Ben Wade – 3.60 in Brooklyn

Posted By on April 5, 2020

I really enjoy western type movies and I guess for their simplicity. I also enjoy baseball-type movies because of my love for baseball. Two of them came together for me in prompting this column.

Who doesn’t love Clint Eastwood performances? I especially enjoyed his performance as Gus Lobel in “Trouble With the Curve”. I watched a re-run of it a while back and also watched a re-run of  “3:10 to Yuma” that premiered back in 2007 or so and starred Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

What do they have in common besides the two actors I like? Clint Eastwood played a baseball scout and Russell Crowe played an outlaw, Ben Wade, in his movie.  Christian Bale as Dan Evans. How about that? Ben Wade was a familiar name to me when I first saw the movie but that was before my blog writing days that started in about 2012. I remembered Ben as a pitcher with the Dodgers in the first years in my days as a Dodger fan. This time I decided to profile him a bit even though his pitching days were short.

For some unknown reason, I either didn’t know or have forgotten that Wade had a very successful career scouting with the Dodgers. There we have it , Gus Lobel and Ben Wade. I do believe that baseball scouts are underrated and from what  I read, underpaid. 

I have read that scouting it is not an exact science. There never was any doubt in my mind about that. I also had read that maybe it is more of an art. Art or science, it is one of the most difficult and important roles with any major league baseball team. Former MLB scouting bureau director Don Pries goes one step further. He claims scouting is in fact the most important part of the game. His reason for making the claim: “ We go out and decide who can play and who can’t.” There is definitely power in that position. I tend to think that scouting is more of an art although I recognize there are a wide variety of tools that the scouting system uses to determine which players to draft. However, there is no formula or crystal ball that guarantees any given degree of success. There is no way to control the variables that make or break the careers of young players. Former Los Angeles Dodgers’ scouting director, Ben Wade, put it simply: “The scouts can’t see everybody, and even if they do, they may see them on a bad day.”

I scouted (pun intended) around a bit and decided to check on Dodger scouts who have had notable success, through whatever method they use to evaluate players. I can remember Fresco Thompson who was the Dodgers’ farm director from 1949 to 1968. All Dodger fans recognize Mike Brito and his Panama hat, the scout who brought Fernando Valenzuela and Fernandomania to the Dodgers. Logan White is a household Dodger name, formerly assistant general manager for amateur and international scouting, and now vice president of scouting. Most recently the Dodgers have signed Bob Engle and his team of former Seattle Mariner scouts to beef up the Dodger scouting presence in Latin America because of their success in that area.

But back to Ben Wade who pitched for the Dodgers for only two seasons and part of a third one. His first year as a Dodger, 1952, was his best year as a major league baseball player. He won eleven games, pitched 180 innings and had an ERA of 3.60, hencethe above title –  3.60 in Brooklyn.  That was his first and last year as a MLB starter. In 1953 there was no room on the starting staff with Carl Erskine, Billy Loes, Russ Meyer, Preacher Roe and Johnny Podres penciled into the rotation. Wade pitched mostly middle relief that year and in 1954 was traded to the Cardinals in mid season.

During his brief time with the Dodgers Ben Wade had two trivia moments. On July 6, 1952 he homered twice off the same pitcher in an 8-2 Dodger victory, completing the Dodgers thirteenth win in a row against the Braves. The Braves pitcher that day was none other than Warren Spahn. On May 28, 1954 Wade was on the other end of a home run barrage. In the eighth inning of a Dodger shellacking by the Giants he served up four home runs, hit by Davey Williams‚ Alvin Dark‚ Monte Irvin‚ and Billy Gardner.

Wade returned to the Dodgers as a scout in 1962. The Dodgers must have seen some scouting genius in him as he became the Director of Scouting in 1973. During his tenure as scout and Director of Scouting the team was supplied with players that would lead it to eight National League championships and four World Series titles during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Among the players drafted during Wade’s tenure as scouting director were Mike Piazza, Rick Sutcliffe, Dave Stewart, Mike Scioscia, Bob Welch, Mickey Hatcher, Steve Sax, Mike Marshall, Steve Howe, Orel Hershiser, John Franco, John Wetteland, Eric Karros and Eric Young.

