Dodgers Dugout: The 10 best right fielders in Dodger history

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Here’s a bonus edition of the newsletter as we continue to look at the top 10 Dodgers at each position.

Top 10 right fielders

Here are my picks for the top 10 right fielders in Dodgers history, followed by how all of you voted. Numbers listed are with the Dodgers only. Click on the player’s name to be taken to the baseball-reference.com page with all their stats.

1. Carl Furillo (1946-60, .299/.355/.458, 112 OPS+, two-time All-Star)

“The Reading Rifle” led the NL in batting average at .344 in 1953, the second of his two All-Star seasons with the Dodgers. He finished sixth in MVP voting in 1949 when he hit .322 with 27 doubles, 10 triples, 18 homers and 106 RBIs. He was a good fielder with a great arm, racking up 24 assists in 1951, more than earning his nickname.

Nobody knew how to play the right-field wall at Ebbets Field like Furillo. The wall was 19 feet high, with a 19-foot screen on top. The screen was vertical, the wall was slightly angled, so balls would ricochet off in strange directions.

Furillo described how he played the wall. “Will it hit above the cement and hit the screen? Then you run like hell toward the wall, because it’s gonna drop dead. Will it hit the cement? Then you gotta run like hell to the infield, because it’s gonna come shooting out. The angles were crazy.”

He was a steady player for the Dodgers for years and played in seven World Series with the team, including the 1955 and 1959 title teams. Years later, in the book “Bums” by Peter Golenbock, Furillo talked about what it meant to win that 1955 World Series: “Oh God, that was the thrill of all thrills. I never in my life seen a town go so wild. You did it for yourself, too, but you did it for the people.” The Dodgers released Furillo during the 1960 season and he moved back east. He helped install the elevators in the World Trade Center buildings. On Jan. 21, 1989, he died of heart failure at the age of 75.

2. Mookie Betts (2020-current, .278/.363/.503, 136 OPS+, four-time All-Star, two Gold Gloves)

You could make an argument for Betts to be No. 1. I went with the longer Dodger career. Moving him to shortstop remains a mistake for now. Maybe at some point it pays off, but not yet.

3. Babe Herman (1926-31, 1945, .339/.396/.557, 144 OPS+)

Babe Herman was a great hitter and a lousy fielder who will always be remembered for doubling into a double play. On Aug. 15, 1926, the Dodgers were playing the Boston Braves. With one out and the bases loaded, Herman launched a flyball to right that looked like it would be caught, but it hit the wall. The runner on third scored, but the runner on second, Dazzy Vance, rounded third and stopped, unsure if the ball had been caught. The runner on first, Chick Fewster, saw Vance round third and assumed he was going to score, so Fewster rounded second and continued to third, where he met the confused Vance. Meanwhile Herman, head down all the way, came sliding into third with what he thought was a triple. The base belonged to Vance, so Fewster and Herman were tagged out, inning over. What often gets overlooked, the run Herman did knock in turned out to be the winning run in the game. It also led to a story, possibly apocryphal, of a Brooklyn man hailing a cab. The driver has the Dodgers game on the radio and the passenger asks “What’s going on with the Dodgers?” the driver answers “they have three men on” and the passenger responds, “Oh yeah? Which base?”

Also, Herman played so well that season that the Dodgers released aging future Hall of Famer Zack Wheat, convinced Herman could replace him.

Herman’s best season came in 1930, when he hit .393 with 48 doubles, 11 triples, 35 homers and 130 RBIs. Tempering those numbers a bit is the fact the entire league hit .303 in 1930 and despite those lofty numbers, Herman amazingly didn’t lead the league in anything. Herman led the team in homers in RBIs in 1931 and hit for the cycle twice. He got into a salary dispute after the season and the Dodgers traded him to Cincinnati. He left the majors after the 1937 season but in 1945, with the Dodgers in a pennant race and players scarce because of the war, general manager Branch Rickey asked Herman, who had been playing in the Pacific Coast League, if he would like to return to the Dodgers. Herman, 42, said sure and hit .265 with a double, homer and nine RBIs in 34 at-bats. He retired for good and became a long-time scout for various teams. Babe Herman died in Glendale on Nov. 27, 1987 at age 84.

