MLB Scout: Mel Didier

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The Rangers have added veteran baseball men Mel Didier and ____ Bogard to the scouting department. Didier, a special assignments scout with John Hart's Indians in 2001 and with the Orioles in the same capacity last year, will serve in that role for Texas, with his focus at the major league level. Didier also worked with Buck Showalter in Arizona, directing the franchise's minor league operations at its outset in 1997 and 1998 and serving as a senior assistant to the general manager in 1999 and 2000. Fifteen of his 33 years in the game were spent in the Dodger organization

"Dealing on a daily basis with agents. I’m not against agents, but when they get involved with the development program for a player, they’re overstepping their bounds."
–Mel Didier, Orioles

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NATCHITOCHES — Mel Didier has a lot of honors on his plate this summer.

Earlier this month, Didier was honored during the 50th reunion of players and coaches of the Baton Rouge Glen Oaks football team that he coached to the Class AAA semifinals.

He is celebrating his 50th season as a professional baseball scout or administrator.

And he will be honored with the state’s highest athletic accolade Saturday night when he is inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame during that organization’s annual ceremonies.

“When they called me, I broke down because it is such an honor,” Didier said. “I just wish my mom and dad were alive to share this with me.”

Equally proud is Didier, the son of the late Nicholls State athletic director and baseball coach Ray Didier, of the company he will join in the Hall.

“I’m going in with my namesake, Mel Ott,” Didier said. “My dad was a great catcher as a young boy. He played with semipros, and he played against and with Mel in Gretna. And my mother got to know Mel and really loved him. She really thought a lot of him. So when I was born, she called me Melvin after Melvin Ott.”

But Didier’s name is not what got him to the Hall of Fame. He deserves residency for a number of accomplishments.

Not the least of which were his stint at then-USL, where he served as baseball coach and also for a period as athletic director. He took over the program for the 1981 season as the Ragin’ Cajuns’ first full-time baseball mentor, and guided that team to a 40-23 record — at the time, the most wins in a season in the program’s history.

He also had a 32-25-1 record in 1982 before moving into the athletic director’s chair full-time, but Didier was happier with a different number than those 72 wins in two years.

“The proudest thing about that group of kids, for me,” he said, “is 26 of the 27 players got degrees.”

Didier’s prep and college roots are in Louisiana, but major league baseball has been his love for the past three decades. Currently a special assignment scout with the Texas Rangers, Didier has achieved success with nine different major league organizations.

He’s the only person to aid in the start-up of three expansion teams — scouting director for the Montreal Expos, director of player personnel for the Seattle Mariners and director of player development for the Arizona Diamondbacks — but his proudest moments came while with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

One of the proudest may have produced one of the top moments in baseball history. The Dodgers, on their way to the National League championship series in 1988, had assigned Didier to scout the Oakland Athletics. He noticed a consistency in A’s closer Dennis Eckersley.

“I noticed when he had left-handed hitters 3-2, he would throw a back-door slider,” Didier said. “He did that only with left-handed hitters.”

So when Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda had Didier give his scouting report to the team prior to the World Series, he made sure to emphasize this to the lefties.

“I told them, ‘he’s got a great (back door slider),” Didier said. “He gets you 3-2, and you can bank on it.”

Nobody took it to the bank like Kirk Gibson. With the Dodgers trailing 3-2 with two out and Mike Davis on first base in Game One, Gibson, who had been sitting out with leg injuries, limped to the plate as a pinch-hitter for his only at-bat of the Series. He worked the count to 3-2 against Eckersley.

“If you look at the tape of the game, you can see Gibson smile,” Didier said.

“(Didier’s) words rang in my mind,” Gibson said afterward. “‘If you get him to 3-2, be ready to step into it because it will be a back-door slider.’”

Gibson hit the low slider off his front foot into the fifth row of the right-field seats to win the game. Sparked by the unlikely limp-off home run, the Dodgers won the Series in five games.

“It was by far my greatest accomplishment because it was ranked as one of the 10 greatest baseball feats in the history of the World Series,” Didier said.”I’ll forever be a part of that. But all I did was tell him. He could have popped it up, he could have hit it on the ground, whatever. He didn’t because he’s a great athlete.”

