By Peter Barrouquere
The New Orleans Times-Picayune
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 inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches.
“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 semi pros, 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.”
Didier’s name is not what got him to the Hall of Fame. He deserves residency for a number of accomplishments.
He was an all-around athlete at Baton Rouge Catholic High and spurned an offer of a football scholarship to Notre Dame to sign with LSU. He signed with the Detroit Tigers as a pitcher after his junior year at LSU, only to have his professional career cut short by an arm
injury after two seasons in the minor leagues.
He returned to Catholic High as a football assistant coach and baseball coach. He coached his alma mater to the state baseball championship in 1953. He was the only coach to guide the LSU freshman football team to two consecutive undefeated seasons.
He took over as defensive coach prior to the Tigers’ 30-28 victory over an offensively explosive Florida State team that featured quarterback Steve Tensi and receiver Ron Sellers in the inaugural Peach Bowl in 1969.
Didier, currently a special assignment scout with the Texas Rangers, has achieved success in various positions with nine major-league organizations. He is the only person to be affiliated with starting up three expansion teams. He was scouting director for the Montreal Expos, director of player personnel for the Seattle Mariners and director of player development for the Arizona Diamondbacks in their first seasons.
He also served as athletic director and baseball coach at then-University of Southwestern Louisiana, turning that program around.
“The proudest thing about that group of kids, for me, is 26 of the 27 got degrees,” Didier said.
The love of his professional baseball life has been the Los Angeles Dodgers. Didier’s insightful scouting helped produce one of the top moments in major-league history. The Dodgers, who were 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. I’d seen him take two of the best hitters that ever played the game, George Brett and Wade Boggs, and fool them both. He got Boggs twice.
“They’d give up on the ball because it looks like it’s going to be away, and all of a sudden it breaks, and they throw the bat out and pop it up or hit a weak grounder to third base.”
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 their left-handed hitters.
“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 the heavily favored A’s 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.”
That insight made Didier a highly-regarded figure as he worked alongside the Dodger braintrust of Fred Claire, Al Campanis and Lasorda.
A couple of years ago, when former Dodgers shortstop Bill Russell was managing the minor league team in Shreveport, he was amazed that Didier was not already in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
Didier said the two greatest players he signed were Andre Dawson and Gary Carter, when he was helping form the Expos. The biggest surprise was Mike Piazza, whom the Dodgers drafted in the 62nd round.
“From the first moment you saw him, you knew Dawson was going to be a player,” Didier said. “Now, Gary Carter was different. When we signed him, he was a third baseman. We made him into a catcher, and he was terrible at first.
“I really got involved with the Piazza thing early in his career. The Dodgers wanted to release him because some of their people did not
like him. I fought that and nearly got fired. But Piazza was determined to be one of the great hitters of all time.”
Didier remembers calling Piazza one Christmas Day and his father, Vince saying said his son couldn’t come to the phone.
“Vince said Mike had been outside hitting in his batting tunnel for an hour,” Didier said. “He’s doing that on Christmas Day. Podner, right there you knew you had something special. Like him or not, he’s worked for what he’s got.”
So has Mel Didier.
And what he’s got is a record of achievement, primarily in big league baseball but certainly covering the spectrum of prep and college
sports in Louisiana, that has earned him his rightful spot in the Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame Induction Banquet and Ceremonies are scheduled for Saturday, June 28, at 6 p.m. in Prather Coliseum on the Northwestern State University campus.