Ben Wade may well have earned the title of Rookie Of The Year Scouting Director. Under his watch the Dodgers earned seven Rookie Of The Year awards in a period of sixteen years starting with Rick Sutcliffe in 1979, followed by Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Sax in the next three years. Mike Piazza and Eric Karros were both drafted in 1988 and Raul Mondesi was signed as an amateur free agent in the same year; all three went on to earn Rookie Of The Year awards.

He was instrumental in signing him Mike Piazza. With Wade watching Piazza was more than impressive with a display of power. Wade was quickly convinced to find a spot for Piazza, who was drafted in the 62nd round. Along with Tommy Lasorda they agreed to convert Piazza from first base to catching. Wade signed him with a $15,000 bonus.

At times we may not understand that unforeseen circumstances affect a first round draft selection. Can you imagine the excitement in the Red Sox camp when the Dodgers selected Erik Sonberg with the eighteenth pick in 1983. Roger Clemens was then snatched up the Red Sox with their nineteenth first round selection. Ben Wade explained that he would have taken Clemens but there was another unfortunate issue with the Dodgers. That issue was Steve Howe and his problem with cocaine addiction. The Dodgers felt they needed a left-hander because of the uncertainty with Howe. Sonberg never made it to the majors. Without the tragic situation with Steve Howe, Mike Piazza and Roger Clemens may well have been Dodger team mates.

Despite the hit and miss nature of drafting players, Ben Wade did have a very successful career as a Dodger scout and Director of Scouting. In his last few years as Director of Scouting he began to have more misses. His lack of success with first round selections, mostly pitchers in the late eighties, became frustrating. The frustration mounted because of a series of career ending arm injuries to young pitchers who held so much promise on draft day. He retired after the 1990 season. In all he had served thirty-two years as a player, scout and Director of Scouting with the Dodgers. For twenty-nine of those years he had the most important job in baseball, deciding who could play the game and who could not.

Benjamin Styron Wade died on December 2, 2002 in Los Angeles. He was 80 years old.

The song of the day is, “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”, by Johnny Cash.

This article has 38 Comments

  1. I have been thinking about doing what I am about to say and because I keep putting it off means that I probably should not do this. But, here goes.

    I have a website that I have played with for a couple of years. While there are well over 9000 subscribers, I have not allowed comments. I will turn on comments tomorrow if anybody here wants to make them.

    The site is politics, religion, and philosophy. I try not to take a stand and try to only write to help me think through issues.

    Here it is: http://www.HelloFred.com

    1. 9000 subscribers is pretty impressive Fred.
      I just took a look and I’m anxious to see what you have to say in the coming days, weeks, etc.
      Your blog should also serve as an outlet for those of us who might like to comment on those kind of subjects but don’t want to go against Mark’s wishes. It’s a win-win.

      1. I agree. I just spent about 15 minutes there just reading. Impressive. Got me thinking, that’s for sure. And I learned some things. It appears to be a place people can say what they want without censorship, but since there were no posts on the threads I read, I don’t know that.

        I will bookmark it and look forward to some thoughts on more current topics.

        1. I’ve always kept the comments closed. They are open now. I hope to benefit from comments. I guess I will have to be less lazy and post there more.

    2. I think that is an excellent idea.

      This way, this site does not get wrecked.

      You go there to talk about politics and ideologies …

      Come here for Dodger baseball.

      Brilliant!

      1. Dodger baseball? Ben Wade? I remember Billy Wade. Rams qb about a hundred years ago.

        Dodger baseball. Ok, how about this:

        Just read an article at the Post that I can’t go into much here. From a Stanford doctor who misses sports as much as we do. He says he and his buddy, some guy named Fauci, in effect think that if we fill Dodger Stadium with people too soon it could cause a second wave among the more vulnerable Dodger fans. Bottom line is they both think it’s possible we could resume Dodger baseball in the fall.

        And it’s raining again. Game might have been rained out today. If they were playing. In LA.

        That’s all I got on Dodger baseball this morning.