4. Reggie Smith (1976-81, .297/.387/.528, 152 OPS+, three-time All-Star)

Reggie Jackson got the headlines, but the best Reggie in right field from 1977-78 was Reggie Smith. Which seems appropriate, because Steve Garvey got the headlines on the Dodgers even though Smith was a better player those two years, finishing fourth in MVP voting both seasons and leading the league in OB% in 1977 with an amazing .427 mark. That season, he hit .307 with 32 homers and 87 RBIs and scored 104 runs. And you didn’t mess with Smith or one of his teammates while he was with the Dodgers. In 1981, the Dodgers were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates when their pitcher, Pascaul Perez, hit Bill Russell with a pitch. The Dodgers demanded that Perez, who had a reputation of throwing at batters, be warned. The umpires refused. A couple of batters later, Perez hit Dusty Baker. Smith leveled a series of threats and profanities at Perez. After the inning, Perez motioned to Smith that he would meet him under the stands. The two players raced up their respective dugout tunnels and met behind home plate, under the stands. On TV, all we saw was both dugouts emptied as players from both teams also raced up the tunnels. It looked as if everyone had vanished. Amazingly, no one was ejected, and Perez even pitched the next inning. The Dodgers won the game. Smith left the majors after the 1982 season and played two years in Japan. He worked for the Dodgers as a coach, was the hitting coach for the 2000 gold-medal winning U.S. baseball team and is probably best known for his youth baseball camp and the Reggie Smith Baseball Center in Encino.

5. Dixie Walker (1939-47, .311/.386/.441, 129 OPS+, four-time All-Star)

Walker played for 18 seasons in the majors but had his greatest success with Brooklyn, leading the league in hitting in 1944 (.357) and in RBIs in 1945 (124). Nicknamed “The People’s Choice,” he was extremely popular among Brooklyn fans, but now is mostly remembered for trying to keep Jackie Robinson from joining the team. He was among a group of Dodgers in spring training of 1947 who petitioned the team not to put Robinson on the team and, when they did, Walker asked Rickey for a trade. Walker and Robinson did their best to avoid each other during the season, and after the season, Walker credited Robinson for much of the team’s success. Robinson also credited Walker for giving him a batting tip early in the season. Years later, in an interview with Roger Kahn, Walker said “I organized that petition in 1947, not because I had anything against Robinson personally. … I had a wholesale business in Birmingham and people told me I’d lose my business if I played ball with a Black man.” Walker apologized and added “A person learns, and you begin to change with the times.” After the 1947 season, the Dodgers traded Walker to Pittsburgh for Billy Cox, Gene Mauch and Preacher Roe. Walker was a batting coach for the Dodgers from 1968 to 1974 and died of colon cancer in 1982 at age 71.

6. Shawn Green (2000-04, .280/.366/.510, 130 OPS+, one-time All-Star)

Green played in only five seasons with the team, but one of those years included perhaps the greatest offensive game by a Dodger. On May 23, 2002 in Milwaukee, Green hit four home runs, a double and a single, drove in seven runs and scored six runs. Green became a hero to many in the Jewish community the season before, when he ended his consecutive games played streak at 415 games in order to observe Yom Kippur. “I felt like it was the right thing to do. … I didn’t do this to gain approval. I thought it was the right example to set for Jewish kids, a lot of whom don’t like to go to synagogue,” Green said. Green was also known for giving away his batting gloves to a kid in the stands after every home run. He talked about how Vin Scully was the impetus for that when Green took part on our “Ask…” series. You can read that here. The Dodgers traded Green to Arizona before the 2005 season for Dioner Navarro and three minor leaguers. He played three more seasons in the majors and retired at age 34.

7. Andre Ethier (2006-17, .285/.359/.463, 122 OPS+, two-time All-Star, one Gold Glove)

On Dec. 13, 2005, the Dodgers made one of their best trades ever when they sent Milton Bradley and Antonio Perez to Oakland for Ethier, who became their starting right fielder for the next 10 seasons and put himself on many all-time top 10 lists in L.A. Dodger history. You knew what you were going to get from Ethier every season: A .280-.290 average with about 20 homers and 80 RBIs. He was the first Dodger to have at least 30 doubles in seven consecutive seasons. It was 2009 when Ethier became a fan favorite. He had six walk-off hits that season, four of them home runs. He played in a then-franchise record 51 postseason games and drove in the Dodgers’ only run in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series. It was his final appearance as a Dodger, as he retired before the 2018 season after two injury-marred seasons.

8. Raúl Mondesi (1993-99, .288/.334/.504, 122 OPS+, one-time All-Star, two Gold Gloves, 1994 NL rookie of the year)

Mondesi is sort of the original Yasiel Puig. He was an exciting player to watch who played Gold Glove-level defense in right, but also made a lot of baserunning mistakes and wasn’t always popular with his teammates. He was named NL rookie of the year in 1994 after hitting .306 with 16 home runs and 56 RBIs and in 1997 became the first Dodger to join the 30-30 club when he hit 30 homers and stole 32 bases. He was traded to Toronto after the 1999 season along with Pedro Borbon for Shawn Green and bounced around the majors after that, with his career ending in 2005. He was elected mayor of his hometown, San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, in 2010 and in 2017 was sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption and mishandling of public funds while mayor. His son played seven seasons with the Kansas City Royals.

