Dodgers rewind: Doyle Alexander & Jack McCarthy

We bundled two Dodgers rewinds into one episode of the Leading Off with True Blue LA podcast. First we look at Doyle Alexander, a pitcher who began his career with Los Angeles, then move on to outfielder Jack McCarthy, who ended his career with Brooklyn.

Alexander pitched 19 years in the majors, the first of which came with the Dodgers in 1971. This was three years after Alexander was part of LA’s legendary 1968 draft haul that helped fuel three National League pennants in the 1970s. Alexander was traded a whopping seven times in his career and pitched for eight different teams.

Most notably, his career was bookended by trades for Hall of Famers. The Dodgers got Frank Robinson from Baltimore when they dealt Alexander in December 1971, then nearly 16 years later the veteran right-handed pitcher was traded to the Tigers for a Double-A pitcher named John Smoltz.

McCarthy came to Brooklyn in a rather notable trade from the Cubs prior to the 1906 season. The Dodgers sent star outfielder Jimmy Sheckard to Chicago, with whom he played in four World Series in the next five years.

McCarthy was 37 when he joined the Dodgers outfield, and was a fine hitter, finishing his career with a 100 OPS+. He hit .304 in his first year with Brooklyn, but was limited to 91 games. McCarthy finished his career with eight home runs in 12 major league seasons, but the last one was hit in 1899. His 3,011 plate appearances with no home runs after that are the most with zero home runs in MLB’s modern era, since 1900.

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Episode link (time: 23:27)