favorite player — James.
(The story goes: Davis, who grew up in Chicago, won a Black History Month trivia contest at Perspective Charter High School and with it came a $10 gift card. He used it to buy a book about LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavs player who wore No. 23, and inspired him to do the same. So Davis wasn’t wearing No. 23 for Michael Jordan).
James decided that giving up No. 23 to Davis meant he could slip back into No. 6, which he wore with the Miami Heat from 2011 to 2014 and helped them win a title. But the NBA wasn’t happy with that. Nike had a large supply of No. 23 James jerseys that it felt would become obsolete to collectors if that switch occurred. It said James and Davis did not give enough notice before the season. The league forced James to stick with No. 23. Davis, in response, chose No. 3.
For the 2022-23 season, James did back shift to No. 6, but Davis stayed with No. 3. To confuse it even more, when Bill Russell died and the NBA honored him be havingt everyone wear a black circle “6” patch on their jersey, James wore No. 6 in two spots on the same jersey. If that wasn’t waffling enough, James announced for the 2023-24 season, he would go back to No. 23, leaving No. 6 in deference to Russell, and the league retired No. 6 for every team.
When he passed Michael Jordan on the NBA list of most games with 30 or more points, James said he wore No. 23 because of Jordan. That started with James’ high school days at St. Vincent-St. Mary High in Cleveland from 1999-2000 to 2002-03 (although he wore No. 32 as a freshman before changing). The 32 carried over the first seven seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers. During that stretch (2003-04 to 2009-10), his choices for the U.S. team in the Summer Olympics were No. 9 in 2004 (the 19 year old yielded to Dwayne Wade for No. 6) and then No. 6 in 2008 (James switched numbers with Wade). Joining Wade in Miami, James picked No. 6 again from 2011 to 2014, and also kept No. 6 on Team USA in 2012. Going back to Cleveland in from 2015 to 2018 got him back with No. 23. Then came the flip flopping of 23 and 6 in Los Angeles.
In 2023 he said the No. 6 reflects the birthday of his son Bronny (the 6th of October) as well as the birth month of his son Bryce (born in June). James has also pointed out to those mathematically challenged that two-times-three equals six.
There’s also the case, James said, where another one of his favorite players, Julius Erving, has worn Nos. 32 and 6 in his career in the ABA and then to the NBA.
Updated 10.12.26: Scroll to the end of this post for the list of people, places and things so far assigned to numbers 00 to 99.
“Los Angeles is an idea as much as a city. A landscape of imagination and aspiration. Behind the idea of Los Angeles are stories of people, dreamers seeking fortune or reinvention, and those who saw the dream as an illusion. What’s the real history behind the fantasy?” == Nathan Masters, opening to the PBS series “Lost L.A.”
Imagine Southern California as a place where you hop on a freeway and drive past whatever you’ve been told is disposable entertainment or superficial sunshine.
Outsiders, denying to have any sort of bias jealousy, can default to a theory that greater Southern California is inherently flawed. The sentiment modified over the years has been alternately attributed most notably to Dorothy Parker, Aldous Huxley or H.L. Menken. It’s engraved on a tag hanging from Snoop Dogg’s choke chain.
Creativity undermining stability.
What does the scoreboard say?
Sports, and numbers, can winners, losers and all the value in between.
Especially digits that have, with some real rhyme or reason, somehow get assigned to an athlete.
Los Angeles alone embraces 114 distinct neighborhoods and cities spread across 470 square miles — 10 times the size of San Francisco. Desert, beach and snow-capped mountains in one glimpse. A Hollywood sign looking over a South Central ghetto. All on terrain formed by seismic underpinning, drought, fire, flooding, sliding mud and loose asphalt.
Whose fault is it anyway?
“In an area larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, there are countless unincorporated areas, and almost 10 million residents, many of whom aren’t entirely sure what jurisdiction they’re in at any given moment,” Conor Friedersdorf once wrote for The Atlantic in 2011.
Does it really matter? Not if the palate keeps changing as the tectonic plates keep shifting under our feet.
We weather it all by mastering one, if not more, of the 220 languages available in the region, sometimes melding them together. It’s the beauty of diversity.
And a way that sports here seems to easily erase self-imposed boundaries and embrace unity.
Consider SoCal sports history as its own periodic table of 101 elements. Legend, pop culture, scandal. Dreaming dreams, and finding out reality can sometimes meet up and match it.
Star with the No. 32 on your SoCal off ramp, for an example.
Koufax, Magic, O.J., Walton, Marcus.