An all-around athlete at Catholic High in Baton Rouge, Didier signed with LSU before signing with the Detroit Tigers after his junior year. When his career was cut short by an arm injury, he returned to Catholic High to coach football and baseball and won a state baseball title in 1953.

Later, he guided LSU’s freshman football team to back-to-back unbeaten seasons before pro baseball summoned again. It’s that spectrum of prep, college and pro success that has earned him a Hall of Fame spot.

Hall of Fame Class of 2003:

Mel Didier joins ____ McCloskey, Joe Dumars, Jim Mora, Lee Smith, Billy Joe Dupree and Jim Cason in this year’s Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame induction class. That group will be honored in activities beginning Thursday night in Natchitoches, and the annual induction ceremonies and banquet is Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Northwestern State’s Prather Coliseum. Tickets are available by calling (318) 357-6467.

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Mel was the high school head coach at OHS, when they won a state championship in football. The next fall he was in my 5th grade class selling the virtues of pee wee football. He was an extrodinary salesman, and the kids loved him. It does not surprise me he has acheived so much.

I was in the fith grade and ten years old, and he had won the state title the year before, Rami Prudhomne a star of the team went on to LSU, and the Bufflo Bills.

I think the year was 1958 selling us and so his title year would be 1957 I think. He had two sons one Skipper, my age and I cannot remember the others name a year or two older.

[LSU Bob]

Is Mel Didier related to Clyde Didier? The Didier's are a great Baton Rouge family. My cousin went to Catholic High on some kind of Clyde Didier scholarship.

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In past years, the Lafayette Parish Housing Authority's annual Professional Baseball Banquet has featured some of the biggest names in the sport. Tonight's event will be slightly different. There will still be some baseball "names," such as All-Star and former World Series MVP Dave Stewart and Lafayette's own "Louisiana Lightning" Ron Guidry. But Housing Authority executive director Walter Guillory said this year's events are aimed at local products that have found success in the sport. Specifically, it's aimed at Mel Didier, whose career on the high school, college and professional baseball levels is being celebrated at tonight's 7 p.m. banquet at the Lafayette Hilton and Towers. "Why they're honoring me I don't know," Didier said Friday. "There have been so many great baseball people that have come here over the past few years ... Kirk Gibson, Mike Scioscia, Buck Showalter, Andre Dawson, Dave Stewart. It's an honor just to be with them." Guillory, himself a former University of Louisiana standout and a player in the Oakland Athletics system for four years, knows why Didier is being honored. And it has little to do with his success in his Baton Rouge hometown, at LSU or UL, or with the six major league baseball teams with which he's been affiliated. "It's because of who he is and the person he is," said Guillory, whose organization is sponsoring the banquet for the eighth straight year. "When you say his name, people know who he is and you can get a lot of things done. He's done so many things for us." The banquet and its related activities, including a Friday golf outing and today's 12:15 p.m. celebrity softball game, raise funds for Housing Authority projects in Lafayette and Opelousas. Didier, former baseball coach and athletic director at the University of Louisiana and currently a special assignment scout for the Texas Rangers, has worked with Guillory on the fund-raiser since its inception in 1999. "The reason Walter's such an exceptional guy for this job is that he's aware of the needs of families, especially kids," Didier said. "They need so much more than just school. He's taken the money we've raised and put it into all types of special educational programs. "We were at one of the TV stations talking about the banquet last year, and there was a group of young people from his organization that were working there, doing the cameras and working at the monitors. At the banquet two years ago there was a jazz group playing, and they were all kids who went through their program. "That's what this is all about. The program's good for the people that need it and it's good for Lafayette. If one kid has an opportunity to be a better person and a better citizen, it's accomplished what it's supposed to." The relationship between the two dates back to 1980 when Didier came to UL and recruited Guillory out of New Iberia. Didier went on to posts with the Montreal Expos, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners, the Cleveland Indians and the Arizona Diamondbacks prior to taking the Rangers post. Guillory wanted to incorporate his love of baseball with his ideas for the Housing Authority, and one of his first calls was to Didier. "There's so many things you can do," Guillory said. "You just have to be creative. I'd get bored if we were just sitting around, and not providing avenues to help people succeed." "One thing about Lafayette is that baseball's important here," said Didier, who now resides in Phoenix but may be relocating to Dallas to be closer to the Rangers' organization. "This area's been a beacon for baseball for a long time, and that carries over into the community." The rest of the story Dan McDonald dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