      2. Question: Has scouting become less important with the advent of sabermetrics? I suspect it has. There is a large body of research showing that in general statistical prediction outperforms that of human experts. In other words, take a bunch of variables that you can measure, gather a large dataset, throw the data into a statistical model like regression analysis, and spit out a prediction. Equations, it turns out, weigh different variables more accurately than humans, and aren’t swayed by human biases. Think “Moneyball.” This doesn’t just apply to baseball. You can use it to predict anything, where human judgement can be compared to empirical models. Question: What does this leave for the scouts to do? I suspect that the answer is to gather data that can’t be determined from the box score, like about a player’s health history and emotional stability (“make-up”), and the variables on which position players and pitchers are judged. In other words, I suspect that nowadays, scouts gather the data that are put into the fancy models, but that the statistical predictions are given more weight in selecting players than the scouts’ recomendations.

        1. You are probably right but I am not there yet. Stats on young players might best be used to help scouts find players to watch but I think good scouts can use honed instincts to make final decisions. Stats like spin rate can be improved with the right training; training that most high schoolers don’t get. Players add height and weight and strength after they are drafted. It’s all above my pay grade.

  2. Your site will on my daily “must reads” tomorrow. In fact I may start tonight. I think it will be rewarding. I may actually read some of the Political articles – I might come to appreciate a discipline that I try to avoid.

  4. Clint Eastwood? Since I wasn’t a big westerns guy growing up, my fave all time Eastwood movie is “In the Line of Fire”. I also found “Bloodwork” to be an underrated movie

  6. When you are Director of scouting for 18 years of a top tier franchise like the Dodgers, that is quite an accomplishment. If during that time your department produces six or seven Rookies of the year, you’re an elite assessor of talent. Ben Wade certainly was that and the Dodger organization was amongst the top tier in scouting for the years he was at the helm.

    I know these days we seem to judge franchises by World Series championships, but if you are looking at scouting departments, you need to look at the quality players they produced. Wade’s department did that and Harold mentions a lot of those players that surfaced during his tenure.

    I remember speaking with a Detroit Tigers scout back in the early 80s and he had nothing but praise for Ben Wade and his staff of scouts. Scouting is something that can make or break organizations and L.A. was in good hands with Wade during the O’Malley years.

  7. Unforgiven hands down. And Million Dollar Baby was pretty good too. Apologize for my foul mood yesterday. Just seemed everything set me off. Found MLBTR’s post about Friedman’s trade history, He sure made a lot of them since 2015. Consensus was a B. Personally I gave him a C because of all the free agent boners he made. But that is just me. Have a great day all. Oh, I have that Ben Wade card..

      1. Yeah, but it also won best picture, and best director. And it pretty much portrayed the west the way it really was. I like movies that do not sugarcoat things.

          1. Only western of Leone’s I could watch all the way is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Probably because there were 3 American actors in it, and the plot was pretty good. If Bum thinks Unforgiven is violent, he better never watch the 4th Rambo movie. He kills more people in 30 seconds than you see killed in most westerns.

    1. According to Manfred it is all but completed, but they have not announced anything. I think they have bigger problems on their hands right now.

    1. Unforgiven. Not even close for me. Some of that movie was filmed in California where the Dodgers play.

      “It’s because South Korea did such an incredible job of mitigating the virus and keeping the numbers low”

      Well that ship sailed many months ago in the U.S. where the Dodgers play baseball.

    4. I always liked him. Maybe the best player that didn’t play in a World Series.

      Pussy Galore also died but lived to 94.

  12. This is some trivial stuff. The other day, to pass some time away, I was looking up stats on triples, the rarest hit in baseball(other than the inside the park HR). I looked at the top 8 players with most triples in a season. No. 1 was Chief Wilson with 35 triples in 1912. Wilson had a nine year career with Pittsburgh and St. Louis. His record year, plus 4 other years, were played at Forbes Field, which at that time had dimensions of LF 360′, CF 462′ & RF 376′. The oddity is that he never hit more than 14 in any other season. For Dodgers fans, as a side line, Jim Gilliam hit 17 triples in his rookie year and never hit more than 8 in any other year. Now, for No’s 2 thru 8 in triples in a year, they all played in the late 19th century. I may showing my ignorance here but why would that be? Did some fields have no OF fences then? IDK.

    Oh well, I told you this was trivial stuff….lol.

    1. Sam Crawford is the all time triples leader with 309. If you total up his HR’s, 2B and 3B, he had 711 extra base hits. Played 4 years in Cincy and then went to Detroit for the rest of his career which spanned 19 years. Dodgers all time leader is Zack Wheat with 172. RIP Al Kaline….I saw him play the Angels a couple of times.

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