Quick — who wore that number best?
Who “owned” it? Who inspires the most recognition? Ultimately, a personal preference, linked to nostalgia and an impressionable connection.
That’s how stars and stories align, with numbers providing a language all their own. A love language. Numbers can be a romantic partner in life. They feed mythology, heroics and imagination.
No. 32 is a prime spot to point to not ride the stories of trailblazers, but head off onto some trails still a bit unpaved. Through our own history, we found a few No. 32s that reflect a more telling look. Ones you’ve not likely heard or read about before. That’s our goal.
For our purposes, SoCal territory starts with what falls below 35°45′ latitude. That covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, all distinguishable in their own right, with a connective tissue accessible by freeway, Metrolink or mountain e-bike.
In general typography, SoCal can stretch as far as the Mexico border. We’ll take attitude over latitude here and stick to this Thomas Guide. San Diego will get its own day in the sun. Just not so much here.
If you’ve experienced a traffic tie-up from the backseat of a driverless car, nursed a pulled quad from a yoga stretch and found a gently used pair of Converse All-Stars from the local thrift store, we’ll call it Tuesday.
Now spoil yourself with a $32 influencer-endorsed protein smoothie.
“Graded and paved, bought and sold, it bears little likeness to Tovaangar, the home for the first people who, for thousands of years, walked its valleys and chaparral-clad basins and paddled its broad shorelines. Eventually, they were overtaken, falling silent to the noisy ambitions of foreigners and settlers who set about transforming this vast floodplain with imported water and orchards and homes. Branding their creation paradise, they never questioned their improbable aspirations.
“Instead, they mythologized their works, borrowing from the past what was convenient and discarding the rest, so the picture of the Golden State in the early 20th century was romantic enough to persuade more and more Easterners to board the trains that crossed the deserts to arrive in this transformed pueblo.”
Sports reflects that, and celebrates it.
A melting pot that has shown how a beloved entity like the Dodgers were inclined to leave a foundation set in Brooklyn and discover a new way of doing business.
The Lakers followed suit migrating from Minneapolis. The Rams once held down the region after leaving Cleveland, then, proving you can come home again, circled back after a purgatory in St. Louis. The team had already stretch into Anaheim to see how far “Los Angeles” as a brand could expand. The MLB Angels also took it upon themselves to confuse geography from Los Angeles to Orange County to … California?
The foundation for pro sports came from the two major university-driven successes in the University of Southern California’s private practice and the University of California at Los Angeles’ public persona. They once ruled the landscape. They showed the pros how it could work. They shaped the athletic region, going back to how they participated in the 1932 Summer Olympics, as well as the 1984 Summer Olympics and, now, the 2028 Summer Olympics.
LA28 chair Casey Wasserman said during a press conference in Paris when that city was hosting its version of the Olympics: “I think we are the place in the world where culture is made and culture is started … that’s our incredible history in the film industry or the music business. L.A. has become so much more about fashion and film and food … all of the star power and the opportunity to showcase that to the world, that’s authentically L.A.”
Sports has given the rest of the planet a nice glimpse of this landscape. But there’s far more subplot. We once jammed a baseball World Series championship team into a football stadium, the same place that hosted the very first Super Bowl within a few years afterward. We have imagination and can pivot to what’s needed.
Our Coliseum, perhaps spelled differently from that crumbling relic in Rome but up close not looking all that different, is a colossal community event center. Our Forum has been fabulous in various incarnations. Our modern facilities have taken the current currency of branding.
As long as we’re within 20 minutes from a double chili cheeseburger at Tommy’s Original, or willing to wait in line at an In & Out, we’re all in. We just figure out the numerology, by zip codes, area codes or iPhone QR codes.
Etsy.com New Zealand map of Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Wrapping up the latest version of the annual spring baseball book review series, here’s how we decided it best shakes out:
Top exit velo:
Day 28:“The Last of His Kind:Clayton KershawAnd the Burden of Greatness” by Andy McCullough, along with an array of baseball player bios.
Day 9: “Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero” by Waite Hoyt and Tim Manners
Day 25: “Baseball: The Movie” by Noal Gittel and “Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol toStage and Screen” by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz
Day 10: “Frank Chance’s Diamond:The Baseball Journalism of Ring Lardner” by Ron Rapoport
Day 6: “The Dodger Collection: Richard Kee Photographs” by Richard Kee
Day 18: “Under Jackie’s Shadow:Voices of Black Minor Leaguers Baseball Left Behind” by Mitchell Nathanson
