Player Profile: Bill Russell

Posted By on December 26, 2022

Bill Russell #18

William Ellis Russell was born Oct 21, 1948, in Pittsburgh, Kansas. He would spend his entire career as a Dodger. Eighteen years, 2,181 games, four pennant winners, and one World Series Championship. He took over as manager in 1996 after Lasorda had his heart attack. Russell is second to only Zack Wheat on the list of games played as a Dodger.

He was drafted in the 9th round of the 1966 amateur draft. He would work his way up through the minors with stops at Ogden, Dubuque, and Bakersfield before making it to the Dodgers in 1969. He was, at that time, an outfielder. He hit .226 in 98 games for LA. He had little power, so the Dodgers began the process of moving him to the infield. To begin with, he played second base since Maury Wills, in his second stint with LA, was the starting shortstop. He did hit 17 homers for Bakersfield in 1968 but never came close to double figures in the rest of his career.

He started the 1970 season at AAA Spokane and hit .363 in 55 games. He was promoted to the Dodgers, hitting .259 in 81 games. He did not play in the minors again. During the 70-71 offseason, he was converted to 2nd base and then SS. Wills started the 1972 season in a slump, plus he was out of shape. Russell started at SS on April 29th and would hold down the position for the next 11 years.

Russell hit .272 in 1972. In 1973 he played in all 162 games and batted a solid .265. Power was not his forte, and he hit only four homers. 1974 was the year the infield came together. For the next eight seasons, they would anchor the Dodger team. They went to the World Series and lost in 5 to the A’s. Russell played 160 games and hit .269. He was injured in 1975 and played in only 84 games.

Russell was healthy in 1976. He rebounded to have his best season to date with a .274/5/65 campaign in 149 games, and he made the All-Star team for the second time. He raised his BA by 4 points in 1977. He hit .278 against the Pirates in the playoffs but had a bad World Series against the Yanks, .154. and the Dodgers would win the pennant again, beating the Phils in the NLCS and losing to the Yanks again in the World Series. Russell had a career-high BA of .286 and a career-high 179 hits. He then was stellar in the NLCS and the World Series, hitting .412 against the Phillies in the NLCS and .423 against the Yanks in the World Series.

1979 was a down year for the Dodgers. Russell, though he played in 153 games, hit a solid .271 and was his steady self in the lineup. One thing about Russell was that he did not strike out much. Over his career, he struck out 667 times in 7318 at-bats. Not bad at all. But he never really walked much either, with only 483 walks in an 18-year career. He was very good in the NLCS, hitting .337 in five NLCS series.

The Dodgers got back into the race in 1980. They would finish tied with the Astros for the division title. So, they played a one-game playoff. The Dodgers starter was Dave Goltz. The Astros would win, and the Dodgers went home to prepare for 1981. For Russell, it would be sort of a rehabbing winter. He had been hit on the finger by Mike LaCross. He had the finger surgically repaired, but he never was the same player. He played in 82 of the Dodgers games in 1981, a strike-shortened year; he hit only .223. He played in all of the playoff and World Series games, going 15-47 in the three series.

He was almost back to normal in 1982. He played in 153 games and hit .274. 1983 was his last season as the team’s full-time SS. He was 34 years old and slowing down some. His BA dropped to .246, and he only played in 131 games. The Dodgers won the West but lost the NLCS to the Phillies. Russell hit .287 in the loss.

In 1984 he began to play 2nd, SS, and the outfield occasionally. Dave Anderson took over as the everyday SS. Russell hit .267 in 89 games. In 1985, he played in 76 games, hitting .260. In 1986, he played his last season as a Dodger; the 37-year-old got into 105 games and hit .250. In 1987 he became a Dodger coach, and he did that until 1992 when he went to be the AAA Albuquerque team as their manager. He did that again in 1993. The team had losing records in both years. He returned to Lasorda’s staff in19 94. He was considered by team owner Peter O’Malley and GM Fred Claire as Lasorda’s heir apparent.