9. Willie Crawford (1964-75, .268/.351/.413, 118 OPS+)

Crawford is one of those guys who was good at a lot of things but not great at anything, and those types of players tend to be overlooked. But you need players like that every year in order to win. Crawford first played for L.A. as a 17-year-old in 1964 and had his best season in 1973, when he hit .295/.396/.453 with 14 homers and 66 RBIs. He was solid defensively, playing more shallow than most right fielders to cut down on bloop singles and relying on his speed to catch any balls hit over him. “He was big and powerful, and he could hit a ball as far as anybody. Boy, was he something,” Tommy Lasorda once said of Crawford, who the Dodgers signed out of Fremont High. Crawford was signed out of high school for $100,000, and the rules at the time said if you signed for at least that much, you had to stay on the major league roster for a season, which hampered his development. In 1965, the 19-year-old Crawford got a World Series ring for being on the Dodgers roster, but he batted only 27 times in the regular season. In his first four seasons as a Dodger, he played in 72 games. He was a productive player for many years and retired after the 1977 season. Crawford died of kidney disease at age 57 in 2004. You can read more about him here.

10. Willie Keeler (1893, 1899-1902, .352/.389/.425, 130 OPS+)

How long ago did Keeler play? He retired 115 years ago. He died 102 years ago. He was one of the biggest stars of 19th-century baseball, known for his hitting philosophy of “I hit ‘em where they ain’t,” referring to fielders. He holds the Dodger record for career batting average, a record that seems unlikely to be broken. He was starring with Baltimore when, in essence, the two teams fell under the same ownership group and decided to put all the best players, including Keeler, on Brooklyn. Keeler was born in Brooklyn, so he was elated, as it also allowed him to live with his mother, who was very ill. Brooklyn was the best team in the National League in 1899 and 1900, but there was no World Series, so that’s about as far as it went. He signed with the New York Highlanders (who eventually became the Yankees) in 1903 for $11,000, becoming the first player to be paid at least $10,000.

He retired after the 1910 season. He was well off financially, but a series of bad investments led to him becoming virtually penniless. He was so popular, players in both leagues donated money, and he was presented with a check for $5,000 in 1921. He died of endocarditis (inflammation of the lining of the heart) in 1923.

He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.

The readers’ top 10

1,317 ballots were sent in. First place received 12 points, second place nine, all the way down to one point for 10th place. For those of you who were wondering, I make my choices before I tally your results. Here are your choices:

1. Mookie Betts, 659 first-place votes, 12,143 points
2. Carl Furillo, 421 first-place votes, 9,719 points
3. Reggie Smith, 53 first-place votes, 7,481 points
4. Shawn Green, 7,006 points
5. Andre Ethier, 12 first-place votes, 5,900 points
6. Babe Herman, 47 first-place votes, 5,479 points
7. Raúl Mondesi, 4,978 points
8. Dixie Walker, 10 first-place votes, 4,636 points
9. Frank Howard, 7 first-place votes, 3,108 points
10. Ron Fairly, 2,529 points

The next five: Willie Keeler, Frank Robinson, Yasiel Puig, Hack Wilson, Mike Marshall.

Top 10 starting pitchers

Who are your top 10 Dodgers right fielders of all time (including Brooklyn)? Email your list to houston.mitchell@latimes.com and let me know. Remember, we are considering only what they did with the Dodgers.

Many of you have asked for a list of players to consider for each position. Here are the strongest starting pitcher candidates, in alphabetical order.

Tim Belcher, Chad Billingsley, Ralph Branca, Kevin Brown, Bob Caruthers, Watty Clark, Al Downing, Don Drysdale, Carl Erskine, Zack Greinke, Burleigh Grimes, Orel Hershiser, Burt Hooton, Tommy John, Brickyard Kennedy, Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, Tim Leary, Ramón Martínez, Rube Marquard, Andy Messersmith, Van Lingle Mungo, Don Newcombe, Hideo Nomo, Claude Osteen, Chan Ho Park, Jeff Pfeffer, Johnny Podres, Doug Rau, Jerry Reuss, Preacher Roe, Nap Rucker, Bill Singer, Sherry Smith, Ed Stein, Don Sutton, Adonis Terry, Fernando Valenzuela, Dazzy Vance, Bob Welch, Whit Wyatt.

And finally

Reggie Smith homers in the 1977 World Series. Watch and listen here.

Until next time…

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.