http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/sports/baseball/dodgers-manager-dave-roberts-maury-wills.html 2016-09-12 20:07:19 With Dodgers, Dave Roberts Has Another Chance to Haunt the Yankees Roberts, whose pivotal steal started the Red Sox’ rally over the Yankees in the 2004 A.L.C.S., visits the Bronx this week as manager of the Dodgers. === LOS ANGELES — One day when they were working alone on a back field during spring training in Vero Beach, Fla., Maury Wills explained to his pupil, Dave Roberts, why they were spending so much time on the intricacies of base stealing. The finer points of gaining a proper lead and studying a pitcher’s delivery could help him steal a base. But what Wills, the former Los Angeles Dodger player who transformed baseball in the 1960s with his baserunning, wanted to prepare Roberts for was something bigger — stealing a moment. “I said, ‘Dave, one day you’re going to be on first base and get the steal sign and there’s not going to be the element of surprise,’ ” Wills said recently by phone from his home in Sedona, Ariz. “Everybody in the ballpark knows you’re going to run, the whole country is going to be watching on TV, and that pitcher is going to be on his best with pickoffs, but you’ve still got to go.” “That,” Wills added, “is when you’re a real base stealer.” At the time, it seemed an extraordinary show of faith. Roberts, then 30, barely had 150 at-bats in the major leagues. The Still, Roberts parlayed a strong spring into a spot as the Dodgers’ opening day center fielder and leadoff hitter. He finished third in baseball that season in stolen bases. The words of Wills still echoed with Roberts more than two years later, after he had been traded to Boston and was sent in What happened next remains a source of lore in New England. “As I took the field in Game 4 of the A.L.C.S., I had Maury’s voice in my head saying this is the moment that we’re talking about,” Roberts said in a recent interview. “So without Maury and his talking to me and talking through this, I don’t think I would have had the courage to do it. I know Maury was living vicariously through me in that moment.” Roberts returns to Yankee Stadium in uniform on Monday for the first time since the Red Sox completed their comeback, this time as a rookie manager for the Dodgers. He wears No. 30, as he did when he played for the Dodgers, as a tribute to Wills. (Roberts wore No. 31 for the Red Sox.) The Dodgers, though they carry the largest payroll in baseball, have seized first place this season in the National League West in an unexpected manner. They trailed San Francisco by eight games on June 26, but then surged despite losing pitcher Clayton Kershaw for two months with a back injury; despite having Yasiel Puig dispatched to the minors for a month to straighten out his attitude and swing; and despite tying a major league record by putting 27 players on the disabled list since the season began. “We’re very unselfish and play as a team,” Roberts said. “We’ve gone through a lot of adversity, but there’s no excuse making. Our focus has been pretty acute.” When Roberts was named the Dodgers’ manager, in November, emerging from a field of at least eight candidates who interviewed, he was one of the least experienced considered for the job. But his hiring resonated broadly because Roberts, whose parents are African-American and Japanese, became the first minority manager for a team whose rich history of integration began with Jackie Robinson. It was hard to find anyone who was more thrilled than Wills, 83, who flew to Los Angeles for Roberts’s introductory news conference. Their relationship began by serendipity. John Boggs, the agent who represents them both, called Wills shortly after Roberts was traded to the Dodgers. Wills was working as a spring training instructor for the team and Boggs asked him to keep an eye on Roberts when the club began its January workouts at Dodger Stadium. Wills and Roberts quickly hit it off. Though the game had changed drastically from when Wills won the N.L. Most Valuable Player Award in 1962, stealing a then-record 104 bases, his expertise in baserunning and bunting were manna for a player like Roberts who could run and was trying to find his way. Their extra work in spring training led to deeper conversations. Wills, who spent eight years in the minors before reaching the majors, saw in Roberts a kindred spirit. “You know, the elevator to success is always out of order,” Wills said. “You’ve got to take the stairs. Once I got to the Dodgers, I was so bad I wanted to quit. I wanted Dave to believe that he could play in the major leagues and he belonged there.” Once, in spring training, when Roberts had been dissuaded from bunting in his first two at-bats — the infield was in at the corners — Wills hustled down the dugout to scold Roberts for not bunting, if only to disrupt the pitcher’s rhythm. “The next at-bat, I laid down a bunt and got a hit,” Roberts said. “Maury was invested not only in the Dodgers, but in me, personally. He really impacted my career.” As payback, Roberts invited Wills to spring training in February, where he worked with players on bunting — the truncated field is called Maury’s Pit — and also was among the former players asked to address the team. For all the discussions Roberts and Wills have had over the years — they remain in contact with an occasional text — their talks never turned to managing. Wills laughed that the only advice he could have offered Roberts is what not to do. He briefly managed Seattle for parts of 1980 and 1981, a tenure that was marked by a 26-56 record and an episode in which Wills went out to remove a pitcher only to realize that nobody was warming up in the bullpen. Roberts, who has been unfailingly upbeat this season and quick to address issues with his players that might fester, seems to have won over any skeptics in the clubhouse with a calm, genuine manner. And for a manager with scant experience who was hired by a front office that leans heavily on analytics, he has proved to be his own man. Twice this season, he has made the unpopular decision to remove a pitcher who was throwing a no-hitter, including Saturday night, But Roberts has not been rigid, either. When he went to the mound last month with his team clinging to a 1-0 lead against San Francisco with runners at first and third, two out and the left-handed hitting Brandon Crawford at the plate, he had one thought on his mind: removing the right-hander Joe Blanton for the left-hander Grant Dayton. It was an easy call: Crawford had hit a game-ending home run off Blanton in April; left-handers are hitting .077 against Dayton. And then it was not. “As I crossed the foul line, I was looking at Joe and his demeanor, the look in his eye, and I just felt that in that spot I trusted him,” Roberts said. “The matchup, the data, can speak to one thing, but you also, as a manager, have to go by instinct and trust your gut. I think for me, I wanted Joe to get Crawford out. I was prepared to live with that decision whatever the result.” Crawford scorched the ball, but right fielder Josh Reddick ran it down. When he did, Roberts thrust his arms in the air, as excited as any other Dodger. That exultation was reminiscent of that night in Boston in 2004 and all that went into it. When he came in to run at first base, Roberts took a big lead. With each of Rivera’s three throws over — the final one nearly caught him — he gave a knowing nod, reinforcing to himself that he had the right lead and affirming to everyone in the ballpark that he was about to take off. When Rivera finally delivered the ball to the plate, Roberts bolted to second. Catcher Jorge Posada got a fastball to work with and delivered a strong throw. Derek Jeter slapped down the tag, but it was an instant too late. A signed print of Roberts taking his lead off first hangs in his agent’s home. The autograph comes with an explanation of what Roberts was thinking at that moment, echoing the words Wills had imparted on those quiet, empty fields when he was learning to steal a base — and so much more.