On June 24, 1996, Lasorda suffered a mild heart attack. Russell replaced him. Lasorda recovered, but the team decided to make Russell the permanent manager, and on July 29th, Lasorda formally retired. Russell became only the team’s third manager in 43 years. He brought them home with a 49-37 finish that earned them the NL wild-card spot. But they were swept by the Braves in three games. The 1997 team also finished in second. But when the 1998 version started out 36-38, and with a pending sale of the team to News Corp, Russell, and GM Fred Claire were fired on June 21 in a general housecleaning. It ended a 30-year association with the team. His managerial record was 173-149. His departure followed new ownership’s decision to trade Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile to the Marlins. Neither Russell nor Claire knew about the trade.

Bill went on to coach for the Tampa Bay Rays. He also managed minor league teams for the Rays and the Giants. He then went to work for MLB’s umpiring division. He was good friends with Tommy John, who described him as a quiet Midwesterner. No fancy car or house – Those things were just not important to him. He was one of the few players in history to have played his entire career with one franchise. His record of 18 seasons with the LA Dodgers has little chance of being passed. He and Zack Wheat remain the only two players to have played that long for them. There have been managers, Lasorda, Alston, and Wilbert Robinson, who spent that much time with the team, but no other players.

This article has 37 Comments

  1. I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas. I got a couple of shirts, a Venom pajama pant, and a kitchen knife that is about the sharpest thing I have ever seen. Not much baseball news going on right now.

  2. Good walk down memory lane with Billy Russell.

    Tommy regarded Billy as a son and treated him as such. When Billy was fired, he believed Tommy was behind it, and to the best of my knowledge, they never talked again.

  3. Great article Bear! Russell was probably my least favorite player on the team when I was a kid. As I grew older, I started to appreciate him more. He played steady, but not flashy defense, and hit in the 2 hole. While he didn’t produce big numbers, he did move runners, executed hit and runs, took pitchers to allow the leadoff hitter (Mostly Davey Lopes) to steal bases and made a ton of contact. A model for a 2 hitter during that era, he was selfless and do what he had to in order to help the team win.

    Then, he took over as manager with the biggest of shoes to fill. A very tough position to replace Tommy, the living legend.

  4. As this Correra Drama unfolds with the Mets, I wonder if the fact that Boreass has given the Mets the opportunity to view the physicals of Correa and negotiate could be somehow construed that he was not bargaining in good faith with the Giants. Certainly, the Mets are still working through this three days later when he only gave the Giants a matter of hours. I do not think we have heard the last of this…

  5. Bill Russell was a consistent, but not spectacular SS. The Murdoch ownership group was full of missteps and bad decisions from trading Piazza, letting Russell go and then hiring Davey Johnson and the McCourt ownership was even worse .

    Thank goodness for the Guggenheim group and their commitment to a quality big league roster, cutting edge front office/analytics and minor league development. It’s a good time to be a Dodger fan, I just hope they don’t cave to the cancel culture and cut TB. If they trade him and get a decent player in return (even if they have to eat some salary) I can live with that, but releasing him to appease the vocal minority would piss me off.

    1. A store has a dishwasher with a dent. Does the store throw the dishwasher out or does it sell it at a discount. Someone will be willing to purchase damaged goods. A business, after all, is there to make money.

      The Dodgers are a business. Releasing Bauer would be a stupid business decision. I don’t think the Dodgers are stupid. Either Bauer opt out or the Dodgers will sell Bauer at a discount. It makes to much business sense not to.

      1. Any and all businesses should write down their statement of values when in calm waters and refer to them when in rough waters before making decisions.

        Delaying or refusing to recall a defective or contaminated product due to current cost often reduces the value of the brand and results in greater costs.

        Correctly defining a situation is step one, followed by staying within one’s values.

        Hope the Dodgers make the right decision,
        whatever that turns out to be.