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Mel Didier recently published a book, "Podnuh, Let Me Tell You a Story," recalling some of the high points of his 56 years in baseball. If there's a sequel, Thursday won't be one of those memorable moments. Didier, one of Louisiana's premier baseball men and a former UL coach and athletic director, called Thursday's release of the Mitchell Report a dark day for the national pastime. "It hurts me so bad," said Didier, now a lead scout for the Texas Rangers. "A lot of people in baseball knew things were going on and didn't say anything, and that's what hurts me." The Mitchell Report described a widespread drug culture in baseball, with approximately 80 players representing all 30 major league teams - seven of them Most Valuable Player award winners - cited for potentially illegal drug activities. "Everyone in baseball knew about it," said Lafayette native and seven-year major leaguer Lyle Mouton. "Across the board, from players to owners and management. It was the post-strike era when baseball needed an influx of a fan base." "We've known for years that people cheated a little," Didier said. "You've got saliva balls and those kind of things. But when you're talking about this stuff - we've heard about (Barry) Bonds and (Mark) McGwire, guys like that, but when you see (Roger) Clemens' name pop up, it really hurts you. "When Buck Showalter and I came over here from Arizona, some news broke about someone doing this. I was pretty critical, and Buck said, 'Mel, before you criticize others, be careful we don't have people on it.'" Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner cited 82 times by name in the report, was one of several high-profile players linked to steroids and human growth hormone in the 20-month investigation sanctioned by Major League Baseball. The names didn't come as a surprise to Mouton, the former St. Thomas More and LSU standout who played with the Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers and Florida Marlins. "I won't be surprised by any names that come out, even from people you wouldn't normally suspect," Mouton said Thursday. "It was about keeping up with the Joneses. Everybody wants to be the best, and guys are willing to do whatever it takes to be the best in their field and earn as much money as they can for their families." UL baseball coach Tony Robichaux also wasn't surprised at the report, one that shows an unseemly side of the pro game and one that unquestionably taints the game and its players. "You're playing 162 games at the major league level every year," Robichaux said. "The wear and tear on bodies forces those guys to look at alternatives to keep healthy and to play at a high level. Companies are coming out with something every day that enhances the body more, whether it be equipment, exercise programs or things like this." One of Didier's closest friends among former players is Andre Dawson, and eight-year All-Star and the National League MVP in 1987. "Andre told me a couple of years ago that he can't say he wouldn't have been involved if it had been available when he played," Didier said. "If people were getting an advantage on him, he might have had to do that to try to stay ahead." The majority of the named players in the Mitchell Report are retired or out of the major leagues, but Mouton said their legacy will be affected. "It's opening up a can of worms," he said. "It's going to be interesting to see what the backlash is going to be. There's not going to be much you can do about the guys who are already retired, but it could affect guys with Hall of Fame credentials. "I don't know if you can do much about the past - it wasn't illegal then. It wasn't against the rules in baseball." It's only been in this decade that pro baseball's rules changed, and Didier said the vehicle of change came begrudgingly from the players' union. "They're the strongest union in the world," he said. "They control our game. They tell the commissioner what to do. You can't do anything unless they OK it. Jerry Coangelo's a powerful guy in basketball and baseball, and he told me he was going to do some things a few years ago to stop all this (steroids). I told him, 'Don't let me stop you, but you're facing the strongest union ever.'" Whether or not the Mitchell Report brings about significant change, both Robichaux and Didier said that fan backlash will be limited. "For the majority of fans, I don't think it will have an impact," Robichaux said. "The game will be tainted some. Every time somebody hits a home run, there's always going to be questions of are they or are they not on something. That's the downside - so many guys in baseball have never been involved in this, and they're lumped in there." "People still love the game, they go to the game and they're going to continue to go to the game," Didier said. "There may be a little bit of downside, but when the Yankees play the Red Sox, they're still going to be there." The rest of the story Dan McDonald dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com