  6. There were obvious reasons to love Lopes, Cey and Garvey–so many highlights over the years. Russell was steady, quiet, and unspectacular.
    When I think about the post-Tommy managers–Russell, Little, Tracy, etc–I think the Dodgers missed out by not giving Dusty Baker a shot. I liked Torre but did not care for Mattingly at all. Perhaps the stars just never aligned for Dusty.

  7. Thank you for the nice piece on Billy Russell. I grew up watching this infield and figured that 4-guys sticking together year-after-year was just how it was done. Like many things in life, only in reflection do you realize how special things are.

  8. Happy holidays to all

    Just want to state that I really enjoy this website and all that Mark does along with the regular posters!
    On occasion some of the posts start to go south in terms of name calling or politics – but collectively this group is able to overcome it!, and continue to post great, moronic (as Mark would say) silly, left field, etc quotes, positions talking points and thoughts.

    I am looking forward to this season more than any of the recent past ones just due to all the unknowns which we have discussed ad nauseam.

    Just for bragging rights and a first round of beer, everybody should post their expectations at the end of Spring Training for all the new players and final stats in terms of Ave, OPS, etc and for pitchers, ERA, K/BB ratio and Whip.

    Again for my own selfish reasons (I.e. – I enjoy this site) I hope all you moronic knuckleheads continue to post.
    Cheers!

  9. Russell was my favorite player during that 8 year run followed by Cey.

    I remember watching Russell acting like a throw in from the Toy Cannon would sting his hand during a time when Toy Cannon’s arm was hurting. That was funny.

    I was at a game when Russell was playing CF before he was moved to SS where he threw a ball to second with his back foot touching the CF wall. From where I was sitting down the 3rd base line, the ball looked like it didn’t have any arch at all. Russell had a great SS arm.

    He said he didn’t dive for balls because he seemed to injure himself when he did. That alone kept him from looking like a flashy SS.

    An infield of Freeman, Betts, Vargas, and Lux could last 5 years and end when Freeman’s contract runs out. I don’t think Busch would last 5 years at second if he were to win the job this year and this could be Muncy’s last year with the Dodgers.

    1. If you had your way, Fred, last year would have been Muncy’s last year with the Dodgers.

    2. Just curious why you don’t think Busch will last at 2B? Mookie’s move to second could come about eventually, if Busch winds up in LF and if Outman or Ramos can stick and Pages can take over RF. At least that’s the options with how the team is currently constructed.

      1. His current age, his speed, his defense tells me someone else would take his job from him before 5 years passed.

  10. I thought Russel was #1 in games played for Dodgers. It’s been a while since he’s shown up here at Mark’s site that I can remember. Seems he was uncomfortable in the spotlight but was comfortable with himself. Vin spoke well of him though what else would Vin say about anyone. It’s gonna go slow till April. Then the real fun begins. Well maybe it starts in late February.

  11. Russell is indeed the LA games played leader at 2181

    Zack Wheat 1906-26 is the Brooklyn leader at 2322

    2. They do not separate the two if you look in the media guides. I consider the team as a whole. It is like Justin Turner and Corey Seager both are tied for the most post-season homers by a Dodger. But the most World Series homers by a Dodger is held by Duke Snider with 11. And he is still the only major league player to have hit 4 in a series twice.

          1. That’s right, like Luis (Rodriguez) Olmo did in the 1949 World Series in the 9th inning of the 3rd game against the Yankees. That was the first HR by a Puerto Rican in the mayors.

          2. Not to mention how players had such a hard time hitting home runs in playoff games before there were any playoff games.

  12. Back when that team was together, my sis and I would do a variation on the song, the Name Game. We would switch the first letter of each name around. Made for some funny stuff, and others were just bland. One of my favorites was Russell, who when you switched them around became Rilly Bussell. There was also Lavey Dopes, Geve Starvey, Mick Ronday and my favorite, Busty Daker.

    1. Love Rich Hill. Just an amazing story!

      In recent memory, was there a pitcher more fun to watch? I think not!

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